G'day From Australia!

[motorgnome]

Hi there All!

My name is Jason & I bought my very 1st XM in July this year. It's a 1990 SEI V6 Auto hatch (RP5058) in "Gris Basalt". It was last registered (Taxed) in December 1998 & only has 125,000klm on it, but 20 years of sitting around has done it no favours. I have been working on it most days since then... a bit here, a bit there, and it's slowly awakening from it's long slumber. I have a read of the forum most nights, learning what I can about the car & all their little (and big) problems. I can see there are quite a lot of very clever people here, the work that's been done to these old cars is quite astounding.. Dean...Your 178 page marathon blog needs a separate mention...you need a bloody medal..I think I would have "set fire to it" by now...You are like a "dog with a bone"..you keep at it.. & Matthew T ...I felt sick reading your post about your transmission woes.. My heart goes out to you. I am a mechanic with my own workshop & I struggle sometimes..what you guys accomplish at home, on the ground, through shear determination & enthusiasm is "Inspirational" to me..No kidding.

Ok, Introductions over, I'm off to do some more reading.. I suppose I need to "get a life" too hey!

[White Exec]

Hello, Jason, and welcome. Some kind remarks - yes, there is a lot of expertise and solid information here, but we keep on learning - it doesn't stop!
Do post some photos of the car and where it lurks. Twenty years of sitting unused is quite something; hydraulic Citroens don't thrive on this, preferring to get regular use. How did it spend those 20yrs? Under cover? How has interior, trim and paintwork faired? Any rust?
Looking forward to hearing lots more!

[MTXM]

Hi Jason and welcome to the Mad House!! Seriously though you have certainly chosen the right model in an early XM V6 and I should know! That is quite a long lay up at 20 years and I thought my car standing for eight years was excessive. At least you do not have the damp winters and salt there in Oz and hopefully the car body is in good shape. I am sure we all appreciated your remarks and like Chris I also really look forward to seeing some photos. Please do keep us informed on progress. With regards, Matthew T.

[motorgnome]

Ok then.... It looks like it's my turn to tell a story! It's best I go back to the beginning, & that was a couple of months back in July. I attended a local Citroen car club "Tech day", at a members rural property, about 1.5 hrs west of Sydney. Being a rural property, he has quite a few acres & right out the back, there are many old Citroen's lying around in various states of repair (dis-repair). After the club tech stuff (just an excuse to talk Citroens) was done with, I went for a walk around the place to check out the old cars, as you do...Well that's where I spied the XM lying in a shed, of sorts. He actually had 3 Xm's ...The one I bought, a silver MK1 SI V6 (Ex UK import, Rusty), that I also later bought & a Y4 Exclusive 2.5 TD Manual wagon (break?)Ex UK that is also rusty. "My" car didn't look too wonderful, as you can see from the photo's, but when I opened the door & looked inside, saw the low mileage & general condition, I thought "wow"!! Now, I wasn't actively looking for an XM, though a couple of weeks earlier, I attended the annual "All French Car Display day" & there were two Xm's there..It was then that they caught my eye.

The owners wife noticed me poring over the old car & made sure that I knew that "everything" was for sale (she's keen to get rid of all the hulks lying around the place) & before I knew what was going on, it was mine!

[motorgnome]

And some more Piccies.. It has a Y4 nose on it & XM badge on the rear.

[motorgnome]

So, the next weekend, I borrowed a Ute from the plumber's who work in an adjacent factory unit, hooked up a car trailer & drove down to pick up the car. I must say that I was quite apprehensive about what I was going to find in the cold light of day. The owner had dragged the car out of the shed & it was waiting for me in the middle of a paddock. Access was easy, so I unhooked the trailer from the car to allow the front of the trailer to rise up & winched the poor old thing up & onto the trailer. Simple. Not so simple when I get it back to the workshop & have to get it off the trailer, into the workshop & on a hoist (ramp you call them), all on my own.. A dead hydraulic Citroen is a big pain in the arse to move around, so number 1 priority was to try & get it running.

