Help, Bit thick

[bobtee]

Hello all you experts ,
Asyou can tell i am new in here ,i just purchased an xm 2.1 td hatch n reg with 82000 miles .
Its a car i have admired for a long time and now i need to get to know it !
I am driving to and fro from Northampton and luton everyday so need it to be reliable.
There are some petit la gremlin in there somewhere any advice would be gratefully received.
I have an awfull rattle when tickingover from cold start ,seems to get less as engine warms up and is not there when driving,i dont think its engine mechanical problem but bow to your expertise.
The left info repeater (radio station etc )has bits of letters missing from it .
The clutch pedal seems a bit graunchy when pressed and released ,spent the weekend trying to lubricate it but it does not seem very much better noise wise .
Hope i did this correctly and thanks in anticipation of any answers Bob.

[noz]

Hi bobtee,

Welcome to Club-XM and to driving XM's.

Your cold rattle is possibly a hydraulic tappet. If a little bit of dirt gets into the tappet and stops the oil from getting in then it stays dry. With no oil to take up the slack the follower travels a large distance before coming into contact with the end of the valve then slaps it with the resulting noise. It won't do any damage but it is annoying and really needs sorting. The noise should take place at exactly half the engine revs as the camshaft is travelling at half the speed of the crankshaft. Can you determine the frequency of the noise.

The other possibility which would also give the same symtoms at the same frequency is something you don't even want to consider - piston slap. I had this on my 2.5TD and replaced 3 hydraulic tappets before resigning myself to taking the head off. I found one very damaged piston slapping about inside the bore in a terrible state. The noise comes from the piston on the compression stroke only. As the piston approaches TDC is is canted to one side because its loose in the bore. as it passes over TDC the piston head rocks to the other side on the gudgeon pin and the skirt slaps against the inside of the bore, hence 'piston-slap'.

The dot-matrix is a common problem on the series 2 cars (post 1995 approx). I have heard of a fix elsewhere on the web. I'll find it and post the resuts here. It consists of dismantling the display and cleaning the contacts where the electronics connects to the glass front.

Haven't heard of the clutch problem before but hten I've got a 2.5. Is the clutch on a 2.1 cable or hydraulic? Apart form the obvious lubrication I can't think of any other solutions apart from replacing the cable.

Hope this helps.

Can I ask that you post in the XM Issues section if oyu've got any more problems.

Cheers

noz

[citroenxm]

Noz

2.1 TD's are hydraulic clutch activation...

Just thought I'd clear that up.

citroenxm

[rosspa]

Series 1 2.1 clutches were definately not hydraulic. The pedal assembly has a so-called 'helper' device which increases the mechanical advantage, decreasing the effort required. This assembly wears and the clutch becomes progressively heavier. Also the cable always seems to make a noise (sort of 'graunchy'-squeek) as the pedal is depressed. Unfortunately, I sold my 2.1 before getting to the bottom of the problem, but suspect that a new 'helper' mechanism and cable would have improved matters. The 2.5 (series2 XM)clutch pedal is so much lighter than the 2.1 (series 1 XM). This is because the clutch is hydraulically operated on the series 2. Your car should be a series 2. If it does have the later clutch, it is apparently non-user serviceable. The clutch master cylinder, pipe and slave cylinder come spare as a single unit! In my experience, they are pretty reliable, however, if you have lubricated the pedal, the next port of call would be this assembly.
I hope this is of some help.

[bobtee]

Thanks for the info my clutch is the cable variant ,i have resolved the problems by lubricating the cable and linkages with a silicone aerosol spray .
Now i have a nice smooth operation
thanks Bob