I'll get round to it at some point - One Life: Waste it fixing Land Rovers

[Sigmund Fraud]

If all fails, couldn't you just loosen the flexi to bleed the caliper ?

[Rust Collector]

43 minutes ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

If all fails, couldn't you just loosen the flexi to bleed the caliper ?

That’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow to get it off the driveway, as welding nuts onto the broken bleed screw hasn’t worked.

I don’t want to sell it like that though, and I don’t want to spend anymore money or time on it, so I’m going to go inside now, possibly have a beer and definitely have a think about what happens next.

[Stanky]

Have you tried really fucking it up bigtime hammering a torx/allen socket into the hole and wind it out that way?

[Rust Collector]

I managed to drill the fucker out without destroying the threads or the seat.

I reckon I deserve that beer now.

[Tickman]

Bloody well done.

[Rust Collector]

Well, I said I wouldn’t spend more money on this thing, but that turned out to be a lie.

I stretched to £2.49 for a pair of bleed screws. M7x1.0, in case that knowledge is of use to anyone.

Ive put a bit of ceramic grease on the threads, so hopefully the next person who undoes that doesn’t have a miserable time of it.

In distress last night, I did spend £14 on a pack of bleed screws in a few different sizes. They’re from Amazon, so can’t say I’d feel much guilt at returning them, but I also feel like they may be something worth keeping on the shelf for the future…

[Rust Collector]

My mrs is out, so I’ve had to enlist the help of the next best thing:

That’s the brake bled, so all good now hopefully. Just need to put everything back together after work and then I can lay in a dark room and cry.

[Rust Collector]

Done!

It nearly got one last jab in, by being so low on LHM that it couldn’t lift itself off the axle stands, but I had a dash left in a bottle which freed it.

When my mrs gets home I’ll need to nip out and get some LHM as it’s lost enough that the ‘STOP’ lamp is on as soon as the suspension lifts up, otherwise it seems ok again now.

Best put the rest of the dash back in and give it a wash, although for now I’m going to rest.

[Sigmund Fraud]

1 hour ago, Rust Collector said:

It nearly got one last jab in, by being so low on LHM that it couldn’t lift itself off the axle stands, but I had a dash left in a bottle which freed it.

I used to know an old-school Citroen mechanic who thought hydraurincage was far too mild. Whenever he got a neglected car in (this was in the mid-90s, so GSs and BXs), he would empty the LHM tank out, fill it with petrol and drive the car around the block before emptying the (usually black) petrol out and refilling with LHM.

I cringed when I first saw it, but it worked surprisingly well... So if the motor factors don't stock LHM, there may be a suitable* substitute.

[Rust Collector]

19 minutes ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

I used to know an old-school Citroen mechanic who thought hydraurincage was far too mild. Whenever he got a neglected car in (this was in the mid-90s, so GSs and BXs), he would empty the LHM tank out, fill it with petrol and drive the car around the block before emptying the (usually black) petrol out and refilling with LHM.

I cringed when I first saw it, but it worked surprisingly well... So if the motor factors don't stock LHM, there may be a suitable* substitute.

I’m sure I’ve heard suggestions also of chucking in a litre of white spirit in to achieve a similar effect to hydraurincage but without spending £££.

[wesacosa]

2 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

I’m sure I’ve heard suggestions also of chucking in a litre of white spirit in to achieve a similar effect to hydraurincage but without spending £££.

pretty sure hydraurincage is NLA

[Sigmund Fraud]

16 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

pretty sure hydraurincage is NLA

You're right, but some Citroen specialists can still get hold of old stock bottles (which they sell at £HFM prices).

[Rust Collector]

I got some green fluid to top the car up with and some red fluid to top myself up with.

Green stuff poured (mostly) in the hole:

I took it for a run round the block, seems good to me. It does need a dash more to get the level right on the high setting, so I’m off to get scuttled by halfrauds again tomorrow probably.

