Neal R19
Well-Known Member
The Clio has been with us now for 3 years and has served us well, doing well over 50,000 (mostly) trouble free miles year round in all weathers. But I wanted something bigger that I can more easily put bikes in the back and so on. And just a bit nicer. Looking around it became clear the Citroen Xsara is unloved and overlooked by most and therefore offers better value than the usual suspects. Even an older Pug 306 (which is essentially the same car as the Xsara) is more expensive. A mk1 Megane would have been another option and in fact would have made a lot of sense given the chassis is very similar to the 19 and the 1.4 engine the same as the clio’s but I ruled them out because I just hate them. No particularly rational reason, I just do.
So I looked at a couple of Xsaras but left them for one reason or another but then one came up on Gumtree just round the corner, literally a 1 minute walk away. 2000W reg, 88,000 miles, 11 months tax and looked like good nick. So I went for a peek.
It's just been MOTed and there's a receipt for £300ish for 2 new rear tyres, a lambda sensor and a few other bits and bobs to get it through.
I took it for a test drive. Started on the button and idled smoothly and quietly. Clutch runs a bit high but no problem. Gears all work fine, steers OK. Drives straight, pulls up OK but not as well as I'd like, no nasty noises. Fair enough.
I Immediately noted that the airbag light is on. Apparently these Xsaras are notorious for this and it's usually the connector/wiring under the seat at fault. The car's history has a service order in it from way back in 2001 that notes that the airbag light is on. Anyway as of this year it's an MOT failure so I have approx. 11 months to either fix the fault, or <ahem> make the light come on and go off at the right times.
Popped the bonnet and straight away saw that there is a modest oil leak from the rocker cover, you can see where the rubber gasket has perished, 5 minute job to replace that.
Opened the hatch and like a typical 19 the lock button is very stiff, will grab that out and lube it up. Main problem is that the hatch gas struts have completely failed, might as well not be there at all.
Body is OK... Few little trolley dents here and there and it looks like it's been washed with a kitchen scourer but hey, it is what it is - a cheap shit car to tool about in. Main thing is there is NO RUST!
Speaking with the owner, she said she thought the cambelt has been done by the last owner but there's nothing in the history to prove it. Have to assume it hasn't been done then says I, it's way past its mileage/date so that's a couple of hundred I'll need to pay out straight away. It's also just over the service interval so that's more money.
So we came to an agreement and I was the proud new owner of a Citroen Xsara. A 'Forte' model, no less. Whatever the hell that means. Probably one up from Poverty-spec or something.
Basically then the car just needs a couple of little things sorted out and a good service.
Things to do immediately:
cambelt
oil & filter
air filter
rocker cover gasket
spark plugs
Other than that it'll get the usual general thorough check over, under, in and around to satisfy myself that it's up to scratch to be put into daily use.
Things to do but not urgent:
boot lock lube
replacement boot struts
Coolant system flush
Brake system flush
Replace heater vent on passenger side (slats are busted)
Check condition of rear brake shoes and drums
I might treat it to a polish up and/or a visit to Baz's detailing centre. Then again, I might not bother.
1360cc TU3 engine, the E7J of the PSA world!
Can see where the rocket cover gasket has perished and cracked up.
edit: Just to add.. this is my first ever car with air-con. I don't think it actually works, but it's a step into the right direction eh!
Spend: £600
[Break=Service and cambelt]
Right, spent a leisurely day today doing the service items that needed doing before being pressed into use.
First off I began stripping down to get the old cambelt off before buying new bits. Reason being is that there seems to be 2 types available, a 104 tooth type and a 108 tooth type, looking on the net seemed to indicate that it would be a 108 teeth one but to save fannying about I wanted to check first.
So first off, had to remove the 2 aux belts - one runs the AC and PAS, the other the alternator. Jacked up the drivers side and remove the the wheel and arch liner for access to find the tensioners.
Now that I know where the tensioners are I reckon if I had to do it again I'd do the entire job from start to finish from the top without even jacking the car up.
Anyway, alternator one first, nice little threaded tensioner, bit fiddly to get to but not too bad.
Then the other one, you can see the slotted tensioner pulley on the right, little bolt goes vertically upwards to pull it down. Nice easy little arrangement.
Can also see that the 2 aux crank pullies are held on by 3 small bolts rather than one big FT one. Nice.
A shot looking up at the cambelt arrangement
This engine is different to a typical Retro-Renault one in that there are no timing pips on the pulleys, you have to just pin the pulleys in position and fit the belt.
So a 6mm bolt through the block into the back of the flywheel
And a 10mm bolt to peg the cam.
Then slacken off the belt tensioner and remove the belt. Old belt looked OK, but who knows.
