Time for a bit of an update on this.....I've not updated here for ages....so will be a series of posts...

I really dont know what's wrong with me and cars, honestly I don't. Nothing really seems to go right, be easy or simple or generally not cause me hassles. The Xsara, it seems, doesnt want to break with tradition.

So, way back at the start of this thread, when it was up on the ramps being tracked, I noticed the cat had been 'clearanced'....since I've owned it, there has been an issue with the exhaust vibrating against the car body somewhere (most likely the subframe) under acceleration. Up until today, I suspected the reason to be a worn bottom engine mount. I'm now entirely convinced that this is not the issue.

Since the weekend drive out to Yorkshire, the engines not been happy, throwing a code for the position 1 lambda sensor (covered that already) and seeing as I've a spare from the breaker, I decided I'd swap them. How hard could it be?

With it being so low, it's a pain to get jacked up enough for me.to get under it but eventually I did. Axles stands in position, away I went. The lambda sensor was a complete pig. Even with a 2 ft bar on the end of the spanner, it was having none of it and my left shoulder gave out before it cracked free. Hmmm, plan b.

I've a spare cat from the breaker and given the one on the car has been butchered, I figured why not take it all off and have a proper look. First job, remove battery, battery box and then ECU from the back of the battery box to gain access to the two lambda sensor connections. With those disconnected and the leads fed down, it was time to get the exhaust off. I only needed to remove the centre section, the back box could stay in position. Centre section came off easily. Cat, much less so.

Access was awful. A 12" extension bar, a 3" bar on top of that and a deep reach 13mm socket. Stupidly designed clamped, lots of swearing fiddling, access you need the hands of a 5 year old for....

Battery box off and ECU separated



Lambda plugs undone



The horrible clearencing job



And the god awful clamp



Eventually, I got everything undone, the clamp remove and the cat off.....where the full horrors became evident.







It's clearly the wrong cat. Something that needs that much adjustment, and still doesn't fit right, clearly isn't right. I know its not the original cat as the history details a replacement after an MOT failure on emmisons. However, that's been hammered so much, the pipe is less than half it's original diameter.

At this point, I got the other cat from the breaker out and compared them. It was at this point, it dawned on me it was the wrong cat. The difference is massive and the garage must have known with the amount of modification they had to do, and even then it still didnt fit properly.





This is the biggest bit for me. This is the difference in the section that's been flattened. It's almost 2" in difference. That's 2" more clearance over the subframe.



So the cat that's come off, won't be going be going back on. I'll try the one that came off the breaker. I did a trial fit, and it's much, much better.

For a giggle, I thought I'd see what Citroen want for a cat....



I'll take two please :

So, overnight, I did a bit of asking on the Xsara owners Facebook page.

Someone else with a VTS replied with some very interesting information. Cats for these cars, at least ones which fit, are very hard to come by. Citroen are now NFP and ridiculously expensive. Ones from Eurocarparts do not fit properly at all. It seems the only options are to find a second hand OEM one, a Bosal one (these are apparently what Citroen fit and who make the OEM ones), or a custom one. Milltek apparently made one too but even that needed some fettling to fit properly.

So I had a look at Bosals online catalogue at the cat. Very interesting picture.



Mine looks exactly the same as that in terms of shape. It's clearly much better around the subframe and has the same bend after the matrix.

I've had a good look at it and apart from some vague engravings and the remnants of a sticker, I can't tell who it's manufactured by.





It definitely looks the right shape.....

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Cherry Red Rallye .... On going OEM spec resto

China Blue GTi6 .... Weekend toy

Black 208 GTi .... Wife's car now

Silver BMW 550i.... The executive missile

I didn't think that something as simple as changing the cat could make such a difference to a car. Simply, it's transformed.

Last jobs to do this morning were test drive to see if the vibrations were cured and let the ECU relearn. Pootled off down my estate, got about quarter of a mile and there was this awful noise like something had fallen off. Metallic banging sound as whatever it was hit the car and fell off. Sh!t!!!!!!!!

Stopped immediately and got out and started looking. A lady came out of her house to see if I was ok as she had heard it too. The car seemed fine and I couldn't see anything missing so drive slowly back home. Jacked it up, couldn't find anything missing, or anything in the undertray. All exhaust clamps and bolts present etc....I was puzzled.

I then wondered if I'd left something in the engine bay and it had fallen down so I checked my socket set........and lo and behold, a 16mm spark plug socket was missing, the one I used to tighten the manifold to cat clamp...

I then remembered that whilst I was adjusting the exhaust, I'd finished tightening the cat clamp but left the extension on it. Whilst doing the centre section, the extension fell off. It must have left the socket on the clamp which is what fell off. I went back and widened my search area and eventually found it on a wide grass verge!!!!