I’m now back indoors, pouring the red stuff to top up my fluid levels.

[N Dentressangle]

24 minutes ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

You're right, but some Citroen specialists can still get hold of old stock bottles (which they sell at £HFM prices).

Looks like it's available:

https://shop.citroenclassics.co.uk/hydraurincage-flushing-fluid-for-lhm-hydraulic-systems-51-p.asp

but it's only going to be a solvent plus LHM, isn't it? I'd brew my own.

[Rust Collector]

Just now, N Dentressangle said:

but it's only going to be a solvent plus LHM, isn't it? I'd brew my own.

I’m sure I’ve read that there are flushing fluids for mineral oil hydraulic equipment, and that they’ve been used in hydro Citroens without any ill effect - I understand the main thing is ensuring that whatever you use is designed/suitable for mineral oil based systems, so that the seals don’t get damaged.

[N Dentressangle]

32 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

I’m sure I’ve read that there are flushing fluids for mineral oil hydraulic equipment, and that they’ve been used in hydro Citroens without any ill effect - I understand the main thing is ensuring that whatever you use is designed/suitable for mineral oil based systems, so that the seals don’t get damaged.

Seem to be enough people online who have used different potions to good effect, don't there?

Brake fluid is a no no as it'll swell the seals, but other than that I think I'd shop around.

[Zelandeth]

Wonder what the military guys use - Chieftains used LHM for the steering clutches - and probably other things, but that's the one I remember!

[DavidB]

I bought this white XM in about 2015 and it lost all power - it took about a week of diagnosing but one of the contacts in the ignition switch had burnt itself out. Otherwise it never let me down.

 

[Rust Collector]

Time for a break from tedious work on the XM (can you believe it has run for nearly a week without breaking down?!). What better way to relax than by revisiting this:

To recap, last time I was here I was adjusting the cable controls for the cabin fan (success) and trying to work out why the original wiring for the fan speed control wasn’t working (fail).

I came back with a fresh head today, and traced the loom from the speed control back to this suspicious relay:

Testing on the workbench (which looks incredibly similar to an XM engine bay) revealed that the relay was indeed fuckulated.

Say what you like about halfords, but they always seem to have the random shit I need for £notmuch. I picked up a 5 pin relay and a new 8 pin electrical connector.

The relay was easy enough to fit, nothing complicated there.

The only thing of not is that this is a switching relay, but the wiring on the car doesn’t use the central pin (it’s empty on the female side) so I’m assuming the original relay just had provision for a higher spec which may have needed an additional power feed for a/c or something. Here’s the old relay, just in case the one person on the Internet who needs this piece of information happens to read my thread:

Next up I wanted to sort this out:

The plan is to remove the jumper wire, put a terminal back on the original wire and refit it to the plug, then repair the wiring at the ignition switch end.

This is what I hoped to get away with:

But the new terminal didn’t fit the old plug. So I ended up doing this instead:

I found that far more satisfying than I should have done.

I wasn’t mad keen on replacing the connector on the body loom side, and had clocked that they looked fairly similar in shape… Could it be?!

Fucking bonus!

I tested it with the multimeter and had continuity between the body connector and all the terminals on the PCB and bulb holder. I put the fuse box end of the circuit back in:

Then returned the fuse (plus one missing one) and removed the sellotape that looked like it was meant to be holding them all in place - can’t wait to find out why that was there, perhaps it randomly vomits fuses out as you drive.

I then borrowed the battery from the XM, and clicked everything on…

You’ll have to take my word for it that the fan works spot on, and nothing blew up.

I’ve since removed the wiring connection from the ignition live - the wire was soldered to itself, so I cut it with some snips and all was good.

I’ll throw some electrical tape around that tomorrow, and re-wrap the bits of loom I’ve untaped

I’m quite pleased that the original circuit has been reinstated though, that should save a headache for someone in the future should the cabin fan blow a fuse.