So having counted the teeth and confirmed that it is indeed a 108 tooth one I went off to the factor to buy bits. This being pseudo-bangernomics I wasn't originally going to renew the tensioner but having got it off there was a slight bit of play in it and I figured it was probably past its best so in the end I relented and got the kit for an extra 20 quid.
Gave the block area around the cambelt a bit of a wash with white spirit and banged the new belt and tensioner on. The new belt did actually have white lines on it like a retro-renault one but I'm buggered if I know what they're supposed to line up with! Maybe there are timing pips on other models it fits.
The tensioner arrangement is like the Ren Energy engine, it's an eccentrically mounted bearing and you rotate it to take out the slack and at the same time do up the retaining nut. I detest this arrangement. One of the thing I like about working on the F7P is you have a proper adjuster for both the aux belt and cambelt. Why design an engine with a proper adjuster on the 2 aux belts but then have this shitty arrangement for the most important belt? I dunno, daft.
Anyway the pulley has an 8mm square hole for your tool to hold tension on. I didn't have anything to fit so I improvised.
Yup, that's my jack handle jammed in to force the roller over. Worked quite well actually. Don't try this at home, I'm a professional :lol:
Anyway, new belt on and tensioned, all belts refitted and lower covers replaced
After that I whipped off the rocker cover, cleaned and replaced the gasket and fitted the new plugs
The coilpack:
New gasket
Plugs are down the back, awkward to get to, universal joint extension required:
Old NGKs:
Then chucked in the new air filter. Old and new
With that lot done I started it up and went inside for a cup of tea while it warmed up so I could drain the oil
Shot of the oil filter position. Bit more convenient than the typical Ren position, mounted low down where you can get at it easily and it doesnt piss oil all down the front of the block the instant you loosen it off.
Old oil, manky:
Then I reset the service indicator
12,500 miles until next service!
The Contitech belt kit came with this cute little sticker, nice touch. I'll probably stick that in the glovebox or something, don't think it would last long in the engine bay. Next change at 165,000 miles! :lol:
So anyway, it's basically good to go!
Total spend :£665
[Break=Bits n Bobs]
April 2nd 2012
Over the weekend I took the boot lock out and stripped it down, cleaned the bits, thoroughly relubed and refitted, now works like new.
Now I just need to get hold of a couple of replacement gas struts for the tailgate. Should soon be getting them off a guy on the Xsara owners forum breaking a car.
I also repaired the passenger side air vent, all the vanes were dislodged. Basically the front fascia of the vent had parted ways with the body of it due to the clips being snapped for whatever reason. This allowed all the vanes to escape out of their little slots. Repair was just removing the vent from the dash, pulling it apart, replacing the vanes into position and glueing the whole assembly back together which traps the vanes into their pivot slots. Unfortunately one of the vanes is missing but I think I can live with that.
I gave the car a thorough wash, including cleaning the caked mud and grime from all the arches. Also gave the bonnet a clay/T-cut/polish/wax until I got bored, to see if it could be brought back up. I think with a little bit of effort the whole car can be made to look very smart.
I also bought a towbar locally for £25 including electrics. Will use this to carry a bike rack.
It’s a Witter I think, bit rusty but who cares? Had a quick look at fitting, seems fairly straightforward but I think it looks like I'll need to drop the exhaust to get the main bit on, we shall see.
Total spend :£690
[Break=clutch]
Feb 03 2013
Little update. All has been fine with the trusty machine except the clutch recently crapped out.
I first noticed a whining noise which changed depending on where the clutch pedal was and thought "uh-oh, that can only be the release bearing".
Seeing as it's cold out I hoped I would be able to nurse it through until the warmer months before investigating further as I don't really use it much. A week later at the pedal is starting to feel funny and there's a burning smell when you're sat still. Couple of days after that I'm sat on the drive, the pedal makes a horrible rumbling feel and I can't select any gears. Oh well.
£65 bought a genuine Citroen clutch kit off the bay and I got to work.
Got the box separated and...
Don't have to look too hard for the problem here :lol:
That's all the balls out of the release bearing sat in the bottom of the bellhousing. The rest of the bits dropped out.
The new bits. Actually thousands of miles of friction material left on it.
Also replaced the release fork bushes while I was at it. Weren't really needed but it was only £3-odd
New bits fitted
Chucked it all back together again and jobs a good 'un
Only took me a total of about 6 hours with only a trolley jack and some bits of wood to prop the engine up on.
MOT due in a couple of weeks...
[Break=End of the road]
Oct 18 2013
Well, all was going well with the old jalopy until a few weeks ago when I came back from work to find this on the drive:
"WTF is that" I thought, "has some tramp with diarrhoea come and used my driveway to relieve himself?"
The answer was of course no. When I'd parked up the previous day the Xsara had puked up a load of its oil and coolant.
No other pictures but suffice to say that oil was being forced into the coolant system and pressurised, and then out of the radiator filler cap/overflow.