With that resolved, it was time for a proper test drive. The lack of vibration under acceleration is just lovely. I was wincing as input my foot down, waiting for it to happen.....it never did. I'm sure it revs more cleanly, the horrible rapsy sound that sounds like a cross wasp is stuck in my exhaust is gone, as is a metallic tinkly rattle. In short, it's an absolute joy to drive now. On part throttle it's comfortable and quiet, full throttle it's just an animal!!!

Exhaust may need sealing on the joints, I'll take it to the garage and have them do that. I am absolutely over the moon now though. It's the car it should be.

Other than the driver's side door card (which should be easily fixed) it's the last of the issues I knew I had with this car. Just need to drive it a bit more now!

My mate bought his Xsara over this morning and I replaced his handbrake cables. I'm done with rolling around on the floor under these things now!!!!!!

Just an awkward pain of a job. Anyway, with that out of the way, I decided I'd cut the old cat up, just to see how much of a restriction the hammered patch was causing. I was quite surprised...



Probably just less than half the pipes original diameter. I guess that was the cause of the horrible raspy sound.

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Cherry Red Rallye .... On going OEM spec resto

China Blue GTi6 .... Weekend toy

Black 208 GTi .... Wife's car now

Silver BMW 550i.... The executive missile

So, after a weekend of looking, asking and finding, I've another project in the offing for the Xsara.

My friend with the other Xsara popped over Saturday and bought me:

A) 24 bottles of Henry Weston's and,
A much better head unit for the Xsara.

The ciders were for numerous fixing jobs I've done on his, the headunit, as he had a couple spare. As I looked at it, I started to think.....could I connect my phone to it via Bluetooth? And then, if I could, what else could I do? Within 5 mins, I'd got the spare centre fascia and the tape measure out.....



Now, the std tech offering in the Xsara, is, frankly, in comparison to my GTD, prehistoric. A Tuner/cd player and a little display showing date/time/temp and a couple of other bits.



The Golf, is all lovely and sexy and touch screen and integrated and just ace.

The cogs continued to turn......touchscreen.......Bluetooth......sat nav.......and then it struck me:

Raspberry Pi.

Frantic googling suggests building a touch screen multimedia centre for the Xsara is not a figment of my imagination and is perhaps more than possible. Talking with a couple of IT expert mates who know about this stuff (who got very excited at the idea) and it's game on.

So, my plan, is to replace the Citroen display and std headunit, with an 8" touch screen which will then be capable of doing all the multimedia stuff (Bluetooth, phone Integration, DAB etc) run Google maps, RCA output for the amps so the install still works, emulate the Citroen display so it will show the stuff the display did, etc. There may be other bits I yet add but who knows.....let's see where this goes. Bluetooth, GPS, RCA, DAB and other required modules are all available, it's just about the coding.

So, the first thing for me to do is source an 8" touchscreen. They are about, but it's not a common size. 8" pretty much fills this space left by removing the headunit and Citroen display so I'm busy sourcing the screen. That's the first job, getting one and making it fit the console. The gap at max is 210mm wide by 120mm tall. Most 8" screens I've found will fit within that and I can modify the Xsara surround to fit, or possibly make a new one from fibreglass.

Once that's done, we can then start on the computing side of things. If anyone here is into this kind of stuff, please feel free to contribute or point me in the right direction....

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Cherry Red Rallye .... On going OEM spec resto

China Blue GTi6 .... Weekend toy

Black 208 GTi .... Wife's car now

Silver BMW 550i.... The executive missile

Next bit for the Xsara bought!

Whilst away on holiday, I picked up some car bits for a chum from Bodmin as we were close (4 X 15" rims, a radiator and a pair of morrettes for a 106......god know how I got everything in the car, but I did.....!)

Whilst there I was talking to the guy (really nice fella actually) and he happened to drop into conversation that he had a set of GTi6 calipers, painted red, with carriers and Goodrich braided hoses.......wanted rid and would let them go for £40. So they came home with me too!



Picking up the VTR tomorrow so hopefully get these fitted Sunday...

Well, stupid me didn't realise the hoses were for a 106 although it should have figured.....

Anyway, calipers fitted and bled....took about an hour in total. The use of an easibleed kit and an old Ph2 VTS alloy (I knew they'd be useful for something!!!!) made it a simple job.





Not hugely visible but there if you look. Compliment the red VTS badge quite well.

________________________________________

Cherry Red Rallye .... On going OEM spec resto

China Blue GTi6 .... Weekend toy

Black 208 GTi .... Wife's car now

Silver BMW 550i.... The executive missile