The only downside is that I need to put the whole dash back together now. Luckily* I have fuck all recollection of what order it goes back in, and which screws go where, so that will be fun.

Baby steps for now:

It’s almost like I was never there!

Hopefully I’ll make some progress on getting it back together tomorrow.

After that, it’s time for sanding and painting the roof (groan) and welding the last part of the sills (boo!).

[Rust Collector]

Being a man of action, today started with a thrilling adventure - collecting the weekly shop.

There was a queue of about 40 minutes, which was a bit shit.

The good news is that the car sat solidly at temperature, and the LHM stayed inside of it. I did get a whiff of what smelt like coolant, but a check once home didn’t show any leaks. I did see this stain though, which reminded me that the coolant sensor did have a dodgy O ring.

I’ve raided the big box of O rings, and thrown a new one on it.

That’s a much tighter fit now, so should stop weeping.

Moving back to the Proton then; first port of call was wrapping up the bits of the dash loom that I had unwrapped

And then repair the ignition wire.

I realised this morning that if I want to retrofit sunroof drain tubes, I’ll need the dash out. I don’t want to take the dash out a second time, so I’ve run the tubes though in positions which I hope will work.

I’ve ordered these:

Original plan was to drill holes and fit these, but I’ve spotted a grommet and hole on either side at the base of the A pillar:

So I’m hoping that I can get those drains to fit in there.

I then started putting the dash back together.

It was a bit tedious, as I was cleaning everything before fitting, and going quite slowly to try and avoid fitting things in the wrong order.

I did still cock some things up.

But luckily I never got further than about 1 wrong step, so it wasn’t too bad.

I got this far before it was time to call it a day.

It feels good to have the bulk of it put back together. Walking past it and seeing the striped out interior was weighing on my mind a bit - it was a constant reminder of how much work I needed to do 🤣

Over the course of the week I’ll aim to get the rest of it back together.

The remaining jobs on this car are to finish painting the roof, fit the sunroof and bond it to the roof, retrofit the sunroof drain tubes, refit the roof liner and other roof/pillar trim, weld the remainder of the sill, paint the sill, check the rear brakes, and then hopefully put it in for a ticket!

[Rust Collector]

I thought it worth posting a quick catch up on the XM, separately to the roffle thread in order to keep things tidy(ish).

It failed the MOT on:

• Rear fog lamps (the only lamps I forgot to check! Ominous that both are out though…)
• Emissions
• Front discs
• Front drop links
• No headlight beam pattern(?)

Parts have been landing the last few days, and I’ve been cracking straight on.

First up was discs and drop links.

Citroen are evil, and so they fit two of these per disc:

Luckily, some absolute hero invented this thing:

I can only assume it is filled with magic, because it does this:

The old discs were wankers to remove, neither hammering or a puller removed them. In the end, they came free by carefully jacking them up using nuts and bolts through the carrier holes:

The way things have been, I was half expecting the casting to snap and so I worked slowly and carefully. Disaster was temporarily averted.

Disaster* struck shortly after, when I realised I’m a twat and I had ordered the wrong discs.

Shame, still there’s nothing more enjoyable than spending the money twice. Replacement discs haven’t landed yet, and so the brake work is on hold. New pads have arrived though (whilst I’m an unashamed mingebag, I wouldn’t send it out to someone else with the old pads on) and the callipers appear to be free to wind back so hopefully it shouldn’t be too awful to finish the brake work off later.

Lights next then. I’m not really sure why the beam pattern is so bad, but the pattern is made by a plastic lens inside the headlight. The purses are glass, and come off easily enough once you remove the clips:

I was going to leave the offside in as it had a seized mounting bolt, but I noticed one of the adjusters was seized so decided to take a brave pill. Penetrating fluid and an electric ratchet saved the day, and I was able to free the adjuster off; before it had not been possible to adjust the vertical alignment on the offside.