No coolant in the oil though and I did another few hundred miles in the car after this happened with no problems.
So anyway, I couldn't be arsed to fix it again and besides, I wanted something
a) nicer
b) more fun
c) with working air con
so off to the scrappy it went and into my account went £150 in return.
Good times.
So I looked at a couple of Xsaras but left them for one reason or another but then one came up on Gumtree just round the corner, literally a 1 minute walk away. 2000W reg, 88,000 miles, 11 months tax and looked like good nick. So I went for a peek.
It's just been MOTed and there's a receipt for £300ish for 2 new rear tyres, a lambda sensor and a few other bits and bobs to get it through.
I took it for a test drive. Started on the button and idled smoothly and quietly. Clutch runs a bit high but no problem. Gears all work fine, steers OK. Drives straight, pulls up OK but not as well as I'd like, no nasty noises. Fair enough.
I Immediately noted that the airbag light is on. Apparently these Xsaras are notorious for this and it's usually the connector/wiring under the seat at fault. The car's history has a service order in it from way back in 2001 that notes that the airbag light is on. Anyway as of this year it's an MOT failure so I have approx. 11 months to either fix the fault, or <ahem> make the light come on and go off at the right times.
Popped the bonnet and straight away saw that there is a modest oil leak from the rocker cover, you can see where the rubber gasket has perished, 5 minute job to replace that.
Opened the hatch and like a typical 19 the lock button is very stiff, will grab that out and lube it up. Main problem is that the hatch gas struts have completely failed, might as well not be there at all.
Body is OK... Few little trolley dents here and there and it looks like it's been washed with a kitchen scourer but hey, it is what it is - a cheap shit car to tool about in. Main thing is there is NO RUST!
Speaking with the owner, she said she thought the cambelt has been done by the last owner but there's nothing in the history to prove it. Have to assume it hasn't been done then says I, it's way past its mileage/date so that's a couple of hundred I'll need to pay out straight away. It's also just over the service interval so that's more money.
So we came to an agreement and I was the proud new owner of a Citroen Xsara. A 'Forte' model, no less. Whatever the hell that means. Probably one up from Poverty-spec or something.
Basically then the car just needs a couple of little things sorted out and a good service.
Things to do immediately:
cambelt
oil & filter
air filter
rocker cover gasket
spark plugs
Other than that it'll get the usual general thorough check over, under, in and around to satisfy myself that it's up to scratch to be put into daily use.
Things to do but not urgent:
boot lock lube
replacement boot struts
Coolant system flush
Brake system flush
Replace heater vent on passenger side (slats are busted)
Check condition of rear brake shoes and drums
I might treat it to a polish up and/or a visit to Baz's detailing centre. Then again, I might not bother.
1360cc TU3 engine, the E7J of the PSA world!
Can see where the rocket cover gasket has perished and cracked up.
edit: Just to add.. this is my first ever car with air-con. I don't think it actually works, but it's a step into the right direction eh!
Spend: £600
[Break=Service and cambelt]
Right, spent a leisurely day today doing the service items that needed doing before being pressed into use.
First off I began stripping down to get the old cambelt off before buying new bits. Reason being is that there seems to be 2 types available, a 104 tooth type and a 108 tooth type, looking on the net seemed to indicate that it would be a 108 teeth one but to save fannying about I wanted to check first.
So first off, had to remove the 2 aux belts - one runs the AC and PAS, the other the alternator. Jacked up the drivers side and remove the the wheel and arch liner for access to find the tensioners.
Now that I know where the tensioners are I reckon if I had to do it again I'd do the entire job from start to finish from the top without even jacking the car up.
Anyway, alternator one first, nice little threaded tensioner, bit fiddly to get to but not too bad.
Then the other one, you can see the slotted tensioner pulley on the right, little bolt goes vertically upwards to pull it down. Nice easy little arrangement.
Can also see that the 2 aux crank pullies are held on by 3 small bolts rather than one big FT one. Nice.
A shot looking up at the cambelt arrangement
This engine is different to a typical Retro-Renault one in that there are no timing pips on the pulleys, you have to just pin the pulleys in position and fit the belt.
So a 6mm bolt through the block into the back of the flywheel
And a 10mm bolt to peg the cam.
Then slacken off the belt tensioner and remove the belt. Old belt looked OK, but who knows.
So having counted the teeth and confirmed that it is indeed a 108 tooth one I went off to the factor to buy bits. This being pseudo-bangernomics I wasn't originally going to renew the tensioner but having got it off there was a slight bit of play in it and I figured it was probably past its best so in the end I relented and got the kit for an extra 20 quid.
Gave the block area around the cambelt a bit of a wash with white spirit and banged the new belt and tensioner on. The new belt did actually have white lines on it like a retro-renault one but I'm buggered if I know what they're supposed to line up with! Maybe there are timing pips on other models it fits.
