Repairs
Cruise
Control Microswitch
Engine Bay
Door Wiring
Jacking Points
Front Suspension
Fluids
Splitter Box
Exhaust
Thermostat
Overheating
Rear Suspension
Vacuum Pressure Sensor
Fuel Pressure Regulator
Motor Mount
CRUISE CONTROL CLUTCH MICROSWITCH
September, 2001: The cruise control for this car didn't work when I got it. The cruise control is supposed to work like this:
Of course, I stupidly attacked the most difficult things first. I checked
the vacuum pump, the safety electro-valve and the vacuum hoses. It all
seemed okay. I was stumped. Then again, there's no real way of
testing the cruise control and fussing under the hood while the car is in your
garage, is there? (That is, short of jacking up the front wheels and
putting a brick on the accelerator pedal but I was loathe to do that in the
interest of safety.)
Then I got the wise idea of checking the brake pedal and clutch switches. I should have checked the condition of these switches first. These switches are normally open-circuit when the pedal is not depressed. When the clutch and/or brake pedal is depressed, these respective switches close a circuit that tells the safety electro-valve under the hood to dump vacuum to atmosphere. This brake switch was fine but the clutch switch wasn't....guess what....
The clutch switch actually bolts to the clutch pedal through which a hole exists for the microswitch to "pop" through. The theory is that when the driver uses his foot to press on the clutch pedal, he will also activate the clutch microswitch. When you press the clutch you should always hear a clicking sound from this switch. Well, I remembered that the previous owner had recently replaced all the pedal rubbers. When I pulled off the pedal rubbers I discovered that the switch was mis-adjusted and that the clutch pedal rubber exerted constant pressure on the micro-switch, thus closing the circuit 100% of the time, thus causing the elctro-valve to dump the vacuum created by the pump to the atmosphere 100% of the time. I readjusted the switch. Below is a picture of the clutch and switch with the pedal rubber removed:
Februrary, 2003: This, however, did not fix the cruise control system. ARRGHHH. I gave up for over one year. But suddenly over one year later I got to motivation to fix the cruise control system. I tried testing the electric cruise control pump. Okay, the vacuum pump works. I used a hand pump to introduce vacuum into the vacuum lines and was able to move the throttle butterfly move back and forth .... so I know the vacuum lines are all okay. So then I started testing the electrical side of the system courtesy of the cruise control electrical diagram kindly given to me by Daniel Schroeder in Germany. Thank you Daniel! The cruise control brain is in a small panel at the right hand side of the glovebox, and I tested all the resistances/voltages at the cruise control brain. Below is the excellent wiring diagram and translation that Daniel so kindly mailed me (in German!):
- Pneumatisches
Stellelement: vacuum diaphragm
- Unterdruckpumpe mit Elektroregelventil: vacuum pump with control valve
- Elektrosicherheitsventil: electrical *security* valve
- Elektroregelventil: electrical control valve (built into pump)
- Drehzahlbegrenzer: RPM security switch (opens at 6000 rpm)
- Bremsleuchten: brake light bulbs
- Bremslichtschalter: brake light switch
- Kupplungsschalter: clutch pedal switch
- Kombinationsschalter: cruise control controls
- Löschen: position "0" of said controls
- Beschleunigen/Speichern: position "+"
- Wiederaufnahme: position "="
- Hauptschalter: main switch
- Tachometerantriebswelle: speedometer shaft
- Elektronisches Steuergerät: control unit
After testing everything electrical and pulling out the crusie control brain (manufactured by Hella) I finally figured out that it was the actual cruise control switch that was faulty. Of course I'm making it sound simple right now; it actually took me MANY MANY HOURS of frustration to figure this out. MUCH FRUSTRATION. Did I mention that it was frustrating? Perhaps I knew it would be so frustrating which is why I put off fixing it for over a year after fixing the clutch pedal microswitch. Note that the resistance of the brakelight bulbs are about 3 to 4 ohms so if you're testing the resistance through the bulbs it should be about 3 to 4 ohms.