I’ve chucked the lenses in a hydrogen peroxide solution for the day. They seem a tad clearer, although a tab broke off of one whilst I was cleaning it. I have a plan to fix that, and I also plan to polish the lenses in the hope it makes them a little clearer. I will probably wash the reflectors out with meths too, and clean the inside of the glass lenses.

On to emissions then. One problem I’ve had for a long time on this car, is that I don’t have a fucking clue as to where the pump should be timed to. I’m led to believe that they can be finicky on timing. The ‘proper’ way to set the static timing is to use a dti gauge. So I finally ordered the kit needed to take this measurement.

One small* downside was that accessing the TDC timing hole and also making room for the dti gauge meant removing an absolute fuck load of stuff from the engine.

I didn’t take any good photos as I was trying to get a shift on, but pulling out the oil filler/PCV combo thing was a particularly miserable job. I notice one of the coolant hoses for the (non functional) cold start advance wax stat is looking very sad too, so I may have to see if I have a good spare; otherwise I’ll get new hose and loop it out. I’ve had the other hose burst before and it is not good fun.

Once everything is stripped off, taking a reading is fairly straightforward:

• Set engine to TDC
• Turn engine back a quarter turn off the crank.
• Move the crank backwards and forwards whilst watching the dti gauge, to find the lowest point of travel of the pump plunger.
• Zero the gauge.
• Turn the crank forward to TDC
• Read the dti gauge. If it matches the book spec (0.88mm in my application) then happy days. If it doesn’t, then loosen the four adjustment nuts on the pump, and turn the pump until you get the right reading.
• Turn the crank through 1.75 turns, find the lowest point of travel of the pump again, zero the gauge again, and turn the crank forwards to TDC.
• Read the gauge, and if it’s in spec still then you’re winning.

Luckily I lost my service manual so I was fucking around for a bit before I took the measurements properly, so I have no idea how far out the pump was. I’m confident it was way too far advanced though, as set correctly it sits here now, which from memory is not as advanced as I had it.

The process was pretty cathartic, there is something satisfying about using the dti gauge. My only major complaint was that whilst turning the crank, my hand slipped and I punched the jagged and rusty heat shield on the ball joint. This returned the favour by punching a slot in my thumbnail and making all my blood fall out. My neighbours definitely heard resultant my enthusiastic remarks.

Now I just have to put the bastard thing back together. I’m also going to set the fuel pump up again by the book values, which will be tedious but hopefully not too miserable.

Thats all fun for tomorrow though, I’m done for today!

[Rust Collector]

Whoops, I forgot to mention the drop links. This is probably because they were a piece of piss. I managed to get one bolt undone with a spanner either side, albeit alternating between top and bottom. In both case, the remaining nut came off with a tickle from the angry grinder, which is actually probably faster than undoing the nuts with a spanner.

Shiny new ones fitted:

Apparently the original nearside link would have been adjustable, to set the height to account for the driver always being present or some such nonsense. Anyway, I’m reliably* informed that a washer used as a shim is just as good. I managed to find the perfect washer attached to a Land Rover engine mount that I’ve been tripping over for months, so it was promptly donated to the XM’s nearside drop link.

I will add that these drop links were cheapo ones, so sorry to whoever has this car next and finds them knocking by next year!

[N Dentressangle]

Top workmanship - well done!

[wesacosa]

good luck mate, you deserve this thing to pass the MOT and then fuck the fuck off out of your life 😂

[grogee]

Flippin eck Tucker, I need a lie down after reading this thread. 

Well done @Rust Collector, there is a seat reserved for you at the great Citroen dinner table in the sky, and it's next to the great Andre Citroen himself. So you can piss in his chips while his back's turned. 

[High Jetter]

Bloody (literally) hell, that's persistence! I thought you'd almost given up on it. Top work, Sir!

[Back_For_More]

Great work Josh..... I'm most tempted to root for a roffle win. Almost! 

Fingers crossed the timing adjustment means an emissions pass and this beast can repay you for some of the work put in. 

