Citroen XM Forum

Progress report, with some photos for your viewing pleasure. As you may have noticed, I'm not really one for taking photos at every stage as some seem to manage. I get far too engrossed with the job at hand and tend to finish for the day and then realise I could have taken pics... Also I wouldn't call my welding photogenic, seagulls have dropped neater I daresay but it's strong and will look ok once it's dressed back and any holes gone back over.

Anyway, close of play today sees the nearside almost finished with just the outer sill section needing the shape finishing off before it gets blobbed on and I move onto the long awaited drivers side Any more decent weather and it'll be in danger of getting finished!

And a couple more, as I can only add 5 per post

Outer sill section is now on, didn't get time to finish tidying up the welds yet but I'll just go over everything with a flap wheel to smooth it out and then daub some red oxide over the bare metal for the moment. Once it's all done and been MoT'd then I'll "beautify" the job, seam seal and filler then stonechip/underseal and lay on some fresh paint. For now though I want to leave the work visible to the tester so he doesn't get suspicious of any foul play/shortcuts, not to mention I want him to know EXACTLY how much work and new metal is in the car he's testing!

Well if you need parts, I still got that xm being broken down in the back garden, hopefully i be able to strip it bare this summer and store the parts in the garage, Then scrap the shell.

Milestone reached today-: finished the structural rehab on the nearside of the car, so reinstalled ECU's connected alternator & interior wiring and turned the key after nearly 2 months of standing (and the antisink has done it's job I might add, all 4 corners still rock solid on high after all this time!), well it seems cleaning the IAV has helped somewhat with the idle issue as it started second time and settled down to a low-ish but steady idle with no hint of lumpiness or danger of stalling.

Then I slung a deck chair behind the wheel and turned the car round in the driveway to begin the attack on the driver's side, first impressions are it's not as bad as the passenger side, although what looked to be a 1" diameter hole in the chassis rail turned out to be a 1" hole in the underseal that was shaped like a chassis rail! The actual rotten area is more like a 14" section of the rail gone completely. On the plus side, on folding the front jacking point back out it seems the inner sill is a lot better than I expected to find so as far as I can tell theres only 2 patches required this side, one to the outrigger/footwell area and the other the chassis rail, both simple to form and I'm getting quite used to the sparks from overhand welding by now so no big deal after what's already been completed.

Getting excited now, can't rush but it might be on the road this month all things being equal.

Not a great day today, took the exhaust off to weld a couple of small holes ready for MoT & found a dead cat in the silencer. Not the furry variety sadly (I have nothing against our feline friends, in fact we have 2 but nasty as it sounds I'd much rather have found that type than the smashed ceramic matrix of the catalytic converter rattling around in there)

So as per our post in the sales section we're on the lookout for a usable cat/downpipe section for our exhaust now, if anybody has one going spare? Grrrr

Are you sure that you have not found the remains of the previous cat?

Definitely I'm afraid, looked straight through the cat shell with a torch... previous one was replaced along with a head gasket and valve job so I'm guessing it was antifreeze or misfire damaged originally in 2010, the current one is definitely smashed not melted though so it must have had a thermal shock.

Not much progress today, just fitted a new throttle cable as the old one was starting to fray at the pedal end. On the cat side of things it looks like the failure is likely down to it being a cheap replacement item & as it lasted 5 years & 50k before breaking up completely (being marginal on last years emissions) I've decided that for purposes of speed and convenience I'll replace it with another £50 ebay item for now & look at welding a secondhand OEM cat from a scrap modern car into the old downpipe sometime in the future if needs be.

Still at odds with the weatherman, he's not giving me much chance to do the final bits of welding lately but still hopeful it could be finished this next week or so. British weather eh? Spring gives us baking hot days and early summer has been nothing but wind and rain ho hum, got the back box to patch up in the garage if the rain keeps up. Would be better to replace but lets get a years ticket on her before spending more money eh?

New cat arrived yesterday, fitted today and cut out the (final?) areas of rot/prepped the surfaces and made the fairly complicated replacement chassis rail section before time ran short. Welding wise it's not far off now and a good 2 or 3 "days" work (I can spare around 3-4hrs usually) should see the structure complete and the car back on the ground again. May hold off on refitting the interior for the moment though since we're planning a leather seat transplant (WHAT did I say about spending more money before it's MoT'd? ), then again I might get excited and fit the seats to get the thing on the road & tart about fitting the leather once we're mobile in a proper Citroen... Here's hoping the opportunity to complete the work presents itself this week