AX Weirdness

[Six-cylinder]

13 hours ago, AxWomble said:

Being a ph2 AX (or mk2, whatever it’s called) this one is fairly solidly built - everything’s relative of course, the interior does still make the plastic from inside a box of Milk Tray look pretty robust! Anything is better than ancient, sticky soft touch plastics in an old VAG product, so I’ll take scratchy hard plastics any day of the week! 

That is so true, I sold AXs in 1987 when they first came to the UK and then again from 1994 when the Mk2 was current. What an improvement a Mk2 is in terms of rattles, squeaks and feel of the dash.

I thought I would never want a MK1 but somehow 30 years on they have a charm of their own and I changed my MK2 for a MK1, although it is not my every day car or I would have stuck with a MK2.

[AxWomble]

On 12/28/2020 at 9:18 PM, UltraWomble said:

Blower fan resistor - PSA make them out of the foil in Wriglys Juicy Fruit packs - 20 years on they still go pop for fun.

About 45 minutes of a job to replace - Ive done a Berlingo one and a ZX one.

Its a standard part over quite a lot of the PSA range that doesnt have AC/Climate and costs about a tenner - when the fail they fail open ( ie zero reistance) so its either ON of off

Brilliant stuff, thank you! I’ve come across this issue in several more modern VWs (UP!s and Skoda Citigos) and various Zafirii with their e plodding dashboards, but I’d assumed that Citröen would have made it an integral part with the blower motor - glad to have been proved wrong! Will pull it today and see what I find. 

On 12/28/2020 at 10:40 PM, Noel Tidybeard said:

fan resistor only affects speeds 1 & 2 as 3 is full fat 12v

Aye, same as various others I’ve replaced the resistor on, a shame as i hardly ever run it on full blast but (being a damp old Citröen) I run it on #1 nearly constantly! 

 

On 12/28/2020 at 11:43 PM, Eyersey1234 said:

My great aunt and uncle bought a new Mk1 AX 10E 3dr in 1990 and had that car up to 2003 when my great uncle died, I think its now scrapped as no trace at DVLA. RIP G335 NAT. Yours looks lovely OP. 

I’d have loved a proper, non special edition base model but this one (with its sunroof, body coloured bumpers and water graphics) is fairly close, at a fraction of the rarity and price! They are cara that need to be cared for, especially at this age, and I reckon most have succumbed to mechanical neglect or rust by now, not having the same level of ruggedness as equivalent Japanese offerings. All that being said, ours only has 2 bits of welding - a patch beneath the driver’s side footwell, and a 2” square plate on the o/s wheel arch next to the washer bottle filler neck. The tester for our last MOT made 3 remarks - first, that he couldn’t remember the last time he tested one, second that he couldn’t actually remember the last time he saw one, and third that it was remarkably clean and sound underneath.

The outer edges of the boot floor will need attention within the next year sadly, and I can’t weld (and don’t have the facilities or equipment to do so, with my currently employment) so a small outlay will be required to ensure its ongoing longevity. Sealing up the rusty patches with leftover brown silicone grouting is the current interim measure to stop the boot floor flooding on wet motorways! 

[AxWomble]

On 12/29/2020 at 10:27 AM, Six-cylinder said:

That is so true, I sold AXs in 1987 when they first came to the UK and then again from 1994 when the Mk2 was current. What an improvement a Mk2 is in terms of rattles, squeaks and feel of the dash.

I thought I would never want a MK1 but somehow 30 years on they have a charm of their own and I changed my MK2 for a MK1, although it is not my every day car or I would have stuck with a MK2.

It really isn’t a bad car for refinement - makes my dad’s old Seicento seem incredibly unstable in comparison. When Miss AxWomble and I picked up the car in Feb, we collected it from a yard, round which we had our only test drive of the car. Our first drive on the dual carriageway (having thrashed it up and down the lane 10 times to wake up the brakes which initially pulled you up to a veeeeeeeeery gentle stop with no lockup at 10 mph, on gravel!) we were amazed how refined it was - we had been expecting  something much more tinny, but it wasn’t significantly  worse than her brother’s Corsa C which we had a lift in that morning. This one is our everyday car and it does an awful lot of miles up and down between our very spread out families, so I’m glad it has the edge in refinement over a mk1! 

[spartacus]

I can't tell from the pics but if you have a dealer fit sunroof that lifts out then there could be a buildup of crud on the seal, my Sunny suffered from that and it was a 20 minute job to sort it.