Anyways, there are two little contacts inside the cruise control switch that control the "+" and "0" and "=" operation of the switch. These contacts work because there are two little springs underneath the contacts that keep pressure constant against the "other side" of the circuit to which they are supposed to make contact. While my switch didn't look dirty inside, I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned (1.5 bottles of electrical contact cleaner!) and finally got the switch to work 85% of the time! So my cruise control works! But the springs have lost tension over time and the switch parts inside are so small and delicate that I fear taking it apart and retensionsing the springs. Some time down the road I wil; buy a new switch, but for now, it works! Usually if the switch isn't working I just press it again and it works, so its no big deal! But I'm very happy to have cruise control in such a car that so hungrily eats highway miles!
The wiring above the battery was an absolute mess. There were so many wires and relays going every which was above the battery that the battery was visually completely blocked by these wires! Moreover, the charcoal canister was mounted to the left of the battery by a bracket (apparently made of rust... :-) ) welded on by the grey market importer. This canister made it virtually impossible to remove the battery. The disc horn was missing and the foglights didn't work.
In the first picture, I cleaned up this wiring (now you can actually see the battery) and fixed the foglights (I traced the fault to a broken wire leading to a relay). Cleaning up this wiring took 3 days of cutting, splicing, soldering, heat shrink tubing, and taping. I replaced the battery with a slightly smaller Optima dry cell battery that has a higher amp-hours and CCA rating. I removed the charcoal canister and the rusty bracket. I also installed a disc horn here (the original one was missing) and replaced the old air horn with new ones even though the old ones worked (they were very rusty)
In the second picture, you can see the I sanded and painted the belt pulley cover and the throttle pulley cable cover. The old charcoal canister you can see is laying right there. I replaced it with a CXA one and bolt it underneath the fresh air tower.
The third picture shows the charcoal canister I purchased off of a CXA car and bolted to the underside of the fresh air intake tower. In this fourth picture note that I had to install a new washer tube (the clear one) from the windshield washer pump to the wiper arm housing. So that's why the windshield washer wasn't working! :-) That and the pump was clogged. I freed up the clog with a blast from a can of brake parts cleaner. Note to self, brake parts cleaner in my eye is very painful, move face away from aerosol can next time!
The wiring in the driver's door jamb had chafed and broken. As a result, the central door locking function was not reliable. I resoldered the broken bits in the door jamb and pulled new wire sections through the door. I also found an unused +!2 volt connector. Perhaps this is power for the electric door mirrors that my car did not come with?
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Note that I had to replace the pin switches that control the interior lights in all four doors. The front pin switches were inoperative and the rear pin switches were missing! The front pin switches were easy and straightforward to replace. The rears on the other hand.....when I went to install the switches in the rear they wouldn't fit! There wasn't enough clearance in the hole to push the switch all the way back in! Of course in my infinite wisdom I decided to use brute force to make the switches fit by modifying it with a dremel. Naturally that didn't work and I ended up destroying a switch and having to order another new one. That's when I found out by looking at another CX (do you know how hard it is to find a CX to look at in Illinois?) and discovering that the pin switches in the rear doors are set off from the door jamb by spacers! Sourcing spacers from a wrecked car solved the problem.
On the "Files" section of the CX mailing list there is a diagram on where to place jackstands and jacks under a CX in order to jack the car up without damaging the under-chassis longerons. Well, the diagram on this list is a JPEG file, and too much quality was lost in the conversion; the net effect was that I couldn't tell where the proper jackstand points are. I found another scan of this diagram, except this is a .GIF file and much more detailed. Since the file size itself is very large, you can click on the image below to get the full diagram (about 230 KB)
6/15/2002 - Gus and myself replaced the front suspension spheres and cylinders. I changed the front cylinders from 37mm to 35mm and drilled the center hole of on the new front spheres from 1.8mm to 2.1mm. The spheres are easier to remove than the oil filter, after you release the pressure from the suspension that is.
