A Blog for a different Citroen. Featch's C15

Featch · Unread post by **Featch** » 07 Mar 2010, 14:51

Picked this up yesterday. My wife needs a van for her business and this fits the bill size wise. It was on ebay as a trade in from Chevronics in Hitchin. List of minor issues and one bigger one.... blown head gasket. Also it's done 208000 miles so I wasn't expecting anything wonderful, but with MoT till July and only £255 inc vat it's not a great risk and we won't be adding many more miles in a hurry.

Very Yellow C15
Yes it's yellow from all angles

Anyway what a surprise! And what a hoot to drive. It's proper retro Citroen.. leans like mad but sticks like glue. It was blowing steam out the exhaust faster than a Fred Dibnah steam engine so I dosed it up with K Seal and set off I went 65 miles back home. The k Seal sort of worked in that I got 30 miles on 6 litres of water but after I stopped to top my bottles it got worse again, fortunately the water level warning light is pretty accurate. In desperation I resorted to the old school raw eggs in the header tank and the third one did the trick and I got home without having to stop again. Remarkably I seemed to have avoided blocking up the heater matrix.

Other than the HG and a knackerd top engine mount it is remarkable. It might have done over 200,000 miles but judging by the bills most of it's vital organs has been replaced and many quite recently. The alternator, starter motor, exhaust and battery are all new. In spite of the HG it pulls well and the engine sounds sweet so I'm cautiously optimistic.

I've a week off work the week after next so I'm going to take the head off and inspect the damage before I order any parts. So best case would be a new HG and a cam belt kit with water pump. Worst case would be a fresh engine from the breakers which will still make it very cheap van.

A after good wash and a dose of oil on the passenger door lock, so that I can shut it, it looks quite presentable. My wife is the inside valeting expert so I'll leave that for her.

Andy

Unread post by **myglaren** » 07 Mar 2010, 15:03

Wow! That's as yeller as my daughters SAAB - you can see it from space - almost

Good deal there once the HG is sorted.

DickieG · Unread post by **DickieG** » 07 Mar 2010, 15:33

C15's are great vans, I've owned two of them and would still have one if I didn't need the extra seat for my daughter and space behind her for my dog which is why I changed to a Xantia estate.

Take time to set up the rear brake balancing valve as C15's do have a tendency to lock up their rear wheels under firm braking which causes you to lose all steering effect, a rather good laxative I can tell you

candy · Unread post by **candy** » 07 Mar 2010, 17:22

ooooh i like that especially the colour its the same colour as my mx5

Citroenmad · Unread post by **Citroenmad** » 07 Mar 2010, 19:02

Very nice, suits the colour. Nice to see a C15 getting some interest on here.

I agree, they drive very nicely, though ive only driven ours which is rather different, they do grip very well (especially with two more wheels!), i find ours very refined and its good fun to drive. A nice future mod for ours would be a 1.9TD engine, its a tad slow.

They seem to do miles very well, 200K should be fine as long as you can sort out the HG, though it sounds pretty bad. Ours has 108K (earlier 1700D engine) miles and its been faultless, its never even needed the clutch adjusting!

Does yours have power steering? I wasnt sure if the late C15s got it. I like the little hubcaps on the later C15s and the later steering wheels.

Excellent little vans, should serve you very well. They are certainly better than some modern vans too, i cant believe how noisey some are on the road.

Keep us posted with your progress

Featch · Unread post by **Featch** » 19 Mar 2010, 12:43

I've decided to fix the engine with a fresh one from my local breakers. Pictures here. I didn't think spending the best part of £200 on new head casket set, bolts, cambelt kit and water pump for a 200,000 mile engine was a great idea. The fresh engine is out of a much lower mileage ZX that the owner gave up on when the clutch release bearing fell apart. My friend who frequents the breakers almost daily said the engine ran well before being taken out of the car. It's even got the cam belt date and mileage written on the cover. So fingers crossed

The 'new' engine is a XUD and the one I've just taken out of the van is a DW8. After consulting with CitroJim we decided all the ancillaries could be swapped over and so far so good.

However I've got a little issue. The Lucas (electronic?) pump, off the old engine that I want to use on the fresh engine, has one timing hole in the pulley but 2 holes 180 deg apart in the body that it can line up with. Which hole do I use? I'm guessing it's the top one as I found an illustration on a Peugeot site showing this, but why the second hole?

Unread post by **CitroJim** » 20 Mar 2010, 10:42

Hi Andy,

Two holes were there as the XUD sprocket has two holes to enable the sprocket to be sufficiently well locked with two pins to enable the pump to be removed without disturbing the timing belt; you could undo the centre nut on the sprocket and pull the sprocket free of the taper and then remove the pump.

I'd say the top hole is the one as the XUD sprocket is in tine when both holes line up with the two holes. On the XUD they're at about 1 o'clock and 4 o'clock so if you have one at roughly 1 o'clock use that.

Another clue is that at correct time the pump shaft keyway is at about 9 o'clock.