Citroën Saxo East Coast a.k.a. the Green Bogie
Discussion
Hello everyone!
Although newly registered, I should probably point out I've been a long time lurker around these here parts.
Anyway, onto the main course. The story starts about 2 months ago when (still without a car myself at this point) I was busy working on a small project and I had a call from my dear mum at the base of the stairs. Cutting all the breathless conversation out and getting right to the point, it had appeared that upon reaching our car park which is basically two with one leading up to another, her car had given a somewhat uncomfortable jerk and wheezed to death. Being the type person she is, this frightened her a little whilst I was cursing under my breath the whole way out to the car which had been coerced just past the entrance to the upper car park.
After giving it a brief look and turning it over on the starter I was initially flummoxed I have to say at which point I called a good friend whom with which I have done some small servicing on the car in the past. I should probably mention at this point that it had been agreed between us that the timing belt looked in need of a change and that we'd do it in a fortnight when time allowed. This made him suggest lifting the top shroud off the belt area to check said part...
I gulped after removing it. The worst possible result had occurred. The timing belt stood a proud 2 inches clear of the cam pulley and after giving the rear stretch of belt a sharp tug, quickly showed the gigantic tear that had come about. Cue the next half hour or more spent staring at the bay and alternating between cursing our bad luck, decision to wait another week and french tins in general.
However! Despite the arseache this then caused, having to find her a new car (she eventually settled on a Fiesta mk3 1.25 (black Freestyle) found via autotrader, after a quick bit of persuasion on my part (having spent a good deal of the grant from uni for servicing on the car previously and paying the deposit on the Fiesta, I became the new owner of the Saxo. After a friend of mine had finished taking out his displeasure for french cars out on the... car with permanent marker we set about removing the air kit and other ancillaries that proved to be in the way.
After this we moved to removing the cylinder head and marvelling at just how disgustingly carbon'd and dirty the head and pistons were as well as the state of the head gasket and the bay in general. There was a small accident with the coil pack mount though; at no point have I ever seen anyone mention that Citroën use the freaking mount to cap off a oil gallery from the head! 'course this meant that oil ended up going across 3-4 unplugged connectors etc further making things grotty! All I can figure is they must have previously mounted a dizzy on that area.
Having not been worked on to this extent (or having had this much work done to it even) 9/10 bolts, nuts etc. did not want to removed themselves from their existing spots! Suffice to say it took a lot of plusgas to remove the head bolts and a few others. At this point calls were made, trips were embarked upon and parts and tools/items were bought including nice big ol' square washer plates and hex bolts to hold down the wet liners for the cylinders. Various cleaning fluids like degreaser, paraffin and a few brushes were grabbed. A timing belt kit comprising a new belt, water pump and shiny tensioner pulley was one new piece of the puzzle, all new valves since the old ones were severely bent and valve grinding kit.
In this time, we'd taken the cylinder head to my friends house and to his shed, great place, to scrape, clean and refit with brand new valves. At the same time the engine bay was getting a brief clean. In the coming weeks, I also purchased some new oil and filter for the car. Given the age and usage of the car I also removed the oil pickup and cleaned that off while staring at the awful colour of the bearings and bottom end. I also grimaced at the state of the front brakes, something to be sorted soon! After the head had been completed it soon took up residence in the back seat of the car while we got the bay cleared a little. Then came refitting of the head, refitting of the rocker arrangement and other bits and bobs, tensioner pulley, intake mani, throttle body (cleaned up quite nicely with a bit of scraping and washing in the sink!), airbox (but not the rest of the air piping and EGR) and most anything that had been removed like the exhaust mani, down pipe and ECU. Why is it that when refitting you always end up with the wrong bolts/screws and less of them than before?? Rather irritating I must say. A small argument with the spring loaded bolts for the downpipe to centrepipe fixing ended up with just large bolts being used instead.
Next came timing up an engine completely out of time, fun when you've never ever touched one before or have any prior experience!
Being an old french tin doesn't really help either as it turned out that while there was a fixing point on the cam pulley/cylinder head there wasn't on the crank pulley/block, instead the bottom end is timed up via a well hidden hole to the flywheel! After a prior experience contacting a Citroën dealer about a wet liner clamp only to be told that a) the bloke had never been asked for a tool before and b) they had absolutely no record of one, we quickly decided it was pointless asking about the 'special' SEEM tension measuring tool and instead settled on (well I did) using an extension bar for a socket stuck inbetween the tensioner pulley and a flange on the block and applying pressure to keep the belt taught while I did the pulley nut up nice 'n tight.