TIP: HAND TIGHTEN the spheres and the tighten them ever so slightly more with the oilfilter wrench or else they will be a pain to remove the next time. The front suspension is now quite a bit softer and now rides more like a floating DS!
TIP: When drilling the spheres use a highspeed electric drill and use some cutting oil on the bit to hold the shavings on the bit. Try to hold the spheres upsidedown when drilling so the shavings do not fall in the hole.
Also I replaced the front brake pads and adjusted the front parking brake.
8/28/2002 - Jeff and I replaced the front upper suspension arm balljoints. Most people remove the suspension arm from the car which is a big pain and then press out the balljoint on a press. Jeff made an ingenious tool that relies on a huge C-clamp to press out the balljoint from the arm without removing the arm from the car. Incredible! The process to 15 minutes on the first side and then 6 minutes on the second side. Remember to put the whole front of the car on jackstands so that you can use the jack to jack up the opposite side of the front suspension to unload the anti-rollbar so that we can separate the front control arm fron the spindle and get enough room for the C-clamp.
Februrary 2003 - I replaced the lower front suspension balljoints which were bad also. Lots of in and out play from the balljoints signified bad ball joints. Actually onle the driver's side balljoint was bad; the passenger side seemed fine, as if it were replaced recently. However, I replaced both sides anyways as I already had new balljoints for both sides in my possession. The procedured is straightforward. Remove the nut that hold the ball joint to the lower control arm. Then, use a pulling tool to separate the balljoint from the lower control arm. Then, remove the two bolts that hold the balljoint in place and pry the balljoint and the retaining metal shield from the hub assembly. Installation is the reverse of removal, but remember to use a new retaining shield.
6/8/2002 - Changed the coolant.
TIP: Mind the two coolant bleed screws at the water pump and at the back of the alloy head! You will get air bubbles when refilling the coolant and you will need to bleed out the trapped air. I like to fill the car with coolant, run the engine for a minute or two, then shut it off and open up the bleeder screw on the water pump. The coolant in the expansion tank will then drop, and I fill it back up with coolant again. Then I'll run the engine for another minute or two again, and then open up the bleeder on the back of the alloy head. This usually has lots of air trapped there and once I open up this bleeder screw I'll hear lots of hissing. When coolant runs out of this bleeder I'll close it and find that the expansion tank is empty again... Refill up with coolant.
There's also a bleeder at the top of the radiator on the passenger side but usually I find that air doesn't get trapped in the radiator.
I also changed the engine oil. I used Mobil 1 Synthetic Oil 15w50. I also changed the gearbox oil and used Redline MTL GL-4 (not corrosive to yellow metals [brass and copper] like GL-5 fluids) Shifting has improved enormously! I used to balk shifting into 2nd gear 50% of the time as the synchros would be uncooperative. Now, using redline MTL, the 2nd gear synchros are excellent and always shifts smoothly! Note that the fill plug for the gearbox is under the pulley cover for the belts. I only realized this AFTER I had filled the gearbox oil through the gearbox dipstick tube!
6/6/2002 - On top of the gearbox is a plastic gearbox about 3 inches by 5 inches by 2 inches. This plastic gearbox drives the speedometer cable and the DIRAVI steering cable that regulates how much hydraulic pressure to bleed off at speed for the steering. My steering was hypersentive and was almost dangerous to drive at speed. Also the speedometer did not work. After replacing the splitter box, the steering and the speedometer worked perfectly.
TIP: USE A RATCHETING BOX END WRENCH to remove the retaining bolts for the splitter box. If you are stupid like me you will be cheap and not buy a ratcheting wrench and attempt to use a regular wrench. It will take 3 hours to remove to bolt because you can barely get access to the bolt and can only turn it 1/16 of a turn each time
TIP: You don't have to remove the retaining bolt all the way out of its hole. You only have to remove it enough to pull out the splitter box.
