Citroen XM Forum

I had noticed the dashboard illumination for the sidelamps being on wasn't working, which is important on Xm as the instrument cluster is always backlit when the Ign is on. This would be an MOT fail, so needed investigating.

I removed the instrument binnacle and cluster, found several burned out bulbs so replaced them, only to find the sidelamp warning was still not lighting. The sidelamps work as they should.

It transpired there was no power to the sidelamp warning lamp and investigation revealed F4 to be missing. F4 only feeds the sidelamp warning and the dashboard dimming function when the sidelamps are on. The clock had two, out of three bulbs out, so it wasn't easy to see the lack of dimming.

I removed the dashboard facia to install new lamps to the clock and heater control units, so took the opportunity to deal with the fracture at the R/h edge, which is common.
I plastic welded the breakage adding folded over staples as reinforcing and extra ABS plastic to strengthen it. I also repaired two broken off display supports at the left end of the display.
I used an old soldering iron and the result isn't pretty, but that is inside the panel and the repair is strong, due to the metal reinforcement.



And the sidelamp warning now functions. You can now see the clock and backlighting is dimming.

While sitting in the car I noticed the wiper park position was set too high and when operating were going down from the rest position, before performing their sweep. The motor wasn't synchronised with the wiper mechanism, so park was too high up the screen.
Someone had adjusted the wiper arms to try to compensate, but it meant the overall sweep was short, leaving a large unwept area at the A pillar and the two blades not overlapping in the centre of the screen.

You can just make this out from this video, it was much more noticeable from inside the car.



On a Rhd Xm only, you cannot remove the wiper linkage without first hydraulically disconnecting and removing the brake doseur valve, so I wanted to reset this with the linkage in situ.

Use a 13mm ratchet spanner, reach under the wiper motor, locate the motor spindle nut and loosen it. There is no need to fully remove it and it's beneficial to not do so. I did, it's a fiddle to get the spring washer and nut back on.
Once the nut is loose, use a wide, flat bladed screwdriver to pry the crank off the wiper spindle taper.

Activate the motor to bring it to Park, then move the arms to be at the lowest point of their sweep.
The linkage will be aligned as his image shows, or better still, just slightly later in the crank anti-clockwise rotation.



Tighten the spindle nut to clamp the crank. You need to ensure it is tight enough to not come loose in operation, so tighten the nut until the crank turns, keep turning to rotate it round until the wipers are at the top of the sweep, then use a spanner to counter-hold the crank, while tightening the nut.
A 21mm spanner would be ideal, also have the crank slightly further round it's anti-clockwise rotation, which gives an easier position for the spindle nut spanner: just below the motor.



You should then have wipers that only go up once activated and this gives the maximum sweep. Align the wipers to be just at the top of the graduated windscreen dots for best coverage.



The left side wing repeater was broken, so not clipping in.

A bit more plastic welding using some ABS and a new spring clip was formed.



I filed a slight notch in the edge closest to the lamp unit, to act as a moulding to hold the unit tight to the wing when in position.



When removing the dashboard facia I noticed the direction control knob was broken and the metal insert missing.
As this is acrylic and needs to be transparent for the light to pass through, I didn't want to plastic weld it, so used epoxy glue. For more strength I cut a groove round the circumference and looped, then tied, some strong linen thread, which I also glued in.
I made a new insert out of ABS.



Once dry I refitted these. Ensure the outer, white clickers are aligned with the D shafts before pushing in the knobs. There are unequal grips inside the rotating white clickers.



All back in position and working.

After fitting the air direction knob I tested output and found there was no footwell air-flow at all, irrespective of setting. Windscreen and face-level worked fine.

I was hoping it wasn't a stuck, or broken direction flap as that is a major task, including dashboard and pedal box out and draining the coolant.
For that task see viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6292&p=71456&hilit= ... box#p71456

I removed the right side console carpet and reached up to the direction gears. The main drive gear turned freely, the rear gear, the one for the footwell flap, was loose and I pulled it right off.
I also removed the left carpet for access, thinking it might allow me to press on the flap spindle, but other than allowing me to feel the air flow provided no benefit.

