Citroen XM Forum

From my reading I believe heat is the major factor in a lot of "failures" of this box, despite said failures not being too major it's still something I'd like to avoid, and it seems they do run rather hot in the XM for whatever reason (or maybe they just run hot in general). Agreed though if it's just a 10 second wait then I'd leave it in D, much longer than 15-20sec I'd definitely be going for N

Another item on the to do list is the dipped beam lenses which have yellowed with age, I believe the headlamps can be disassembled & the plastic should come up nicely with T-cut/brasso or similar and would look a lot nicer as well as making for better visibility at night. Will be searching for any info on that when I get a few minutes.

Oh an on the front foglamps, had a closer look and strange things abound, the left side appears to have a lamp unit with a reflector cap covering the bulb filament but the drivers side just looks like a silver blanking plate inside the lens...

citroenxm wrote:Dash vents can be changed on their own. I dont know if I have any.. most to almost all my stuff is mk.1 stuff..

eventually ill get through the stock and sort it all out...

No worries, it's not a major problem for the moment as there's bigger fish to fry in getting the underside and hydraulics up to standard but if you do happen across the heater control panel and far left vent then it will be very nice to have everything looking and working as it should. If i can get the sills replaced wholesale instead of being patched up and make the outrigger patches look half decent then i think this car has potential to be really really nice.

Ive defo got the heater control box.. thats kicking about.. but vents another matter..

come rally seasons I useually take orders and bring them along with me...

I have always tinkered with the idea of fitting what I think was part of a tow pack, a front mounted air oil cooler rather than a oil to water one which will maintain oil temps of up to the 90c the cooling medium runs at with oil temps I would guess at being over 100c easily, not sure of the effect overcooling has on the effectiveness of the lubricant in the box though.

D

Dean wrote:I have always tinkered with the idea of fitting what I think was part of a tow pack, a front mounted air oil cooler rather than a oil to water one which will maintain oil temps of up to the 90c the cooling medium runs at with oil temps I would guess at being over 100c easily, not sure of the effect overcooling has on the effectiveness of the lubricant in the box though.

D

Yes that does seem a good idea, and you can get thermostatic coolers too that bypass the cooler below a certain temperature so as not to overcool the fluid

Music to my ears, the only thing that held me back was my own understanding of the subject, an engine can suffer much accelerated wear for instance if it does not run at the correct (high enough) temperature, understanding if and what this sweet spot is on an automatic transmission if it does exist is the issue.

D

My XM has an external gearbox fluid cooler from factory - specified for hot countries and taxi cars. It replaces the pipe that runs from the front of the box to the back of the box on cars without it (see photo). I assume fluid constantly flows through it - probably doesn't let box heat up much on short trips but on long trips and and hard driving hopefully keeps the box at a nice temperature.

I believe my gearbox is all original and still going strong at 215000km (touch wood!)

Jordan.

OK finally got round to remembering the RP number and adding it and signature to our profile our XM is RP6470 if that means anything to anyone? lol

27 July 1994 your car was built. That's what the orga number is for. It's a production number.

The selector detent is there to stop unwanted selection of neutral when returning back from lower selections, so I would leave it.

Auto gearboxes suffer more wear if you shift to neutral when stationery. The clutches slip each time they are engaged.