There's usually a red catch that slides across to unlatch the glass panel, then it lifts up at the back and the two tongues at the front slide out, allowing the glass to lift free.

[AxWomble]

On 12/31/2020 at 1:27 PM, spartacus said:

I can't tell from the pics but if you have a dealer fit sunroof that lifts out then there could be a buildup of crud on the seal, my Sunny suffered from that and it was a 20 minute job to sort it.

There's usually a red catch that slides across to unlatch the glass panel, then it lifts up at the back and the two tongues at the front slide out, allowing the glass to lift free.

Your suspicion is correct! It is indeed a dealer fit sunroof, it can be removed - we only did it once, having underestimated the blinding effect of the sun once the shaded glass was out! No gunge on the seal when I checked, and the drains are clear. The seal is old and pretty tough and leathery so I suspect that a little water crept under it overnight, froze, thawed once I was inside with the heater on, and then proceeded to drip down as I started throwing it around a roundabout. Will start trawling eBay for a NOS seal I reckon! 

[KitKat]

This advert is nothing to do with me, but if it's a good running engine, perhaps a cheap fix for your engine's smoking/running issues?

https://www.gumtree.com/p/car-replacement-parts/citroen-ax-engine-60-000-miles-plus-4-speed-gearbox-plus-other-spares/1341705808

 

 

[AxWomble]

On 1/10/2021 at 5:16 PM, sickboy said:

This advert is nothing to do with me, but if it's a good running engine, perhaps a cheap fix for your engine's smoking/running issues?

https://www.gumtree.com/p/car-replacement-parts/citroen-ax-engine-60-000-miles-plus-4-speed-gearbox-plus-other-spares/1341705808

 

 

That is the stuff of dreams! Annoyingly although that is only about ten miles from my home up until a year ago, I’m currently tied into work in the big smoke and can’t quite justify travel of that distance at the moment! “Yes Ossifer, this is my once daily exercise” 😂  many thanks for the thought though! On that note, it’s gone all French (in a good way) this week, and hasn’t used a drop of oil in 300 miles. Go figure! 

[AxWomble]

No news  for a while - been blatting up and down to the south coast from London for work, the AX has taken it all in its stride! Fitted a new o/s wishbone two weeks back due to a knackered balljoint and had the tracking done this weekend due to dodgy tyre wear - serves me right for not doing it earlier as I’ll be needing new tyres before too long!
 

Also an oil and filter change (excessively high quality Mann filter because ECP gave me the Bosch filter for a variety of interesting and elderly Citröen and Peugeot vehicles, but not the one I have sitting on the driveway, and then they were unable to provide anything cheaper) and a good grease of the handbrake linkage before dribbling some old oil into the sills, doors, and generally painting it onto the underside. 
 

Turned out that this maintenance was just in the nick of time as this morning we woke up to SNOKAOS! Driving down to nr.Chichester this afternoon so we’ll see how it handles the snow! Skinny and tyres and low weight can’t be bad? 
 

[Dan302]

More photos please! I had a phase 1 pug 106 and it was brilliant in the snow (skinny tyres and heavy diesel unit)

[AxWomble]

Well, made it fine - no snow on the roads at all and I’d checked the traffic cams before setting off so I didn’t need to give myself much extra time to travel. It was all beginning to melt by the time I left but I’d imagine that the frost will make things a bit interesting on the roads tomorrow! 
 

Some new weirdness - the oil change has alleviated the concerning bottom end knock on the overrun, but there’s new peril afoot in the form of a new average economy of 30mpg. Normally it does 47-50 so this is a significant drop! Going to pull the plugs tomorrow to inspect as it is clearly running rich, although there is no nasty black smoke or any significant smoke at all, for that matter. (Under acceleration or otherwise). Still has plenty of power, no running lumpy, no noticeable change apart from the sudden dip in em-pee-gees. 
 

Current list of things of suspicions, cheapest/easiest first: 

Hypothesis #1: It’s winter, it’s cold, I’d expect a dip in MPG anyway, but 18mpg down seems excessive, and way more than our other cars ever lost during a cold snap

#2: The blower motor resistor is still borked, so I’ve had the heater on full blast permanently to keep everything clear. Could this be sucking all the heat out of the coolant, tricking the coolant temp  sensor into telling the ECU that it’s in ‘warm up’ mode all the time, this causing rich running? 