There is very limited space and you are working blind. Set the direction control knob all the way anti-clockwise, to face-level, lean in from the right side and round the heater box with your right hand, position and push in the gear until it clicks into the spindle.



The gear clips into the end of the direction flap spindle. I loosely fitted it and rotated the flap easily, so knew it wasn't binding and was changing airflow direction.



On early Xm, you can unscrew the Gnd point "m5", on post 1992 ones the plate is welded onto the steering column support, so not readily removable.



Once the gear is in and aligned the indexing mouldings will line up when at face level. It should look like this.



It only took three goes , but eventually... There really is no space to work, or take a picture and after fitting I had to use a torch and small mirror to see if it was aligned.



While in the outer scuttle setting the wipers I noticed some surface rust spots, so wire brushed, scraped, treated with acid and painted two coats of anti-corrosion primer on these. Just need to top coat now.

Today was a bit of a tidying and sorting out day.
Refit the interior linings removed for heater-box access and paint a couple of coats of topcoat onto the primer in the scuttle. I also greased the wiper ball-joints, door hinges stays and latches, the doseur valve bell-crank and set a little more free-play for the doseur valve.

XM tend to dim the rear lights slightly when all are illuminated due to the Gnd connection going all the way back to "m5" under the steering column, via two connectors.
There is a modification to add a second Gnd wire in an attempt to resolve unwarranted bulb failure warnings (series-1 only)



I switched on all the lights, including headlamps, foglamps and hazard flashers and observed the rear lights. The engine wasn't running but the car was connected to a battery charger.

Can you see any difference?

Before mod.



After mod.

This car being an early Xm has the front scuttle trim riveted onto the wings. It had previously been removed by drilling out the upper rivets and plastic, then using fir tree clips to hold the trim on.
When refitting it I couldn't make the clips grip strongly enough to stop the trim being loose, so removed the clips and filled the holes with short pieces of electrical flex, to act as plugs, then installing short self tapping screws, which has worked very well.

Image is before mending. Note the plastic brackets are riveted on.


I was conscious that when I acquired the car I was informed it had a tendency to suddenly drop when driving.
I can only think of a few reasons that might happen, sudden loss of hydraulic pressure either due to a leak, either internal or external, air being drawn into the suction hose, or the height corrector linkage being seized so not calling for the correct height.

I have already tightened the suction hose clamps and lubricated the height corrector linkage and bearing, so was thinking about there being an internal leak.
While adjusting and lubricating the wiper mechanism, I also lubricated the Doseur valve bell crank and did notice there didn't seem to be any free play, so adjusted it slightly.
On getting back into my other Xm I thought the brake pedal was set higher in the V6, so decided to take a further look.

There very little Doseur valve free play so I adjusted it to give more. Iirc, the setting is 9mm. The pedal has no stop, so adjusting the bell crank raises, or lowers the pedal. Due to gravity and the rubber bellows, the higher the pedal, the more the bell crank presses on the Doseur valve when at rest.
By measuring I have found the pedal can be a maximum of 90mm and a minimum of 80mm from the floor.

Ensure the Doseur valve pivot is well greased and perform adjustment at the bell crank, under the scuttle trim.



I also fitted a working replacement front foglamp bulb. F21 then blew on switching on the foglamps and the tell tale was not illuminated. I used a high wattage test lamp (headlamp bulb) to replace the fuse and the Haynes wiring diagram to diagnose this.

The foglamp tell-tale isn't activated by the switch, it only illuminates as a result of the relay operating and sending power to the bulbs. The foglamp relay is mounted on the upper side of the fuseboard, which has very poor access on Rhd Xm.
Pulling the switch out of the facia doesn't give enough slack to be able to back probe the connector.

The high wattage test lamp glowed brightly as soon as the foglamps and sidelights were switched on, indicating a dead short. It showed full current was passing, but without blowing any more fuses. I did waste one more fuse, but that was all.
The issue was the new bulb lead was somehow shorting against the bulb encapsulation. Simply removing, testing the system without it, then with it loosely connected, then refitting it had both foglamps glowing dimly and the test lamp to be at about 1/2 brightness, at which point I knew the fault was fixed, so could install a new fuse without the risk of it blowing.