TIP: Don't overtighten the retaining clamp for the DIRAVI cable or else the cable won't turn! Of course you will only realize this until after you have struggled mightily to reinstall the splitter box and then you will have to remove the splitter box again to un-overtighten the DIRAVI cable clamp! So its at this point that I bought a ratcheting box end wrench to speed up the process.
TIP: Don't the the ratcheting box end wrench stuck between the cross member and the transmission case! :-)
6/23/2002 - I had to replace the catalytic converter and the center resonator (center silencer?) because the matrix inside the converter and broken up and pieces had lodged themselves inside the center resonator. Lots of rattling. Finding a catalytic convertor to match the original that Andre Pol had installed during US importation was relatively easy. I didn't want to pay outrageous prices for the original OE Citroen center resonator (like I'd even be able to find one...) so I used a universal straight through glasspack for the center resonator. :-)
The center console area of CXes are always hot during extended running. So, while the catalytic converter and the center resonator were off I used some thermotec heat shield to ward off heat from the underneath; I attached it with sheet metal screws and washers and zip ties. The heat shield I bought is supposedly resistant to temperatures up to 2000 Farenheit. It seems to have worked though because the center console area is no longer hot! You can find the thermotec stuff here: http://www.thermotec.com/tt/muffler.html
Here are some pictures. From front to rear the exhaust goes from catalytic converter -> centerpipe -> center resonator.
THERMOSTAT
6/25/2002 - I found a readily available thermostat
here the United States that will most probably work with the Citroen CX. The
thermostat I found is a Robertshaw 751-180. Its available at many discount auto
parts stores. Its rated at 180 degrees Farenheit, which is 82 degrees Centigrade.
The Citroen one that I used for comparison is rated for 86 degrees Centrigrade.
Anyways, Robertshaw thermostats are well known in the States to be quality items;
do any Internet search on Robertshaw thermostats and you will find lots and
lots of people who have various domestic cars and import cars who have replaced
their OE thermostats with Robertshaw units for added cooling performance (lower
degree rating, etc) The Robertshaw is a nice quality brass/copper item and it
has a lifetime warranty. The best part is that the thermostat cost me US $9
and I only had to go down to the corner store to get it.
I took some pictures of the thermostat as compared to the Citroen one. The Robertshaw
one is to the left and the Citroen one (Vernet) is to the right. Note that the
Robertshaw thermostat openings on both sides of the thermostat has quite a bit
more open space than the original Citroen one; there's less metal in the way
for coolant to flow. The car is running hot lately. I don't know if its be cause
of the thermostat or not....I'll have to do some investigating.
7/2/2002 - Okay, so it got REAL HOT AND HUMID in lateJune here this year and I noticed that the car was overheating on the freeway, yes, on the freeway. I wasn't sure why. Usually the symptoms of overheating on a CX is overheating at low speed situations, usually caused by dodgy wiring to the radiator fan(s). First I wanted to make sure that the car wasn't running too lean thus causing the car to overheat, so I pulled out the spark plugs and determined that the old plugs looked okay, indicating proper fuel/air mixture. I replaced the spark plugs with the ones recommended from the Haynes manual, Champion L82YC. Equivalent spark plugs are NGK BP5HS and BP6HS (the 5 is slightly colder and the 6 is slightly hotter). The old spark plugs that the previous owner had installed were NGK BP6HS.
After installing the new sparkplugs the car was still overheating. (Actually I didn't expect new spark plugs to solve anything). I was fairly sure that that I had properly bled the cooling system from 6/8/2002 and running the heater produced even, consistent hot heat, so I was really really sure now that the cooling system was properly bled. Just to be sure, I bled the cooling system again, with no positive effect.
Was the water pump working okay? I got the car nice and hot and grabbed the upper radiator hose... it was nice and hot. So the water pump seemed okay and the thermostat seemed okay. Perhaps the thermostat was only opening half way though? This would get the upper radiator hose nice and hot but not allow the radiator to cool optimally. I kind of doubted it though....I suspected perhaps the radiator was just too clogged with gunk, as its was the original 17 year old radiator.