#3: Vacuum leaks - nothing obvious, when I sprayed a load of something flammable around the engine bay earlier, but something to check? It’s a fairly simple SPI system so there’s not much to go wrong, and I’ve not been fiddling around with anything at that end of the engine recently so I’m unlikely to have knocked anything. The fitting on the breather that goes down to the diaphragm controlling the flow of air from across the exhaust manifold is not attached and never has been (saying that, it’s not even present)., and you can hear it sucking away merrily whenever the car is running. Plugging it with your finger has the effect of lowering the idle somewhat and I’ve been meaning to plug it to bring the idle down to a more normal level, but it’s been like this since we’ve owned the car and like I say, it used to be a very parsimonious little thing. 

#4 Mystery sensor failure - O2 sensor, lambda ? It doesn’t have terribly many sensors that would effect running in this way but they’re the most expensive thing so I’ll be avoiding them till forced! 
 

And if anyone can’t be faffed reading back (I wouldn’t blame you!), it’s a 1995 AX 1.0 SPi. Many thanks in advance and I hope all are keeping well and safe! 

(Pic of snow later, after we’d been for a hoon - handbrake works well, ancient rear tyres make for excellent h/brake turns on private property! 
 

 

Edit: and yes, I have made sure it isn’t a leak in the tank or associated pipework! 

[lesapandre]

If you are running the blower and the rest of the kit you will be loading up the alternator that may impact MPG...also take a look at tire pressures.

These are 32ps if I recall but I run mine at about 36*.

*other tire pressures are available.

Jetwash underneath - particularly the 'trumpets' each side of the boot and front under the lamps to get rid of the salt.

Lovely little cars...

 

[AxWomble]

On 1/25/2021 at 12:42 PM, lesapandre said:

If you are running the blower and the rest of the kit you will be loading up the alternator that may impact MPG...also take a look at tire pressures.

These are 32ps if I recall but I run mine at about 36*.

*other tire pressures are available.

Jetwash underneath - particularly the 'trumpets' each side of the boot and front under the lamps to get rid of the salt.

Lovely little cars...

 

It’s a cracking wee thing, hoping to sort out the rich running soon, especially as it means I’m paying way more for petrol! I make a habit of rinsing off the boot sides and inside the front arches of any car I’m driving in winter, but there has been rust in those areas since I bought the car

If it survives till summer (possibly with an engine swap on the cards when I get some time off due to some significant blowby  and general knackeredness ) then I’m going to treat it to some welding. X2 scabby bits on each side of the boot and a nasty hole on one front wheel arch. No idea of price yet as my dad was always of the mentality that a car will last ten years, during which you never under seal it, and then it gets scrapped when the sills completely let go. (For context, his family ran Fords exclusively for 60 years, and more recently he ran several very scabby K11 Micras) 

Many thanks, sage advice in tyres pressures too, I’d risk 36 in the fronts but the rears are a bit more elderly so I’d be wary of loading them up too much. Luckily I’ve not got a heavy load so I’ll risk it! Plan for my end-of-week commute back to the big smoke is to wear a coat and bobble hat and run with the window cracked and the blower and HRW off, see if that makes any impact on things! Hopefully natural airflow through the matrix will stop things fogging up...

[AxWomble]

Well, we're a few days on - and there's good news and bad news! I made a mental list of possible rich running causes, first of which was that the heater running full blast was sucking the heat out of the coolant, tricking the temp sensor into telling the ECU that the car was in 'warm up' mode, choke out in effect. Tested this by running without the heater and it did 51mpg even when being thrashed, result! New blower motor resistor on order, driving without a heater is grim..

 

And the bad news - arrived at my destination tonight after a misty run up through Midhurst, hopped out and heard the unmistakable hiss of water bubbling out of a wet tyre. Felt tack through the o/s rear, rats! Typical, on a Friday night too....swapped the spare on to stop it going flat overnight and will get it plugged tomorrow. What price would be considered a rip off for a straightforward plug, and does anyone know a decent tyre fitter in the area of Farnborough/Camberley? 

 

Oh and I reckon one of the sunroof drains has perished as the headlining is soaking in the back left corner! Tracing that will be a job for tomorrow as well as we are forecast snow. I'd still rather have this than anything new on PCP.....

[AxWomble]

Didn't spot those dodgy green bits on the tyre in the dark! Can't tell if they're the cords, can't be bothered going out now, might need to be a new tyre actually...