I've done a silly......CITROEN XM

[maxxo]

Huge tinkering session on going, will update when I finish

[maxxo]

right i've done enough for one day, made some excellent progress

firstly, removed the glovebox, will make everything much easier

i decided it was wise with the assitence from a friend who's an XM genius to remove the circular connector under the LHM tank

now what i decided to do was this

one end of the meter on the stop solenoid, the other on what ever pins had continuity to it

then i decided to apply power to each pin in the connector until i found the one that activated it

oh and it certainly did, loud clunk, excellent, so the wiring from there to the solenoid is fine

this is the pin

so the opposite pin which supplys the power has 0.20v on it, which ovbiously isn't enough to trigger it

now the question is, what is causing that to be the case?

surely an immobiliser would be a dead 0v, so i think wiring damage maybe? loose connection? got some more tracing to do tomorrow to find out

but it's good progress

 

[maxxo]

1 hour ago, jamescarruthers said:

On pretty much any car except the XM I would say ditch the HIDs but the XM has average-at-best headlights due to a few bits of wonderful design that didn’t quite work out in reality as the were at the cutting edge of modern lights as we know them.  There will be some lenses (maybe missing from yours now) and they will be yellowed with age. Plus the self levelling suspension is meant for such things.
 

I do agree that the colour of yours is pretty awful. Can you change the bulbs? I have yellow HIDs in the C6 and they look ace, would look even better in your XM IMHO.

There was  a huge topic about retrofitting HIDs to the XM years ago on Club XM and someone put a real good amount of work in to it. There can’t be many people who have bothered so maybe it’s your car?!  However, I’m not sure of the legality of a conversion nowadays but you could always leave “as is” unless you fail— I think it is a failure but if a good installation you may get away with it  

Good luck with it all and hope you can get it going soon  

 

 

 

 

 

i'm undecided, it's far from a priority at the monent anyway, the main thing is to get it running

i suspect, i may well be replacing it with halogen however

56 minutes ago, jamescarruthers said:

Here’s Ray’s post and I think it is your car, if it used to be L592 EVN

http://www.club-xm.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=7873

yes it's EVN

[maxxo]

been reading the book pack that came with the car.....interesting

it's a local car to me, was sold originally in Brompton on Swale, which is about 30 miles away, lived in Thirsk

then went up to Chester-le-Street

now it's back up north!

[DVee8]

You don't have the address in Chester do you ? There was one that"lived"  a couple of streets over, that has been replaced ZX. 

[maxxo]

i don't sadly, was it the same colour.......reg ending EVN?

[DVee8]

Yeah, I think it is the same colour, no idea about the reg.  It could be in the lazy spotters thread. It has been gone a couple of years now.

[maxxo]

16 minutes ago, DVee8 said:

Yeah, I think it is the same colour, no idea about the reg.  It could be in the lazy spotters thread. It has been gone a couple of years now.

surely can't have been many around

[maxxo]

More tinkering on going

Reconnected and cleaned up the glow plug relay, that's working as it should

however, something is stopping power from reaching the fuel solenoid

All wiring looks fine, connectors are clean, yet not even a single volt being sent to it

[High Jetter]

Not sure if you've ruled this out already, but might there be an old fashioned anti-theft kill switch hidden somewhere that's isolating that solenoid?

[wesacosa]

14 minutes ago, maxxo said:

More tinkering on going

Reconnected and cleaned up the glow plug relay, that's working as it should

however, something is stopping power from reaching the fuel solenoid

All wiring looks fine, connectors are clean, yet not even a single volt being sent to it

might be worth a post on Club-xm.  there are some pretty knowledgeable guys on there. 

[jamescarruthers]

15 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

might be worth a post on Club-xm.  there are some pretty knowledgeable guys on there. 

Agreed. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a forum like it for knowledge and dog-with-a-bone enthusiasm to get XMs working. Knowledge is key and they’ve got it.

[wesacosa]

15 minutes ago, jamescarruthers said:

Agreed. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a forum like it for knowledge and dog-with-a-bone enthusiasm to get XMs working. Knowledge is key and they’ve got it.

I would have sacked mine off, or still had it in bits on the drive if not for the guys on there

[Datsuncog]

Hope you get this going! As it's a 'known car' in XM circles, someone somewhere should have a few pointers on where to look.

Can confirm that Club XM's one of the better single-model clubs out there; plenty of enthusiasts with mechanical knowledge and experience to back it up.

 

I once had a Cortina fitted with an aftermarket immobiliser where the activation switch was hidden under the carpet in the driver's footwell.

Basically you had to kick at the corner where the bulkhead met the transmission tunnel in order to get it to start.

The floor wasn't really all that sound, and... well, you can probably guess the rest.