I noticed the heater wasn't blowing hot air, irrespective of the temperature setting.

First I probed both sides of the blending flap actuator motor feed with a low wattage test lamp. The controller drives it one way with power and Gnd on connector pins 1 and 2, then it reverses the power and Gnd feeds to drive the motor the opposite direction.
When adjusting the temperature setting I saw the test lamp pulsing as the motor was being powered, so the controller was functioning.
I also noticed the fan speed automatically varying as the temperature selection against the actual temperature varied, so again knew the cabin temperature detection and controller were functioning.
Once coolant is above a set temperature, as the selected temperature is moved away from the actual cabin temperature, the fan speeds up and then slows again as the differential between the two reduces.

Watching the blend flap actuator on the left side of the heater box revealed the actuator arm to not be operating over it's fully available range.

I removed the servo unit. Access is incredibly tight, use a very short Philips No2 driver bit and a small ratchet. You cannot see the screw behind the servo.

On testing the servo it only had about 60 degrees of rotation, whereas it should be about 110 degrees.

Working unit, cold setting, fully clockwise.



Working unit, hot setting, fully anti-clockwise.



I stripped the servo unit down, checked the gear alignment and rebuilt it. The alignment is a pair of arrows on the output gear and the potentiometer gear, which should face each other.



Refitted the servo and tested and now the blending flap arm was coming all the way forward. Apologies for the image, it is really hard to see this, let alone photograph it.
There may be more to do as the heater still didn't feel very hot, even on maximum. The coolant system does need a flush and I suspect the heater matrix may have sludge in.



Another quick job.
The roof console lights weren't working reliably due to the heat of the bulbs having disintegrated the plastic unit.
Ensuring they had good electrical contact, I epoxy glued the bulb holders into position and changed the 5w bulbs for LED ones. The bulbs are push fit, so no need to remove the holders.
I chose warm white for the main lights and cool white for the map reading lamps.

Another dead-cell battery, this time causing the immobiliser to have both red and green lights on.

As red and green lights means communication issue between the keypad and Ecu, I also cleaned the connector to the keypad with electrical contact cleaner, which did make it respond better, but the fundamental reason is the battery is dead.

Red and green lights on.
Connector to clean with contact cleaner.

After cleaning connector the green light is on after code install. Previously it would be random and the keypad would bleep four times, which I have never heard before.
In addition the Abs lamp is flickering on/off after the system has completed it's power on self test. The battery voltage keeps depleting below the system allowable minimum threshold.

Being an early Xm, with Hydractive 1, with h1 Ecu (white/green connectors), there is no 10 minute timer, so an open door keeps the lights and Hydractive Ecu live permanently, so I have disconnected the drivers door pin switch.
installing a 10 minute timer is on the to do list.

It seems to be the time for steering gaiters to come unclipped, the passenger one on this car was also, though it was due to the cable tie having come apart.
It is always the passenger side gaiter comes off as it has fewer pleats, so less flex as it is extended.

Refitting the gaiter is relatively easy, just pull it off the spigot, align it then turn the steering full lock to push it back onto the rack housing.
These are Sasic clip on gaiters, which fit the same as genuine Citroen ones, but the plastic is a little thicker, so less flexible...especially when the car has been standing for quite some time.
First turn to passenger side full lock then tends to unclip the gaiter off the rack housing, which is why I add a 2.5mm cable tie at the gaiter clip area.
Install the cable tie directly on top of the already existing clamping ring in the groove of the gaiter clip.
A warmer climate would alleviate this issue, as does continued use due to flexing and engine heat.

Fitting a new cable tie is pretty challenging, but persistence, starting from underneath, then reaching from above, should eventually see the cable tie go completely round the gaiter. After positioning, pull tight with pliers and trim off.

It's easier if you remove the Hydractive centre sphere, but just as a refit I didn't want to do that.

Gaiter unclipped and failed cable tie, pictured from above.
New cable tie fitted, pictured from below.