CitroJim's Citroens

[CitroJim]

Wasn't Kleber once OE fitment to all Renaults?

I remember a neighbours Peugeot 505 came with Kleber tyres on it from new.

I'm pretty certain the last R5 dad bought brand new in 1978 had Klebers. I remember them because they had a very attractive tread pattern - as a lot of 70s tyres did. Most likely useless but it looked good...

Been a busy little bee this morning... Replaced the duff rad on the Xantia V6. A nice, easy job all things considered...

Dropped the front ride height on the XM - a very easy job...

Took the XM to my local garage for an exhaust looksee. Garage declares it quite fixable and it's going in on Tuesday to go under the knife (or welder)...

XM is currently at the tyre place having a set of tyres fitted...

Neighbour has just knocked on the door with a coil of Fiesta front spring... He's just gone off to the factors to get one so guess what I'll be doing for the rest of the afternoon Problem is he's stranded...

Good thing is that new front springs for a Fiesta are only £18 each,,,

[turbo_imp]

Won't find any broken springs on the XM

[Dieselman]

Neighbour has just knocked on the door with a coil of Fiesta front spring...

You should have just said "Thanks for letting me know, but it's not one of mine."

[turbo_imp]

Neighbour has just knocked on the door with a coil of Fiesta front spring...

You should have just said "Thanks for letting me know, but it's not one of mine."

Funny that, I thought exactly the same thing. I won't work on others cars, not just because I don't want to, but I also worry about liability If I forget to do up a drop link or something, I will hear the clonking and think 'crikey, sounds like I have forgotten something!' . Where if I do the same to another car, I am almost sure that the owner will ignore it until something serious happens, and then point the finger at me

[russ92xmsed]

Neighbour has just knocked on the door with a coil of Fiesta front spring...

You should have just said "Thanks for letting me know, but it's not one of mine."

very good.

Another satisfying day then Jim. Excellent. Hope the new tyres are good buys. Let us know if they are any good!!,

[CitroJim]

Neighbour has just knocked on the door with a coil of Fiesta front spring...

You should have just said "Thanks for letting me know, but it's not one of mine."

Wish I had What a bloody job but my neighbours are ever so good to me and helped me enormously when I was really ill back along so it was a kind of pay in kind. And besides he's giving my garden a makeover for free so it all works out... We all help each other in our little close... As neighbours should.. I feel very lucky to have such good ones and they in turn tolerate my car antics very well.. Many wouldn't I'm sure..

Generally I don't do anything for anyone else for the same reasons as you James but for this I made an exception as he does most of his own spannering anyway... This was beyond him though...

What a ****** of a job... Straightforward enough except for the top nut on the strut which was rusted solid because Ford stupidly don't protect it so water gathers there..

That bloody nut fought and fought but I won in the end To get enough force on it I had to carefully grip the very top of the damper piston above the bump-stop with a pair of very meaty Footprints (like Stilsons) and a breaker bar on the nut...

The rest of the job was dead easy...

Another satisfying day then Jim. Excellent. Hope the new tyres are good buys. Let us know if they are any good!!,

Yes, it was rather Russ... I feel quite content and rather tired in that good sort of way that comes from a productive day...The new tyres (BFG G-Grips) are excellent and they've transformed the car.. It rides better, handles better and is a lot quieter despite the blowing exhaust... The difference is like night and day...

[russ92xmsed]

Excellent, another good tyre to consider.

Well done sorting the Ford out.

[CitroJim]

G-Grips are well recommended Russ...

Well done sorting the Ford out.

Makes working on an XM look like Child's play

Went to do some more on the RX-8 engine today and the drive to where it rests was almost sublime... Every small thing I do on the XM is step in the right direction. I realise just how fussy I am about cars...

Here's a rare thing. Two ES9 V6 XMs together.... I apologise for the poor pictures, my phone camera is playing up badly...



Just in shot is an Activa and out of shot is another V6 - a Xantia V6...

And here’s something even rarer... A Wankel-engined XM



All clean, devoid of all ancillaries and ready for the journey to my workshop...

We had the sump off of it today and found rather a lot of sludge and flakes of copper. This leads us to the suspicion that the rotor housings are badly damaged... They’re the two bright alloy items making what looks like a double-layer sandwich in the the above picture. The surface the rotors and apex seals bear on is hard chrome plate on the light alloy -we suspect an apex seal has done a good job of gouging it and writing off the housings as a result...

This was a big problem on my last motorbike - a Suzuki GT550 triple. It had hard-chromed alloy cylinders and badly damaged and scored bores was a very common problem on them... Shame as it wrote off many and apart from that it was a joyous bike... A two-stroke triple so it was gloriously fast and turbine smooth... It also handled like any other 70s Jap as in not very well and the brakes were appalling in the wet. It had bright stainless steel discs with all the frictional properties of PTFE....

[turbo_imp]

I do love a good RE, especially the 'BRAPBRAPBRAP' of a bridgy

Copper in the oil would be plain bearings rather than the housing breaking down. What were the symptoms that prompted removal? Was a compression / tip seal check done?

J

[CitroJim]

I do love a good RE, especially the 'BRAPBRAPBRAP' of a bridgy

I've not heard one running yet

Speaking of an RE.,Suzuki made a Wankel engined bike in the 70s - the RE5. That one was a bit special...

Good thinking on the coppery flakes.. The rotors run on plain bearings so it could be those...

Last time it ran it was enormously hard to start, ran very lumpily, smokled a lot and vibrated so badly it was undrivable..

It did originally have a duff ignition coil but replacing it only allowed it to eventually start and run but in no way properly. Compression is almost all gone and generally the engine is very tired.