The tensioner arrangement is like the Ren Energy engine, it's an eccentrically mounted bearing and you rotate it to take out the slack and at the same time do up the retaining nut. I detest this arrangement. One of the thing I like about working on the F7P is you have a proper adjuster for both the aux belt and cambelt. Why design an engine with a proper adjuster on the 2 aux belts but then have this shitty arrangement for the most important belt? I dunno, daft.
Anyway the pulley has an 8mm square hole for your tool to hold tension on. I didn't have anything to fit so I improvised.
Yup, that's my jack handle jammed in to force the roller over. Worked quite well actually. Don't try this at home, I'm a professional :lol:
Anyway, new belt on and tensioned, all belts refitted and lower covers replaced
After that I whipped off the rocker cover, cleaned and replaced the gasket and fitted the new plugs
The coilpack:
New gasket
Plugs are down the back, awkward to get to, universal joint extension required:
Old NGKs:
Then chucked in the new air filter. Old and new
With that lot done I started it up and went inside for a cup of tea while it warmed up so I could drain the oil
Shot of the oil filter position. Bit more convenient than the typical Ren position, mounted low down where you can get at it easily and it doesnt piss oil all down the front of the block the instant you loosen it off.
Old oil, manky:
Then I reset the service indicator
12,500 miles until next service!
The Contitech belt kit came with this cute little sticker, nice touch. I'll probably stick that in the glovebox or something, don't think it would last long in the engine bay. Next change at 165,000 miles! :lol:
So anyway, it's basically good to go!
Total spend :£665
[Break=Bits n Bobs]
April 2nd 2012
Over the weekend I took the boot lock out and stripped it down, cleaned the bits, thoroughly relubed and refitted, now works like new.
Now I just need to get hold of a couple of replacement gas struts for the tailgate. Should soon be getting them off a guy on the Xsara owners forum breaking a car.
I also repaired the passenger side air vent, all the vanes were dislodged. Basically the front fascia of the vent had parted ways with the body of it due to the clips being snapped for whatever reason. This allowed all the vanes to escape out of their little slots. Repair was just removing the vent from the dash, pulling it apart, replacing the vanes into position and glueing the whole assembly back together which traps the vanes into their pivot slots. Unfortunately one of the vanes is missing but I think I can live with that.
I gave the car a thorough wash, including cleaning the caked mud and grime from all the arches. Also gave the bonnet a clay/T-cut/polish/wax until I got bored, to see if it could be brought back up. I think with a little bit of effort the whole car can be made to look very smart.
I also bought a towbar locally for £25 including electrics. Will use this to carry a bike rack.
It’s a Witter I think, bit rusty but who cares? Had a quick look at fitting, seems fairly straightforward but I think it looks like I'll need to drop the exhaust to get the main bit on, we shall see.
Total spend :£690
[Break=clutch]
Feb 03 2013
Little update. All has been fine with the trusty machine except the clutch recently crapped out.
I first noticed a whining noise which changed depending on where the clutch pedal was and thought "uh-oh, that can only be the release bearing".
Seeing as it's cold out I hoped I would be able to nurse it through until the warmer months before investigating further as I don't really use it much. A week later at the pedal is starting to feel funny and there's a burning smell when you're sat still. Couple of days after that I'm sat on the drive, the pedal makes a horrible rumbling feel and I can't select any gears. Oh well.
£65 bought a genuine Citroen clutch kit off the bay and I got to work.
Got the box separated and...
Don't have to look too hard for the problem here :lol:
That's all the balls out of the release bearing sat in the bottom of the bellhousing. The rest of the bits dropped out.
The new bits. Actually thousands of miles of friction material left on it.
Also replaced the release fork bushes while I was at it. Weren't really needed but it was only £3-odd
New bits fitted
Chucked it all back together again and jobs a good 'un
Only took me a total of about 6 hours with only a trolley jack and some bits of wood to prop the engine up on.
MOT due in a couple of weeks...
[Break=End of the road]
Oct 18 2013
Well, all was going well with the old jalopy until a few weeks ago when I came back from work to find this on the drive:
"WTF is that" I thought, "has some tramp with diarrhoea come and used my driveway to relieve himself?"
The answer was of course no. When I'd parked up the previous day the Xsara had puked up a load of its oil and coolant.
No other pictures but suffice to say that oil was being forced into the coolant system and pressurised, and then out of the radiator filler cap/overflow.
No coolant in the oil though and I did another few hundred miles in the car after this happened with no problems.
So anyway, I couldn't be arsed to fix it again and besides, I wanted something
a) nicer
b) more fun
c) with working air con
so off to the scrappy it went and into my account went £150 in return.
Good times.
Last edited by a moderator:
