Citroen XM Forum

It was good to see you again Matthew. Glad the gearbox is behaiving now. We just need Richard in Churchdown to get his sorted out!

Thanks for confirming that Will. I'll do that then. Keep them for the next round of fronts.

I'll do a write up about the strut tops in the relevant area so everyone can see it easily. I am very pleased with the quality, so if you can afford it, do go for them. Just to give you a brief idea, all in they cost €419.00 euros. But that's after you have your €50 euros back. Aad retains this temporarily as part of the exchange of the old parts. You also have to add in postage sending your old tops off to him. Cost me under £20. And there will be bank transfer fees too. I luckily had a large amount in cash, seemed pointless exchanging it only to be reexchanged again.
So not cheap, but I'd say worth the expense.

Rob, I WILL be in touch! Would like to get that nose cone painted at some point. Thank you again for the offer.

raynoon wrote:Bite his hand off Russ... But not the one he uses for painting

nom nom nom.

I have noticed recently that the rear lights have been letting in a small amount of water. I have even found a few drips running down the latch and down and not the boot floor. Do not want that! So this afternoon I removed the lights and body panel on the boot lid and resealed them. Judging by the rusting screws on the centre plastic panel, it could have been that at fault. All fixed now so will have to wait and see what happens.
I also readjusted the passenger side rear light cluster too. It always looked like it had been pushed in at the bottom. It never sat flush. So a few washers on the lower screw thread and it sits much better. Of course the seal then doesn't fit against the body work, so some left over door seal was used to pack it out. Interestingly the chassis behind the light cluster looked okay. I was expecting it to be dented in. But it all appears fine. A mystery!

And the strange little issue with the cavity in the engine bay (Filling with water), the one that is directly behind the strut, has been bone dry for ages. Even coping with all that rain last Saturday at the
Chevrons rally. This is good news as it means my fix has worked, not to mention taken much less time than trying to find the same issue on the grey car a few years ago. So a bit of rust proofing inside, not that it is visibly rusting, and the cap has been sealed back on top once more. The fault was a tiny hole on top of the inner wing up by the bulk head. Spot of gasket sealant and it's now water proof. I do wonder if it is a manufacturing fault. Two cars, made days from each other, same curious fault... Makes you wonder.

Good idea to keep an eye on those area around the back of the water expansion bottle and under the ecu box.. that seem to rot away I think mainly from underneath outwards.. the CEO car has shown this best.. and the othet one that wad missing metal under the ecu was my old H red SED I broke up last year.

interesting about the rear lamps. I thought there was leveling pegs on them to hold them square when you tighten the nuts in place.. im sure there is.. is it missing russ??

No they weren't missing. I'm just as perplexed.

Fortunately I have checked all the areas you mention Paul, and found no rot. Last year when the car was off the road I undersealed it all to make sure. The only rot like you mention, I have found was on grey car. When I broke it up and I found a hole right under the ECU box.

It is worth while checking under these bits. Air filter too.

russ92xmsed wrote:Aad prefers to exchange them rather than rebuild your own tops.

All tops, including the older style ones as fitted to mine?

Not sure there Neil actually. You would have to check with him.
I'll be doing a write up on how to get strut tops from Aad.

I am sure there would be no problem in obtaining replacement older style tops Neil as they were fitted to a great many cars! From my slightly less than happy experience with the chap in Lithuania you will need to highlight the difference! Regards, Matthew T.

Be aware that most early type strut heads are 4 dimple construction.
These have a serious service failure history starting very early on in the XM life cycle.
It is the two strut top metal sections that part company leaving the rubber section undamaged in the base.
So even adding protection rings in the rubber on rebuilding will not stop bonnet popping from this design weakness.
Citroen changed the design to 10 dimple construction seeing the need to more than double the construction strength.

John

This is something I checked on my new ones. The 10 little dimple markings on the outside were not totally visible, but you can count the 10 dimples within the tops. They look a little Iike spot welds.

You could argue the early tops shouldn't be used at all.

The best solution would be to drill the dimples out and bolt through both sections. Not only would that mean the sections couldn't part, but also that rubber renewal would be easy since the strut top would be seperated, which is how they are made originally.