So I decided to change the easy stuff first and go after the thermostat. CAUTION!!!!! There are 3 bolts that hold in the thermostat housing. One of them is a blind bolt. These bolts are made of steel, and bolt into the waterpump housing, which is alloy. Whoever put in the old thermostat (whether the factory or some previous owner) probably didn't use antiseize compound I guessed, and the resulting dissimilar metal corrosion between the bolts and the housing would probably cause the bolts to seize and result in me shearing off the bolts if I wasn't careful. But YES, Jason is quite clever, and I smugly soaked the three bolts in penetrating lubricant overnight before attacking them.
So the next day, I promptly sheared off two of the three bolts. AAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MAJOR PAIN!!!! AHHHH!!!! This means I would have to remove the water pump, water pump spacer housing to head, belts, alternator, etc etc etc just to get remove the whole water pump spacer housing to removed the remnants of the bolts. ARRRGHHH!!!!! So I got crazy and decided if I going to go through so much pain, I'm going to go NUCLEAR on the whole cooling system. New water pump, new thermostat (the robertshaw one), new belts, new radiator, new sensors! Luckily my friend Gus was there to help! And this time I'd use anti-seize on the bolts. Actually the thermostat housing flange turned out to be so badly corroded that there was a big hole in it! So I replaced it.
Taking out the old radiator involves removing the electric fans and unbolting the AC condensor. The 2 below pictures show the car with the fans and the old radiator removed and the AC condensor just sitting there.....its helps to unbolt the front lower valence and remove the left headlight to unbolt the AC receiver/drier!
The electrics fans come straight out:
The first picture below shows the old radiator and the next three below pictures shows the new Valeo radiator. Its easily 50% lighter than the old one. I think the old one is black painted copper and the new one is aluminum. Note the new radiator temp sensor (which controls the operation of the electic fans) on the last picture (the picture showing the hose connections)
Lastly I replaced the 3 remaining coolant temperature senders/switches shown below:
Hooray! No more overheating on the freeway!!!!!! Painful job but very satisfying!
11/5/2002 - I moved to California. I met Peter Koine and Lon Price, Citroen mechanics in San Francisco and Santa Cruz respectively. Boy its nice to have professionals to help you out instead of having to do everything yourself. Peter helped me replace two cooling system hoses that I neglected to replace previously as a preventitive measure.... these two hoses are the one the go to and come from the oil cooler. I also changed the oil again with Mobil 1 15W50.
8/4/2002 - Gus and I renewed the rear suspension.
I replaced the spheres in the rear with new spheres that I drilled from 1.4mm
to 1.65mm. Coupled with the drilled new front spheres that I installed 2 months
ago, the car is like a magic carpet now! It has a fantastically soft ride, almost
as if it floats down the road! Its incredible as its ultra ultra soft! A BMW
this car is not, and I love it! :-)
We replaced the bearings in the rear suspension arms. The bearings on the right
side looked fine but the bearings on the left were all but destroyed. Looked
at the pictures below! Mostly this is a design flaw, there's no way to lubricate
the rear arm bearings so after a while the seal fails and dirt and water get
into the bearings. After replacing the bearings we drilled the rear suspension
to accept grease fittings so that I can pump grease into the bearings yearly
.... it should last forever now. :-)
Februrary, 2003 - I replaced the vacuum pressure sensor. This sensor is made by Ducelier and there are three electrical contacts and a vacuum port. Basically when there is lots of vacuum (like when the engine is idling) the resistance between the two outer contacts should be around 2000 ohms and the ignition computer then advances the ignition to a full 37 degrees before top dead center.. When the sensor detects atmospheric pressure (like when the engine is under heavy load) the resistance between the two outer contacts should be around 150 ohms or so and the ignition is not advanced.