The remainder of the work at that point really just consisted of ensuring everything crucial had been fixed down and wasn't going to foul any moving parts or anything that would get hot, the old timing belt came in useful here by way of keeping a wad of cable away from the timing belt. After connecting all pipes and sensors and reinstalling the battery, then came priming the fuel system which went smoothly. Next was probably the most eagerly awaited moment of all! Would it start? Had we in our infinite wisdom forgotten that all important sensor? Was all the hard work to be undone in a single stroke by a part eager to break?
Turns out the answer was no, our hard work over the last month was not in vain and was quickly rewarded by the car firing into life! ...before it promptly spluttered and died 5 seconds later. I quickly figured it would need a little 'help' (for a long time before it had required a helping hand firing into life) and started it again and stabilised it at which point we stood back to admire a car we thought would never run again!
It's been probably near a month since that point but since then I have not been lazy! As you can probably see from the many photos, the interior was in a sad state, having been neglected for most of its life. Naturally, I felt like ripping it out at which point I laid into it and gave it a thorough cleaning with the hardest brush I could find and my trusty, ever reliable DC07. The seats have also had the same treatment which included spray shampoo cleaner, vast improvement over what it was before. Also stripped and cleaned the rest of the interior save for the dash. Gave the exterior a well needed hand wash too!
Sadly, my awesome neighbour who owns a 1982 Capri (that he'd just gotten running and more or less finished for the moment with a overhauled version of his previous 9.4l V8) moved away near the start of this project but before he did, I received a gift from him in the form of a very neat tachometer from Autometer that he'd had knocking around in a box for quite some time. This required getting some cheap cable from a shop and a bit of soldering but I must say, I enjoy having a tach in the car now that works compared to none at all!
Future plans from here at the moment are to get the front brakes serviced and replaced (have got a brake kit consisting of new discs and pads on the way) so new fluid and probably master cylinder too given the state of the current one, some welding to repair rust damage in areas and probably something resembling a half decent air kit. Full licence and a job to continue funding would be nice too!
Hopefully I haven't bored you all to death It's been a long project thus far but very enjoyable and I have to say, I finally appreciate people saying french tins are great to work on. Thanks for reading!
I'll get photos stuck in tomorrow when I get a chance and they're uploaded.
Although newly registered, I should probably point out I've been a long time lurker around these here parts.
Anyway, onto the main course. The story starts about 2 months ago when (still without a car myself at this point) I was busy working on a small project and I had a call from my dear mum at the base of the stairs. Cutting all the breathless conversation out and getting right to the point, it had appeared that upon reaching our car park which is basically two with one leading up to another, her car had given a somewhat uncomfortable jerk and wheezed to death. Being the type person she is, this frightened her a little whilst I was cursing under my breath the whole way out to the car which had been coerced just past the entrance to the upper car park.
After giving it a brief look and turning it over on the starter I was initially flummoxed I have to say at which point I called a good friend whom with which I have done some small servicing on the car in the past. I should probably mention at this point that it had been agreed between us that the timing belt looked in need of a change and that we'd do it in a fortnight when time allowed. This made him suggest lifting the top shroud off the belt area to check said part...
I gulped after removing it. The worst possible result had occurred. The timing belt stood a proud 2 inches clear of the cam pulley and after giving the rear stretch of belt a sharp tug, quickly showed the gigantic tear that had come about. Cue the next half hour or more spent staring at the bay and alternating between cursing our bad luck, decision to wait another week and french tins in general.
However! Despite the arseache this then caused, having to find her a new car (she eventually settled on a Fiesta mk3 1.25 (black Freestyle) found via autotrader, after a quick bit of persuasion on my part (having spent a good deal of the grant from uni for servicing on the car previously and paying the deposit on the Fiesta, I became the new owner of the Saxo. After a friend of mine had finished taking out his displeasure for french cars out on the... car with permanent marker we set about removing the air kit and other ancillaries that proved to be in the way.
After this we moved to removing the cylinder head and marvelling at just how disgustingly carbon'd and dirty the head and pistons were as well as the state of the head gasket and the bay in general. There was a small accident with the coil pack mount though; at no point have I ever seen anyone mention that Citroën use the freaking mount to cap off a oil gallery from the head! 'course this meant that oil ended up going across 3-4 unplugged connectors etc further making things grotty! All I can figure is they must have previously mounted a dizzy on that area.
Having not been worked on to this extent (or having had this much work done to it even) 9/10 bolts, nuts etc. did not want to removed themselves from their existing spots! Suffice to say it took a lot of plusgas to remove the head bolts and a few others. At this point calls were made, trips were embarked upon and parts and tools/items were bought including nice big ol' square washer plates and hex bolts to hold down the wet liners for the cylinders. Various cleaning fluids like degreaser, paraffin and a few brushes were grabbed. A timing belt kit comprising a new belt, water pump and shiny tensioner pulley was one new piece of the puzzle, all new valves since the old ones were severely bent and valve grinding kit.
In this time, we'd taken the cylinder head to my friends house and to his shed, great place, to scrape, clean and refit with brand new valves. At the same time the engine bay was getting a brief clean. In the coming weeks, I also purchased some new oil and filter for the car. Given the age and usage of the car I also removed the oil pickup and cleaned that off while staring at the awful colour of the bearings and bottom end. I also grimaced at the state of the front brakes, something to be sorted soon! After the head had been completed it soon took up residence in the back seat of the car while we got the bay cleared a little. Then came refitting of the head, refitting of the rocker arrangement and other bits and bobs, tensioner pulley, intake mani, throttle body (cleaned up quite nicely with a bit of scraping and washing in the sink!), airbox (but not the rest of the air piping and EGR) and most anything that had been removed like the exhaust mani, down pipe and ECU. Why is it that when refitting you always end up with the wrong bolts/screws and less of them than before?? Rather irritating I must say. A small argument with the spring loaded bolts for the downpipe to centrepipe fixing ended up with just large bolts being used instead.
Next came timing up an engine completely out of time, fun when you've never ever touched one before or have any prior experience!
Being an old french tin doesn't really help either as it turned out that while there was a fixing point on the cam pulley/cylinder head there wasn't on the crank pulley/block, instead the bottom end is timed up via a well hidden hole to the flywheel! After a prior experience contacting a Citroën dealer about a wet liner clamp only to be told that a) the bloke had never been asked for a tool before and b) they had absolutely no record of one, we quickly decided it was pointless asking about the 'special' SEEM tension measuring tool and instead settled on (well I did) using an extension bar for a socket stuck inbetween the tensioner pulley and a flange on the block and applying pressure to keep the belt taught while I did the pulley nut up nice 'n tight. The remainder of the work at that point really just consisted of ensuring everything crucial had been fixed down and wasn't going to foul any moving parts or anything that would get hot, the old timing belt came in useful here by way of keeping a wad of cable away from the timing belt. After connecting all pipes and sensors and reinstalling the battery, then came priming the fuel system which went smoothly. Next was probably the most eagerly awaited moment of all! Would it start? Had we in our infinite wisdom forgotten that all important sensor? Was all the hard work to be undone in a single stroke by a part eager to break?
Turns out the answer was no, our hard work over the last month was not in vain and was quickly rewarded by the car firing into life! ...before it promptly spluttered and died 5 seconds later. I quickly figured it would need a little 'help' (for a long time before it had required a helping hand firing into life) and started it again and stabilised it at which point we stood back to admire a car we thought would never run again!
It's been probably near a month since that point but since then I have not been lazy! As you can probably see from the many photos, the interior was in a sad state, having been neglected for most of its life. Naturally, I felt like ripping it out at which point I laid into it and gave it a thorough cleaning with the hardest brush I could find and my trusty, ever reliable DC07. The seats have also had the same treatment which included spray shampoo cleaner, vast improvement over what it was before. Also stripped and cleaned the rest of the interior save for the dash. Gave the exterior a well needed hand wash too!
Sadly, my awesome neighbour who owns a 1982 Capri (that he'd just gotten running and more or less finished for the moment with a overhauled version of his previous 9.4l V8) moved away near the start of this project but before he did, I received a gift from him in the form of a very neat tachometer from Autometer that he'd had knocking around in a box for quite some time. This required getting some cheap cable from a shop and a bit of soldering but I must say, I enjoy having a tach in the car now that works compared to none at all!
Future plans from here at the moment are to get the front brakes serviced and replaced (have got a brake kit consisting of new discs and pads on the way) so new fluid and probably master cylinder too given the state of the current one, some welding to repair rust damage in areas and probably something resembling a half decent air kit. Full licence and a job to continue funding would be nice too!
Hopefully I haven't bored you all to death
It's been a long project thus far but very enjoyable and I have to say, I finally appreciate people saying french tins are great to work on. Thanks for reading!I'll get photos stuck in tomorrow when I get a chance and they're uploaded.
Edited by jakk248 on Tuesday 30th September 00:45
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