Harrison's Garage - XM and 440

[High Jetter]

Not heard much from you lately, everything ok?

[rob88h]

Thanks for the thoughtfulness!

I moved house recently and it turns out the bargainous house price directly correlates to the amount of work (and time) it’s requiring 😆. Who knew?! Couple that with a big project at work, my one year old, two year old and a couple of spaniels and I’ve ended up with a shortage of free time. 

Cars are getting a look-in though. The new commutes are adding a few hundred extra miles per week, so I’m keeping on top of basic maintenance at the very least. Here in my new oil changing spot:

Plans are afoot to buy another car shortly. But for now we’re just hammering around in the Focal and the Volvo.  

[rob88h]

Rare exotica. And some Ferraris. 

[rob88h]

Time for some catchup

#64 - VeLOLsolex

I like my motorbikes to be as close to being a bicycle as possible. Until recently I had a trio of Raleigh Runabouts which I had convinced myself to sell due to moving house. However, I dragged other “none essential” items such as beds and sofas to the new house, so why I didn’t keep hold of the bikes is a bit of a regret already. Needless to say, the vacuum in my bike life has been partially refilled quite swiftly by this Velosolex.
It's a non-runner, but it is pretty complete. I’d love to ride it and use it for popping to the pub bakery, but the plan for it is to sit in the project pile indefinitely until such a time as I can work on it. See you when I retire in 30 years little buddy.

[Aitchbee]

On 25/06/2025 at 22:45, rob88h said:

Rare exotica. And some Ferraris. 

Now that is one brilliant shot!

[rob88h]

Many more happy motoring miles later and the Volvo was sounding quite fruity again. Here is the mighty £25 repair performed by Kwikfit. 

It’s still holding tight, so I had to look and listen for the problem elsewhere.

In the mythbusting words of Adam Savage, “There’s your Problem!”

This is the third time in as many months that the exhaust has needed attention for various reasons, so I think it is finally time for some new parts. My phone dialling hand reached out to the Kwikfitters who, unfortunately, corporately, could not source a replacement exhaust system (and aren’t allowed to fit ones provided by the customer). This was Friday the 11th July and a Kwik quick solution was required as the car is in constant use…

On Saturday 12th of July: 

The National Lotto bonus ball was 14…

[rob88h]

#65 – Citroen XM SX

With the “It could be you!” hand pointing down at me from the sky I suddenly had a Citroen XM to collect and at £13 this solution* was much cheaper than a new exhaust for the Volvo.

This is my second ex- @Rust Collector Citroen, having collected the BX Leader almost 2 years ago to the day. I’ve put in an order for a hedgerow stored BX estate for collection in July 2027. Some traditions are worth keeping and dealings with Rust Collector is becoming one of them.

The XM made it home without incident and has been chugging around merrily for the past week (600 miles already!).

It’s a good car – a testament to Rust collectors hard work and determination and there’s a little bit of guilt that (so far) I appear to be reaping the benefits of his labour. It was mentioned that he got a few thousand miles pleasant motoring out of it when it was working for him, so I hope he got to enjoy it, in parts. 

To demonstrate the XM is a good car, here it is parked next to a big mound of manure to demonstrate that it is in fact not a pile of shit.

Furthermore to this finding I took it to the Bromley-not-Bromley Car Show and received only positive comments (to my face) about it.

[Stinkwheel]

Good to see the old bus is giving good service and looking as it always did, great.

Reminds me of the time i was driving south from Doncaster having just visited XH558 at its over winter 2014 servicing. Got messed about by an idiot in a Merc on the motorway, who proceeded to just sit in the outside lane with a green XM following him (at a safe distance you understand) up to about 115 ish at which point i decided the nearly 250k mile car didnt need this kind of treatment so i backed off and moved over. Good times.

[Rust Collector]

1 hour ago, rob88h said:

It’s a good car – a testament to Rust collectors hard work and determination and there’s a little bit of guilt that (so far) I appear to be reaping the benefits of his labour.

Don’t feel any guilt at all mate, someone being able to see the benefit of the work is the best possible outcome for me and it’s been a huge relief for me. I would’ve been gutted if it had of given the next owner loads of shite immediately.

For what it’s worth, I reckon putting miles on it is what it needs, it always seemed happier when it was being given some decent length runs. To put it into perspective, 600 miles is about 20% of what I did in a year! 

[rob88h]

1 hour ago, Stinkwheel said:

XH558

If you close your eyes - and then squint with them closed, I think the XM is the Vulcan Bomber of cars… Low, flat, wedgey, complicated, green and usually broken. 

If you have any nice old pics of M935 DGC, feel free to share them here. 

[High Jetter]

8 minutes ago, rob88h said:

If you have any nice old pics of M935 DGC, feel free to share them here. 

Last year:

[Stinkwheel]

2 hours ago, rob88h said:

If you close your eyes - and then squint with them closed, I think the XM is the Vulcan Bomber of cars… Low, flat, wedgey, complicated, green and usually broken. 

If you have any nice old pics of M935 DGC, feel free to share them here. 

I will see what I can find, might be some somewhere or other 

[mk2_craig]

Simply Good indeed. Well played!

But which is the real #64 - bike or car? 

[rob88h]

8 hours ago, mk2_craig said:

Simply Good indeed.

Haha, I was wondering if anyone would notice I modified that picture. 
Good spot on the numbering too, I’ve corrected it. XM is vehicle number 65!

[Brigsy]

Good win this. The old hydractive citroens are great.

Used to love loading my old xantia up to the roof and the suspension levelling itself.

[Rust Collector]

On 28/07/2025 at 15:52, rob88h said:

To demonstrate the XM is a good car, here it is parked next to a big mound of manure to demonstrate that it is in fact not a pile of shit.

Furthermore to this finding I took it to the Bromley-not-Bromley Car Show and received only positive comments (to my face) about it.

The picture of it by the muck heap really shows off one of its best angles. One of the things that regularly brought me back from the brink of despair was the fact that it’s such a striking thing to look at, it really feels special. I’m not sure why, but one of my favourite things was looking in the side mirrors whilst driving and seeing that step up on the rear quarters, it’s quite a strong aesthetic 😅

Glad to see you got it out to the show, Land Rover shenanigans meant I didn’t end up having time to get out at the weekend sadly. That was another thing I quite enjoyed about the car, was that it would elicit a surprising amount of interest from people. When I was getting it ready for you to collect, some neighbours from further down the road walked by and said hello, then carried on to say that they’d been hoping to catch me at some point as they’d owned an XM from new which they got from the Eastbourne Citroen garage - they then traded it in for a Xantia apparently, after it started doing XM things that the main dealer couldn’t get to the bottom of 🤣

[rob88h]

It’s certainly a good looking car. For me it’s all about the hatchback (saloon?) styling with the low rear lights and big reflectory full width strip under the spoiler. Even though usually I prefer things in estate flavour, the XM as a hatch is far more interesting looking in my opinion. 

We’ve just past 1200 miles together and it’s still going strong. Bits and bobs are popping up, mainly entirely electrical, but its core ability of being car is unfaltering.

So far, once, after start-up, I had various electrical systems inoperable. The ABS light, Charge light and no electric windows were the first things I noticed because it was a bloody hot day and I wanted the windows down! An Off and On again key cycle sorted it, I suspect ignition switch position related.

After 800 or so miles the clock/ambient temp gauge woke* up

Well, it illuminates now but it doesn’t read anything sensible. I did see in threads of old that this XM did display time not that long ago.

The glow plug light recently joined the party (or more likely I’d never noticed it as I was too invested in watching the ABS light flicker as it runs checks on startup and praying it would go off properly. That and the steering wheel kinda blocks it)

The hydroactive light no longer joins us on start up. Sad face. It illuminates when you put it in sport still, so my mind wanders to the ecu and that diode Rust Collector had to mess with and my hands instead reach for a bucket of sand to bury my head in. It seems to drive like normal, not mega harsh or anything so I probably have some time for this one to fester and mature into deeper troubles.

The most recent development was that I thought with the hydroactive fault the rad fans had some how been taken out (thinking along the lines of common fused) as I’d not noticed the fans come on at the end of today’s trip. After dinner I ran the car up to temp and thankfully the fans did kick in. The alarm however seemed to be going off though …while the car was running. The headlights were flashing and the red light on the dash was flashing, but there was no horn sounding. It did it three times. No idea what that’s about. Filed under Citroen electrics.

 

Here it is with my other dark green M93, delivering it a new exhaust.

 

[rob88h]

I also came here to say that I got 800miles out of the first tank of Lethal Dizzle, which works out to be 47.3mpg. So, even with the increased price of drizzle vs petrol I’ve still made back my £13 raffle ticket vs the same mileage in the Volvo.
**Man maths stipulates I ignore tax and insurance on this extra vehicle otherwise I have about another 60k miles to break even on this venture. 😆

[Rust Collector]

2 minutes ago, rob88h said:

47.3mpg

Fuck me, I should've sorted out that fuel pump sooner - I I never got much over 30mpg!!

12 minutes ago, rob88h said:

Well, it illuminates now but it doesn’t read anything sensible. I did see in threads of old that this XM did display time not that long ago.

The tabs on the connector for that display panel have snapped off, so the connection is shite. I seem to recall putting a dab of silicone sealant in the joint and it held up for ages, then worked loose. If it lights up then you can set the time using a tooth pick in those holes. The temp won't display as the sensor in the wing mirror is either broken or AWOL, I filed it under 'thoughts for a day when everything else isn't broken'.

14 minutes ago, rob88h said:

The hydroactive light no longer joins us on start up.

This will almost undoubtedly be a sensor signal that has upset it. Periodically the steering angle sensor and/or the speed sensor gives a bad reading, and the ECU stores a code - that light not illuminating at key on means a code is stored. You can flash codes by either making a blink code reader (effort) or by buying the cheapest power probe from Amazon/Ebay, and then pulling the right pin to ground on the brown diagnostic port whilst performing a move out of the Kama Sutra to get access. I have a file that shows ECUs, pins and codes - I'll send it to you if Whatsapp lets me. Reading the codes and clearing them should bring Hydractive back to the party.

18 minutes ago, rob88h said:

The glow plug light recently joined the party

I'm pretty sure that's a dry solder joint in that dash panel. I went in there once and it looked fine, but it's a fucker to get everything apart - so of course that fault developed after. I suspect this is also what has sent the shift position indicator mental too.

19 minutes ago, rob88h said:

The alarm however seemed to be going off though …while the car was running.

That one's new I'm afraid. You're welcome 🤣

[Rust Collector]

And I forgot to say in my last post, that I'm really glad to see this thing living its best life and doing what it's meant to do; plugging through miles. If it was still here, then I genuinely wouldn't have done more than about 100 miles in it between the day you picked it up and now!

[Stinkwheel]

12 hours ago, rob88h said:

The headlights were flashing and the red light on the dash was flashing, but there was no horn sounding. It did it three times. No idea what that’s about. Filed under Citroen electrics.

That’s one of two things, it’s either had its battery disconnected and the security system hasn’t re synched itself properly or the key fob has got out of synch with the car. It’s a feature to let you know the system isn’t working right and needs to be reset. I can’t remember if this is an early system or a late one. One of them has a button in the dash along with a red LED that can be used to synch things back up (a google for the manual will tell you the procedure) 

[rob88h]

On 08/08/2025 at 22:03, Rust Collector said:

Fuck me, I should've sorted out that fuel pump sooner - I I never got much over 30mpg!!

That and I also live in East Anglia and have a hypermiler’s wet dream of a commute. 55mph is my jam. 

On 08/08/2025 at 22:03, Rust Collector said:

On 08/08/2025 at 21:43, rob88h said:

The hydroactive light no longer joins us on start up.

This will almost undoubtedly be a sensor signal that has upset it. Periodically the steering angle sensor and/or the speed sensor gives a bad reading, and the ECU stores a code

In my lunch break today I messaged my Citroen Dealer, @Rust Collector, who guided me through the blinkin’ probing procedure. If I can count, 25 now flashed out, which is the height sensor meaning I’m only a few sensors short of a full house! Importantly I’ve learned how to remove the codes, so I’ll never have to replace a sensor anyway... 

With the system reset the hydroactive start-up procedure is back in business and fault free. For now it’s all academic though really as the spheres are a bit tired so I’m not feeling much difference between modes anyway. Maybe we’ll go there.

 

On 08/08/2025 at 21:43, rob88h said:

The glow plug light recently joined the party

The glow plug light left the chat. 
 

On 09/08/2025 at 10:02, Stinkwheel said:

the security system hasn’t re synched itself properly

This was my doing. Before reading the Hydroactive ecu I was checking fuses, including F34 Suspension Adjustment which it also shares with the Alarm. I found that out a few days later having looked through old threads. The Owners Handbook omits that the alarm is fused. 

I apparently fluked a resync as it was unintentional button mashing but it’s all working now. 

