There's not much been posted yet so I thought I'd kick things off with the current task.

This is also posted on the other forum so I apologize to users of that forum for boring them twice.

It started with the sale of the 2.0 TCT Exclusive LPG and purchase of a 1993 2.1 SED. I bought it via Ebay and traveled to collect it via train. This turned out to be a lovely day out despite the first train leaving at 5.25 AM and 2 connections.

This was the TCT -


The car had a badly leaking heater matrix so I took tools and piping to bypass it and drive the car home. As it turned out I had to buy some bigger piping locally. So with this fitted I drive it home. This is my first series 1 (1.5) XM and I must say that apart from the useless passenger mirror I love it, the dash, the steering wheel (single spoke fitted) that allows a nice clear view of the clocks, etc.

The car's in generally good condition but the engine was very oily and was becoming increasingly hard to start, the clutch was heavy too. So I thought it would be a good idea to give it a thorough top end rebuild just like I had with the TCT the previous year. The cause of the hard starting seemed to be down to a serious leak on the injector pump (Bosch VE type).

The clutch has already been changed for a Valeo that bought from AEP for a good price. The clutch housing has been cleaned out, the folk rod removed and polished and new bushing fitted (£4.35 from the local dealer).

From this -


To this - Note DIY clutch tool in the bottom of the hosuing.


The head is now off and at the machine shop for broken stud removing, a good clean up in their hot cleaner and a light skim. The valve gear has been cleaned up in a heated ultrasonic bath, the valves are yet to be polished to improve air flow and hopefully delay the onset of build up. Currently I'm stripping down the turbo in readiness for it's rebuild.

Here's how the head came off -


And here's the block -


Steve.

Hi All,

After much more work here's how the lump currently looks -


I bought myself a grit blasting cabinet to help clean up the parts and I have to say it works a treat. It keys the aluminium surface just right ready for priming and painting (the water pump housing was degreased, grit blaster, primed and painted).

Steve.

More progress -

Polished ports and valves-





NOTE - The wrong support bracket has been fitted to the turbo!




Steve.

Following a quick cleanup of the engine I now need to fit new rack gaiters. I may have caused the splits by using too much lock whilst the rack was unconnected to the hubs.


For reference here's how the subframe area looks without the rack-








Here's just how muck can get trapped in the valves, the tank LHM was bright green, 40 minutes in the ultrasonic cleaner got the height corrector clean-


I decided to cut the 'front' off the unused fuel heater. Here's how they look, following this a good filing down finished off the job-


And here's how it looks in situ, much tidier-


Steve.

The steering rack has now been cleaned, stripped, painted and reassembled. New Citroen gaiters and a track rod end fitted. Inbetween waiting for paint to dry or parts to arrive I removed the Hydractive block and the Height Corrector, cleaned them off, stripped them and stuck them in a heated Ultrasonic cleaner for about 40 minutes. The subframe was thoroughly cleaned, Hammerited where needed (3 coats after rust cure on the front edge) and finally Waxoyled.


I decided to polish the steering rack cover hoping it will reflect more heat and stay clean.


The gearbox in primer and nearly ready for it's top coats-


Steve.

All looks very clean and shiny Steve, wouldn't like to do mine for me ... would you?

Peter

That's a nice offer Peter but at this rate mine won't get finished.

Steve.

I hope its ready for next years cxm Steve, i would really like to see the finnished project

D

After a lengthy delay work has restarted on the rebuild.

The injector pump is back on, the last nooks and crannies of the gearbox casing painted. I'm just in the process of getting together a cam belt kit. A genuine tensioner came off Ebay for just over £20 which is handy. The idler pulley from AEP has cost around £28, I did buy one from GSF for £11 but it's going back because it's plastic.



Luckily I've won an auction for a complete XUD11 not far away so that will probably end up donating it's injectors to get mine up and running.

Steve.

After the recent Bank Holidays and good weather, more progress has been made on the XM.

At this stage the new the timing parts have been fitted and the engine rotated several times to check that nothing clashes and the timing pins can go back in. I also used this to prime the oil pump/system.

After the engine was in location I spun it over for a few seconds without the injectors fitted to pump some oil around it. Threading the main loom took some time to get right because I wanted it to go in the tidiest locations that wouldn't risk chafing. Self amalgamating tape has been used to bind up any exposed wires and openings where the loom exits the flexible plastic conduit.

I finally found my dial test gauge so had to strip some parts back off the engine to allow it to fit. This isn't something I've tried to do before so I've got my fingers crossed.


Steve.

Well the attempts to start the engine didn't work. Basic checks seemed to indicate that no fuel was being delivered to the injectors. Due to a urge to get things moving I swapped out the injection pump from the one off the spare engine I bought. I set this up using the dial gauge. After a bit of cranking the injector pipes started to leak fuel (I'd left them loose to enable them to prime). Tightening up the pipes allowed the engine to start but boy is it rough and smokey. The engine was only run for a few seconds because it's cooling system is still in bits.

It could be that the reason for the rough running is that the hydraulic tappets haven't yet filled with oil. During the rebuild I squeezed out all I could or I've made a mess of the timing. So rebuilding continues.

Problems ahead including rebuilding the calipers, the parking brake mechanism is proving difficult to compress. Also getting hold of a DIN flaring tool that capable of producing a flare on the steel pipe that connects to the flexibles. It's seem that flare tools capable of working on steel are much more expensive and I'm reluctant to spend £100 on a tool I'll use once. Tool hire shops don't seem to have flare tools for hire.

