On Saturday 15th. I collected a carton of Hydraflush from GSF, so more work could be done. Brakes finished on both sides, parking brake cables worked into place. Wheel arch liners, left side ABS sensor bought off Ebay for £40 cabled tied out of the way - it wouldn't fit in the hub carrier hole but the ABS computer was happy it could see it. Cleaned out the LHM tank again (it was full of dust after a year in the shed) filters OK. Dug out a couple of spheres for the front struts. Topped up tank with Hydraflush and started the engine, it took 10 minutes or more to get the pump primed and pumping fluid. Steadily the car rose up, no creaking or leaking so that was good. Next task was to check to see if the front right flexible joint leaked so I propped the brake pedal with the jack handle. No leak! Next I bled the brakes for 5 minutes each back into the LHM tank to help circulate the Hydraflush. Wheels on next and move the car onto the front drive so that I could sweep up and get better all round access.

I spent a few hours on Sunday doing a few bits and pieces, checked the front right caliper and had to rotate the piston to allow the 'nub ' on the brake pad to sit in the piston notch.

Monday was a near full day putiing back all the little bits and pieces, washer filler 'trumpet', cleaned out the scuttle, oiled up the various linkages in the scuttle, replaced the plastic trim. Next came a thorough wash of the car to remove all the moss, algea and general dirt that had built up, a toothbrush came in usefull around the rubbers and door trims. The Lacquer (?) has really started to peel along the edge of the left front wing and door. A fair amount of time was spent trying to clean up the black but now grey plastic, unfortunately I've run out out Autoglym Bumper stuff, it's the best thing I've found upto now for bringing trim back to life.

On Tuesday it was time to tackle the front left ABS sensor that wouldn't fit in the hub carrier. A gentle sanding with a sanding drum on a rotary tool soon had that problem fixed. Now although the part number I'd bought the sensor under matched what I needed it was obviously different, the lead was slightly shorter and the rubber mountings fastened to the lead were different and in the wrong places. With a new Stanley knife blade I carefully cut through the rubber mountings and peeled them off, I did the same with the broken sensor, glued the mounting from the broken sensor lead around the replacements lead being careful to glue the rubber to itself and not the lead to allow adjustment. This allowed me to thread the sensor lead into the same path as the original. Now was the time to find out if the sensor would work with the wheels moving. With the whole front of the car jacked up I could spin the wheels, in first and second at idle no faults showed but I thought maybe the ABS ECU wouldn't until 15 MPH and above had been registered. Something an MOT tester told me once about a note on their system about XM ABS systems, which had proved to be true, during the MOT of the 2.5 the ABS light had come up during the braking test, the note on their system said to take the vehicle on the road to increase the rate of rotation of the wheels, sure enough the light went out and the 2.5 passed. Anyhow in third I took the 2.1 up to 25 MPH and no faults showed. So the two things that I thought would be a problem were fine. That ABS sensor was £40 well spent.

Steve.

The XM passed it's MOT on Tuesday afternoon (17th.) with just an advisory for lack of handbrake reserve but apparently it was very well balanced so I must have got the rebuild OK.

Driving to the MOT it smoked alarmingly during the first few attempts at hard acceleration. I had to stop within half a mile to adjust hydraulic pump belt tension but after that it was fine. The smoke died away so I guess it was the extra oil I put into the cylinders to protect them during the rebuild.

So how does it go? Well it doesn't feel that powerful, maybe that's because I'm used to the A Class which develops around 120 bhp or maybe there's a boost leak. The turbo does whistle somewhat so I need to hook up a proper gauge and see what's what. It could be that I've missed tightening a hose clip. At some stage I'm going to set the pump timing with the dial gauge so that I know it's right, I marked the pump mounting when I setup the other pump but I'm not sure that means it's right for the replacement pump.

The clutch seems smooth and reasonably light, hopefully a few miles on it will improve it further. The brakes seem a little strange but that could be because I haven't driven a Citroen for over a year. I think that a further bleeding session would be a good idea in any case.

The real niggle at the moment is the lack of a floating ride, I've yet to systematically check it over but it feels as if it's not going into 'soft' mode. I've dug out the Lexia but the laptop needs setting up again but that shouldn't take long. I don't know that much about Hydractive 1 (1.5) but it can't be that different to Hydractive 2, just 1 controlling solenoid instead of 2.

So it's seem that I'll be at Wetherby this weekend. I hope to see some of you there!

Steve.

Well the car made it to Wetherby and back on Saturday.

I'd spent the previous couple of days going over the engine again. I timed in the injection pump, it was 0.01mm out which although I adjusted to the recommended 0.88mm it's possible that tolerances could be more than this.

The cam bolt and injection pump bolt were thread locked for peace of mind. The increasingly bad leak was traced to the bleed hose that goes from the thermostat housing to the cam carrier cover bolt. The molded end had become cracked and split. Fortunately I had one on the spare engine.

The car does have some niggles which need attention. The amount of hissing from the FDV seems excessive when stopped and in general driving around town can be heard in regular short bursts. On acceleration the front rises up and the rear squats excessively which is then followed by the front dropping very low. At times it feels as if there isn't much in the way of suspension travel but when parked the ride height seems OK. The strange thing is that when parked the suspension doesn't seem to have much movement in it whilst in soft mode. I know that the rear end needs some attention, hopefully soon I'll get time to remove, strip and clean the HC and the Hydractive valve. I could do with getting the parts together to build a pressure gauge, has anyone else done this?

I've found that putting the suspension into sport mode does indeed switch the suspension setting, this surprised me because I thought that at this RP it would be using a later version of the Hydractive system.

Steve.