[Rust Collector]

Cheers everyone, I really want this car to live and am really hoping that after I’ve done this work somebody should benefit from winning a useable car with a year’s ticket on it.

Not as much work achieved today as my parents visited, and I stopped working for a catch up with them.

The recent work has been fraught with things like PCV hoses shattering from being disturbed, so the spare engine was a life saver. I ended up just sitting down and mostly stripping the front side of the spare engine, as this was easier than doing the work piecemeal.

Whilst I had the XM’s engine largely stripped down I took the opportunity to go a step further, and removed the glow plugs and tested them. They’re marked as AC Delco and weren’t the cheapest, but I suspect they were knock offs now as they are shite, 10 seconds of 12v and they’re barely red. Either that, or the bad pump timing killed them.

I had another cheapo unbranded set in the garage - not ideal, but would do in a pinch. I tested them, and they all glowed cherry red at the tip after about 5 seconds. I chucked them in, with some ceramic grease in case the next owner needs to pull them back out.

Over the course of the evening I threw the car back together enough that I could start it. I’m so used to stripping this down and putting it back together now 🤣

I fired it up, and bar the time taken to prime the injectors it now seems to start a lot better. Hope it’s not just my imagination. It was smokey as fuck though, so I turned the boost compensator pin back to the stock setting.

This seems to have improved things a lot, but I’m unsure now if it would be safer to go a step further and set it to the leanest position possible.

I also need to go through the pump and reset the idle, anti stall screw etc… I really wish I could find a book setting for the ‘max fuel’ screw as well, I’d feel better if I knew that was in the stock position. This pin has the anti tamper collar on still, but the collar can spin so the position of it is somewhat meaningless now.

I’ll crack on again tomorrow, and see if I can’t get it running cleaner.

[wesacosa]

1 hour ago, Rust Collector said:

Cheers everyone, I really want this car to live and am really hoping that after I’ve done this work somebody should benefit from winning a useable car with a year’s ticket on it.

Not as much work achieved today as my parents visited, and I stopped working for a catch up with them.

The recent work has been fraught with things like PCV hoses shattering from being disturbed, so the spare engine was a life saver. I ended up just sitting down and mostly stripping the front side of the spare engine, as this was easier than doing the work piecemeal.

Whilst I had the XM’s engine largely stripped down I took the opportunity to go a step further, and removed the glow plugs and tested them. They’re marked as AC Delco and weren’t the cheapest, but I suspect they were knock offs now as they are shite, 10 seconds of 12v and they’re barely red. Either that, or the bad pump timing killed them.

I had another cheapo unbranded set in the garage - not ideal, but would do in a pinch. I tested them, and they all glowed cherry red at the tip after about 5 seconds. I chucked them in, with some ceramic grease in case the next owner needs to pull them back out.

Over the course of the evening I threw the car back together enough that I could start it. I’m so used to stripping this down and putting it back together now 🤣

I fired it up, and bar the time taken to prime the injectors it now seems to start a lot better. Hope it’s not just my imagination. It was smokey as fuck though, so I turned the boost compensator pin back to the stock setting.

This seems to have improved things a lot, but I’m unsure now if it would be safer to go a step further and set it to the leanest position possible.

I also need to go through the pump and reset the idle, anti stall screw etc… I really wish I could find a book setting for the ‘max fuel’ screw as well, I’d feel better if I knew that was in the stock position. This pin has the anti tamper collar on still, but the collar can spin so the position of it is somewhat meaningless now.

I’ll crack on again tomorrow, and see if I can’t get it running cleaner.

good work 

might be worth asking Dieselman if he knows the settings 

[Zelandeth]

These engines in Xantias at least do seem to be picky about plugs as far as clean starting goes - advice I was given back when I was running one was that for glow plugs it was Beru that was the go to which seemed to work best and would last.

Not from Amazon or eBay though or you'll most likely get some unnamed shite in a fake Beru box.