All was well for precisely 7 miles, then:

No real drama - if I go downhill or turn left it goes away. Unfortunately as I don’t live on a downhill spiral to the centre of the Earth (although it often feels like it) I’ve addressed this with a sip of Prestone Lemonade and done no further investigation as to where it has gone. That’s a job for future Rob88h.

In summary, cleared codes, mashed lock/unlock, topped up coolant. She’s mint again.

[beko1987]

Looking good!

I had a tiny pinhole in a coolant line of my xm for a few weeks years ago. To start with I just drove around needing a mild top up every so often, then it got more frequent. This is when I developed the twitch when the beep happened then 'low coolant level' or whatever came up on the LH display.

I found it by being very frustrated and angry one day that there was zero sign of any wet in the engine bay when I looked. Bone dry. In mild anger I revved the engine hard using the controls under the bonnet and suddenly a smoll but fierce stream of piss shot out of a pinhole in the coolant pipe! Wrapped self amalgamating tape round it and it never caused an issue again!

I never saw it with the bonnet closed and it was such a small hole it evaporated within seconds if I was driving

[rob88h]

11 hours ago, beko1987 said:

a smoll but fierce stream of piss shot out of a pinhole

Future Rob88h here. Thanks for the optimism, I was hoping for an equally easy fix, …but we are dealing with The Green Bastard as coined by Rust Collector. 

Quite considerate really, it was easy to find! 
I’ve ordered a replacement radiator that held up to some catcar.info cross referencing even though it was mainly listed for a Xantia. Well, that was my second radiator actually as the first one I “bought” apparently got sold during the time it took me to complete checkout. Sounds like bullshit to me rather than a crazy turnover of early S2 2.1td XM radiators, but you never know… it was particularly hot today. 

We got home just fine with my emergency kit.

Now I just need to work out how to ask my wife if I can use her car because my five cars are all broken 😆

[beko1987]

Dang, sorry to see that/at least it's an easy* repair and not something more annoying 

[Stinkwheel]

Honestly, that car needed a new radiator when it was put away in the big barn in 2015. 
It’s done well to get to today 

I bet it will cool a lot better now. 

[Dan302]

1 hour ago, rob88h said:

 

Now I just need to work out how to ask my wife if I can use her car because my five cars are all broken 😆

Well obviously you need six cars then....

[rob88h]

After decades of rejecting heat the conventional way = coolant to radcore alloy to air, this old radiator has self-optimised and has cut out the middle energy transfer step 👍

Saving grace is at least I’ll get to tear its face off, which I’m sure will be cathartic in a smiteful kind of way. 

It’s now a race between AutoDoc and shop4allparts as to whether I’m back on the road in the Volvo or the XM first. AutoDoc has had a one month head start with the Volvo, but experience tells me all bets are off. 

(Car forum : Car pics)

[beko1987]

Good luck! Have a bottle of rust converter and a little wire brush next to you if your going to all the effort of having the bumper off, may as well tidy any hidden little scabs up whilst access is good 👌

[Rust Collector]

On 12/08/2025 at 21:36, rob88h said:

After decades of rejecting heat the conventional way = coolant to radcore alloy to air, this old radiator has self-optimised and has cut out the middle energy transfer step 👍

Saving grace is at least I’ll get to tear its face off, which I’m sure will be cathartic in a smiteful kind of way. 

It’s now a race between AutoDoc and shop4allparts as to whether I’m back on the road in the Volvo or the XM first. AutoDoc has had a one month head start with the Volvo, but experience tells me all bets are off. 

(Car forum : Car pics)

The radiator was looking pretty sad when I had it out last, and I had hoped I had a spare the replace it with - turned out the one I had earmarked in the shed was actually a BX one, so I had to put the old one back in. Perhaps me disturbing it was the last straw for it, however it was necessary for checking the ABS wiring and replacing that brake line so there wasn’t really a way around it.

The good news is that the bumper can stay on to take the radiator out. You can remove the nose cone (I chased and greased the threads when I was in there last, bar the one or two snapped ones that I never got round to drilling out). You then loosen the bolts holding the slam panel in place, and this provides enough room to wiggle the radiator and intercooler out. The intercooler is definitely holed on one side, and a replacement is £££ if you can even find one - I reckon quicksteel might be an acceptable bodge.

I’d be mindful to be sympathetic if you do go in there with a wire brush. I did manage to knock off some of the loose stuff and spray in some under seal without any holes appearing though.