Citroen XM Forum

A few years back in the 2CV club they used to have a 'Golden Gaffa Tape' award for the sheddy-est in show. Proud to say my own 1975 2CV6 won it in 2007. I was so proud .....

Barry Annells . . . Is that the same Barry from Shalford Green Garage (SGG) near Guildford?

Dunno if that's where he came from, but he's currently based in Bourne, Lincolnshire

First tank of fuel, and I managed 41.5mpg - considering how I've been driving it not bad, but I hope to manage better this weekend going to the National.

Cooling is a bit better, but can't for the life of me find the drain tap on the radiator!

Also had my first 'I had one of those, great cars' conversations about the XM yesterday with a bloke in a Range Rover Sport - said he wished he never sold the one he had, which was a 1990 2.1 Turbo manual.

Radiator's drain tap is at the bottom right corner.

Ok, thanks - I think I spotted it but couldn't get anything to move.

Mike, good to meet you yesterday at the National and put a face to the name!

And you - I met up with several members from here, all of which were happy to share advice and knoweledge - thanks all!

citsncycles wrote:Ok, thanks - I think I spotted it but couldn't get anything to move.

Use pliers on the screw head.

While taking a break from the musical vehicles down the barn on Monday, I drained the radiator flush out and refilled with coolant and distilled water. Unless I'm really caning it or towing (more of which shortly), it now runs between 80 and 100C. It's still clearing itself out slowly - it was running out of steam at around 3k rpm initially, but will go to 4k quite happily most of the time now, and the cloud of smoke out the back when I boot it is getting smaller. I say most of the time because if I'm running up through the gears and pushing a bit, once I reach 3rd I sometimes get a bit of hesitation around 3 1/2k, almost like fuel starvation. The oil change is due in the next few hundred miles so I plan to change the fuel and air filters at the same time.

The XM worked for its living yesterday as I picked up another project from Tony Weston's place and took it to the barn:



I need another project like a hole in the head, but Mk1 AX's don't come up very often, and this one's a GT with air con! Like many of my purchases, it needs bodywork, but as one of my mates said yesterday, it's nothing compared to what I'm doing to the Visa! Unless I decide to jump it up the queue a bit, it'll be a year or 2 before I get to this one, but at least it's safe and under cover now.