[maxxo]

Excuse the swearing 

 

[jamescarruthers]

16 minutes ago, maxxo said:

Excuse the swearing 

 

Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

[maxxo]

Once I get out the bath ill do a proper write up

It's been immensely successful today

[jamescarruthers]

You may have realised this already but I was having a poke around Club XM today and realised that this is the car that Ray was driven around France in with a bunch of XMs, in for his last big trip when he knew he was on his way out. So in 2017 this was blasted to France and Spain. http://www.club-xm.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8734&hilit=Gibraltar

Seems it has mega floaty spheres on it, which you may or may not like but should be easily put back to standard  if you want to  

Really pleased you’ve got it going!

[maxxo]

18 minutes ago, jamescarruthers said:

You may have realised this already but I was having a poke around Club XM today and realised that this is the car that Ray was driven around France in with a bunch of XMs, in for his last big trip when he knew he was on his way out. So in 2017 this was blasted to France and Spain. http://www.club-xm.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8734&hilit=Gibraltar

Seems it has mega floaty spheres on it, which you may or may not like but should be easily put back to standard  if you want to  

Really pleased you’ve got it going!

Yes driven by my friend Alan on the trip too!

CX spheres apparently, can't wait to experience it

 

[maxxo]

right today was one of the best tinkering session's i've ever had

decided to get the car out the garage and work on the LHM leak

as you can see here, all supported correctly with brand new stands (good quality they feel too!)

enjoy the scabby sill!

new pipe was easy to fit, old one was quite perished actually, certainly not surprising with the amount of fluid it lost!

nice shiny new one......of course, i cut it down to size so it doesn't foul on anything

also note the cut wiring.....abs sensor? that could be a concern........i want the abs to work

whilst i had the car in the air i decided i would take a good look underneath and the verdict is

excellent, really solid actually!

this is the only real rot i could find, on the boot floor, non structual by the looks of it so i'll just tidy it up a bit in the coming days

so the LHM leak is taken care of, filled up as much as i could as i can't adjust the suspension due to the selector lever being stuck (job for the coming days)

managed to get the power steering working, the STOP light off and the suspension feeling good again

now the big thing, i decided i would take care of the starting issue

no voltage going to the fuel solenoid, now could it be an immobilioser? who knows, but i've managed to fix it and i will show you how shortly

next thing was to get the glowplug system working correctly

i cleaned up the contacts on the relay, made sure it was all shiny and looking good and connected it all back up

WE HAVE ILLUMINATION!

so another thing sorted, excellent

i was talking to my friend Paul from wales, who's an XM expert and he told me to add a new supply

so i did

from pin 3 of the plug relay i spliced into the cable, soldered a new piece of wiring (not one of the scraps from the car, a brand new piece from halfords)

soldered it all up, added some insulating tape and then the big moment

fired right up!

and stopped again too!

so i've sorted the LHM leak, got it starting and stopping from the key and the glowplugs working correctly

glove box is removed whilst i work on sorting it out, shouldn't be too hard, got a few ideas

next to do is getting the suspension working correctly, sorting the electric windows and seats, getting a few other electrical issues sorted

and then

well i dare say

i may chuck it in for an MOT

[maxxo]

oh i'm going to paint the sills in underseal, sure it won't look factory fresh but it'll protect them

[maxxo]

also did a bit of painting the old hammerite kurust on every spot of rust i could see on the passenger side, so far it's looking much better!

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Great work so far. 

As for undersealing the sills though... worst thing you could do if you want to keep the rust at bay.

[maxxo]

3 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Great work so far. 

As for undersealing the sills though... worst thing you could do if you want to keep the rust at bay.

Do we reckon rust converter, primer it and then paint?

[Fumbler]

You need to take a spinning wire wheel of death to those sill ends before painting them with some good primer and topcoat. Otherwise it'll come back after a season. I also wonder if the cut wires are the brake pad wear leads. If they are, I doubt they're all that necessary.

Apart from that,

[maxxo]

Also going to need a pair of front tyres soon

Tread is fine but sidewall is cracked, not comfortable driving far on that

[maxxo]

1 minute ago, Fumbler said:

You need to take a spinning wire wheel of death to those sill ends before painting them with some good primer and topcoat. Otherwise it'll come back after a season. I also wonder if the cut wires are the brake pad wear leads. If they are, I doubt they're all that necessary.

Apart from that,

I've got a dremel with many tools, so I'll get all the loose paint off and treat it then

[Dyslexic Viking]

6 minutes ago, maxxo said:

Do we reckon rust converter, primer it and then paint?

 

3 minutes ago, maxxo said:

I've got a dremel with many tools, so I'll get all the loose paint off and treat it then

This sounds good. And I use a Dremel copy a lot to grind rust works well.

[maxxo]

9 minutes ago, HarmonicCheeseburger said:

How long until you can sit inside and go

Car goes up

Car goes down

Car goes up

Car goes down

Car goes up

*POP*

Fucks sake..

Unsure I'm afraid!

But hydropneumatic suspension is superbly reliable

Well, the system on the C5 is, so I'm sure this will be too

[grogee]

Well done man, fantastic work. I've always wanted an XM. In fact any floating Citroen. You must feel very satisfied. 

Get it in for a test while the going's good