The problem is that the failure mode of the sensor renders it stuck in high resistance ~2000 ohms. Therefore the engine ignition timing would always be advanced, irrespective of vacuum and hence, load. Consquently, this can damage the engine in short order, and Daniel Schroeder from Germany tells me that this situation is not uncommon. I discovered that my vacuum pressure sensor was indeed faults and consequently, replaced it.
Februrary, 2003 - If I let the car sit for a few hours and try to start it again the car will not start on the first try. It will turn over but not start. On the second try it will start instantly. If I then shut the car off and start it again immediately it will again start instantly. This is because the fuel system is not holding pressure over time.... fuel is draining back into the fuel tank. So I let the car sit for an evening and cracked open the nut from the fuel rail to the fuel pressure regualtor and sure enough, fuel did not shoot out. Fuel only dribbled out. This is usually for two reasons, as Bob Robinson on the CX-L mailing list tells me. First reason is that the fuel pressure regulator is faulty. The second reason is that the ball check valve on the fuel pump is dirty and not closing all the way, thus letting fuel drain back into the fuel tank. Since I had this same exact problem on my Volvo 240 (Bosch LH Jetronic on the Volvo vs. Bosch L Jetronic on the Citroen .... very similar!) a few years ago and the culprit turned out to be a faulty fuel pressure regulator, I changed the fuel pressure regulator on my Citroen. Naturally, since my name is Jason Leung and nothing ever turns out to be easy, this did not fix the problem. However, I did discover that the Bosch fuel pressure regulator for my car (Series 1 L-Jetronic CX) is Bosch part number 0 280 160 214. Please note that series 2 CX usually use a DIFFERENT fuel pressure regulator (usually 216, not 214)
Februrary, 2003 - The top motor mount for the engine has deteriorated. This motor mount is commonly known of 2.5 liter injected engines as a "porkchop" as it looks like a porkchop. Indeed, the porkchop motor mount is tasked with limiting the rotation of the engine forward and backwards, and goes bad once a year. What a pain. Others have discovered that the earlier upper motor mount for diesel CXes known as a "dogbone" (because it looks like a dogbone) fits well and is more durable than the porkchop.
Anyways, when this motor mount goes bad there is a lot of driveline lash and jumping on and off the accelerator is very irritating as it jerks the car a lot. So how do you replace it? Its very accesible and easy to do.... just be careful that when you remove the motor mount that the engine does not rotate forward and crash into the radiator, thus ruining your day.
Bernard from the CX-L mailing list advised me NOT to use a jack to hold the engine in place...which I was going to do. Of course, Jason Leung chooses the hard way again. In fact, Bernard advised me to use ratcheting tie-down straps to hold the engine in place from the top .... one end looped around some hard-point on top of the engine and another end looped around some hard-point in the engine bay. This would be enough to prevent the engine from smashing into the radiator once the bolts for the motor mount were removed, claimed Bernard.
By buddy Jim Ochi, a well known BMW M3 autocrosser who removed his Siemens engine management system and replaced it with an aftermarket Electromotive unit thus gaining lots of power, happened to have free time one day and had some ratcheting tie-down straps for us to use. Well it turns out that this ratcheting tie-down strap method as suggested by Bernard is ingenious indeed; it worked fabulously and Jim and I replaced the porkchop mount with the dogbone mount in about 15 minutes from start to finish! Excellent!
Naturally in order to celebrate such an easy job well done I treated Jim to a fabulous dinner at Naan'N'Curry in San Francisco (I must do a writeup of this restaurant soon) with huge wheels of Naan, lots of basmati rice, Daal Ghost (Lamb with Lentils), Chicken Tika-Masala (#1 most ordered dish in the UK.... not fish and chips!), Chicken Vindaloo (supposed to be hot), and awesome Bhangra music (UK invented techno/dance music inspired from Indian Punjab music) playing at loud volumes in the background. We gorged ourselves silly and were quite intoxicated by the pleasures of gluttony. :-) Anyways I think Jim thinks I'm crazy as I was raving about the Bhangra all throughout dinner. :-)