Steve.

Here's how it looks with it's struts in place. I forgot to put the drop link in place before slotting the strut into the hub carrier, I haven't bolted it all up yet and as you can see there a healthy smear of copper grease on the bottom of the strut so it shouldn't take much to pull it apart again.


I managed to flare the brake pipe using a machine mart flaring tool. The Flare isn't perfectly symmetrical so I'm going to have to keep an eye on it.

Steve.

From a few days ago...

Well it seems I've made some kind of mistake on the engine rebuild. Currently the engine will start reluctantly, try to cut out unless rev'd, knock like hell and smokes like a James Bond special. Adjusting the injection pump timing by rotating the pump has little effect. All the pulleys pin fine but what I'm wondering is if I pinned the injector pump using the wrong hole(s)? I suppose that the position of the woodruff key could give a clue if I knew what it's location was when the crank was pinned.

The pump and injectors worked fine when removed from the other engine.

After tea I went and had a look at the spare engine, slotted on my none working pump and timed & pinned the engine, just like I have the one in the car. It's just as shown in the manual, the keyway is at 11 o clock so the rod slots into the flywheel, the cam pins with a single bolt and the fuel pump with two bolts. So I slipped the timing belt back on, tensioned it as per Haynes gave it another 2 turns of the crankshaft and it 'pinned up' in all three places without any trouble.

That looked just like I'd done with the car so, I stripped the car engine of the bit's and pieces needed to remove the timing belt covers then rotated the crankshaft until I could 'pin' the flywheel. At this the the other timing pins could be inserted into the camshaft and injector pump. No problems visible, no slackness in the belt, no need to 'jiggle' the crankshaft to get the pins in.

Next bit I checked was under the cam cover. with the engine 'pinned' the valves nearest the injector pump were fully closed (off the cam?). This seemed correct to me so I thought I'd check the cam followers visually to see that all was OK. They were but I'm not sure the hydraulic tappets are pumping up. On the valves that aren't 'on cam' the rockers can be jiggled around a little bit and the tappets slightly depressed. If these tappets aren't pumping up then wouldn't that lead to lower compression in the affected cylinders and in turn to poor or no combustion?

Well after another two evenings the tappets have been removed from the spare engine and fitted into the engine in the car. They were given a good wipe over to remove all the existing surface oil before being given a liberal coating of new stuff and a few squirts into the casting holes. The top was rebuilt. The engine timing carefully done and double checked, all OK. Finally I was ready to start the beast and..... it's exactly the same. Hard to start, knocks like hell, smokes like the devil and dies after roughly 20 seconds of nursing it.

So back to square one. Are the piston rings sticking after being laid up for a year with couple of squirts of oil in the cylinders? Is it fuel problem, if so how, the pump/injectors and filter came off the other engine. Could it be that the head gasket supplied is the wrong thickness - but surely it wouldn't make that much difference?

Well I've bought a Dieseltune DX511 a compression testing kit so maybe that can give an answer.

A couple of points have occurred to me, I didn't use the injector pipes off the spare engine, this shouldn't make any difference but at this stage I'm clutching at straws. Another test could be to rig up a spare pipe and injector in a jar and check that there's a good squirt from them, not just pattern but power.

Last Night -

In yet another attempt to fix the problem I decided to have a quick tea and get straight on with the XM. It occurred to me whilst at work that the diesel in the tank was half veg oil and had been standing for a year, that the last time I'd had a diesel behave that badly was when I bought a bad batch of bio, that time it had been the 2.5 TD. On that trip to work it was hard to start, smoked like a demon and was gutless. When I stripped the fuel filter and pick up on the 2.5 I found it was covered in slime.

Here's the photo of the 2.5s filter and pick up -






So with this in mind I rigged up an inline fuel filter, tubing and funnel suspended from the bonnet 'hook'. I filled the filter with fresh real diesel and held my breath. No difference.

In a fit of desperation I decided to swap the injectors back to the originals.

Just to recap, the original injectors weren't used because they ended up going through the hot caustic bath at the engine shop - at least I think they did, the head was returned with the injectors still in place. The injectors I put into the engine during the rebuild came from the spare engine that I'd seen running OK.

It fired up after a bit of cranking but didn't sound much different, a quick check under the bonnet revealed a leaking injector/pipe joint, this was nipped up and the others checked again. This time the engine fired up easily and ticked over without blipping the throttle. So I slackened off the pump and rotated it to check it's effect. Sure enough as it was advanced the engine took on a hard knocking sound and sped up, when the timing was retarded by rotating the pump the revs dropped and the engine became quieter. In the end I locked off the pump at the markings I made when I timed it up using the dial gauge. At this it ticks over fine, revs OK, sounds reasonable but smokes a little.

Following this success, this faulty injectors are going in for a service to the local Bosch diesel specialist and rebuilding the drivetrain and hydraulics continues. Once the car is mobile again I can get the spare engine stowed in the garage and rebuild that.

I suppose the question is what happened to the injectors that stopped them working as they should? Did removing them with the impact wrench effect them, could it have loosened gunk inside them that blocked the tips? I'd have never believed that those injectors could have caused so much trouble unless I'd seen it myself.

Steve.

Here's how I rebuilt the parking brake mechanism.

BIG thanks to ANDERS for the how to info!

Step one -


Step two -


One down, one to go! The hub nut still needs torquing down then the cap and pin fitting.


Here's the bumper insert back in place after a good rub down, painting and the cavity waxing.


Steve.