[motorgnome]

Righto!, So, first priority like I said, was to get the thing running. I went straight for the in tank fuel pump & ...Gee, that was nice!

MVIMG_20180729_145911.jpg

IMG_20180729_145926.jpg

So I sucked out the stale, smelly fuel & wiped out the inside of the tank as best I could, & proceeded to tidy up the fuel pump assembly. Pulling it to bits, sand blasting the metal parts & cleaning/scraping the plastic bits, sourcing a new petrol pump & strainer, replacing hoses, blah blah blah.. The fuel gauge sender unit actually still works!

I then went looking for the petrol filter..WTF!!!.. what were Citroen thinking?? It must be some sort of French Joke!.."We will put the filter in the worst position possible".."so you must take of the exhaust" & shielding to even see it"!!! (Said in the thickest French accent).
Filter replaced, fuel lines blown out with compressed air, 20 litres of 98 petrol in it..Engine oil full, Coolant (hahahahhah, that's a term I use loosely) full, turned the key & it eventually fires into life ..reluctantly..
Eventually it came up on 5 cylinders..chugging away...suspension slowly pumping up. It wasn't happy, but it was running.

Next job was to clean it!..It was a horrible mess underneath & in the engine bay...

Later!

[trampsterdave]

Hi jason
enjoying your saga....I'm in NZ...simialrly pretty new to xm's...fortunately my S1 2.0i turbo is in good running nick [ha- now that's taking a risk in itself]...keep the info flowing..
cheers, dave

[motorgnome]

Righty oh!...I'm back!
Next step was to drive the chugging/heaving mess outside for a thorough pressure wash of the underside, engine bay & outside..I got the suspension up on high, reversed it up onto to ramps & "went to town" on the underside....Then the same with the front, then the engine bay. 15 tins of De-greaser must be a new record!. Time was against me on the outside though, as all I had time for was a quick spray with product called CT18 ..It's a product they use for cleaning trucks, then a pressure rinse off. Looks great in the photos, though there is a lot of small damage from careless storage , opening doors onto brick walls & maybe even some hail damage (do you get hail storms in Britain?). A proper wash, polish & wax will have to wait until the car is more mobile. The aim of the day was just to make it clean (er) to aid in the repairs that it needed.

[motorgnome]

So, the mechanicals are kind of clean, & it was time to look at the 5 cylinder PRV. I could tell it was a compression problem, by the way the engine cranks on the starter motor, & plucking plug leads with the motor running revealed cylinder 6 was doing "Zip". I was hoping for a simple stuck valve from being laid up for so long, so I let the engine run & run, revving it etc, up to operating temp for over an hour...well, it didn't fix itself..I did find it was making a good impression of an LHM fountain though!..well, "Fountain" might be an exaggeration, but I had leaking Front height corrector, Flow divider, Brake valve, power steering ram & a return connector up near the back wheel on the passenger side...The cooling system was also a real mess, with the "coolant" very brown & gritty.

"Off with the heads" ..click my fingers & they were off..yeah right!..you all know that cylinder heads on a PRV is NOT a 5 minute job. Well, with the Heads off a bent inlet valve was revealed... My only guess as to the cause is that it was stuck down from being laid up for such a long time, & the piston came up & smacked it..Though I still have the nagging question of "why was the car laid up all those years ago, at a low mileage & only 7 years on the road??" (first registered mid 91).

Anyway, the head gaskets were just rubbish, falling apart as soon as you touched them, & the water jackets around the liners were full of mud..So the heads coming off was a good thing anyway. I sent the heads off to the engine man & told him to service them, gaskets & head bolts ordered , things were back on track...hmmm, until the engine man phoned & said you need another 3 inlet valves (4 total), as they too were bent!..Oh, & none of my suppliers have anything! I sat on the phone, ringing around, looking on line (locally) but finding nothing...I put it in the "too hard basket", waiting for the fairies to come fix it for me..