Ian
Part of things
Posts: 977
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Where do you find these wheel trims, looking for a very cheap set of original citroen 14" ones for the mother in laws saxo diesel? Looking really good by the way, so much better nice and clean. I liked the Xsara wheels it was on originally, but the replacement steels seem very in keeping with the design. I think this should stay nice and original and the personality car should be the Princess, but hey that just my opinion do whatever floats your boat.
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Jul 17, 2014 11:39:16 GMT
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The trims it currently sports came from the previous owner who had kept them just-in-case. The new trims I got from eBay, but I had someone from another forum collect and post them to me because I wasn't about to do a 110 mile round trip for a set of wheel trims, didn't really have the time to devote to that, they've ended up only costing me £11.
For the Saxo trims, try eBay, Gumtree or your local scrapyard. Saxos seem to be getting scrapped a lot just lately so it's a really good time to get all the little bits and pieces like that for not a lot. There's a lot of different 14" friendly Citroen trims, but some of them are ridiculously expensive.
This one is the everything car so it'll look fairly ordinary, modifications will be very mild, more OEM+ than anything else. The Princess on the other hand is my silly car.
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mylittletony
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,350
Club RR Member Number: 84
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Jul 17, 2014 12:11:13 GMT
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I had a xantia as a stop gap and promptly fell somewhat in 'like' with it. It got written off (twice!) and the TD engine will live on in VIP's white van man van. Mine was rough, pretty sh@gged and not an estate - I couldn't find a suitable replacement so got a Rover 45 instead... Anyway, I bought some C5 executive alloys for it, Rich606 (I think) had a set on his BX. I've still got them and you could have them for a nominal fee if you like? like deeez wuns: ebay ones* *I also have no centre caps, but I do have teh boltz
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VIP
South East
Posts: 8,293
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Jul 17, 2014 14:49:32 GMT
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I had a xantia as a stop gap and promptly fell somewhat in 'like' with it. It got written off (twice!) and the TD engine will live on in VIP's white van man van. Mine was rough, pretty sh@gged and not an estate - I couldn't find a suitable replacement so got a Rover 45 instead... Anyway, I bought some C5 executive alloys for it, Rich606 (I think) had a set on his BX. I've still got them and you could have them for a nominal fee if you like? like deeez wuns: ebay ones* *I also have no centre caps, but I do have teh boltz It was Rich that had the BX with the C5 alloys. The van *should* be in the van by now, Mr MantaPhil was doing the conversion earlier this week.
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Last Edit: Jul 17, 2014 14:50:56 GMT by VIP
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Jul 17, 2014 15:24:25 GMT
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mylittletony: It's a generous offer, and they do look sweet on said BX, but they're not what I want. My Synergie trims turned up today anyway... pictures after I've had something to eat. I think 'falling in like' is exactly what I've done, it's not a car I could fall in love with, it has no je ne sais quoi.
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recarouk
Yorkshire and The Humber
Posts: 435
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Jul 17, 2014 18:16:34 GMT
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looks great! whats it like on fuel, are you running on veg or diesel?
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Jul 17, 2014 18:42:49 GMT
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Running veg at the mo and it's returning a fairly consistent 55mpg everywhere, regardless of how I drive it, certainly uses slightly more than my old BX. I'm happy enough at any rate, it got me from S43 to Maidstone and back on £32 of fuel which really cannot be grumbled at, especially since I wasn't deliberately eco-driving and was making good use of the turbo and the outside lane of the motorway, a thing I never normally do. It's a bit thirstier on diesel, but that's probably because the pump is tweaked for veg at the moment. Today, my Synergie trims arrived. They do need a repaint to make them perfect, I'm just not yet decided on if they're going white or factory silver yet. I am decided that I really like them. Somehow managed to rack up 130 miles this week but I don't feel like I've been doing a lot of driving, not the first time I've noticed that with this car either. Annoyingly, the front number plate has fallen off three times since taping it on. The tape stays on the plate perfectly well and the plate has been lightly heated and bent to match the profile of the bumper in an attempt to help it stay in place, but the current tape doesn't seem to like the bumper plastic. I have reattached the plate with some supposedly stronger tape which I hope likes the bumper plastic more than the old tape. I really don't want to use screws, they spoil the clean look I'm aiming for.
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I now live Oop North proper. The Xantia yet again proved its worth by moving me, a load of stuff and a big hairy german shepherd about 100 miles with no grumbles at all. I may have been a teensy bit overloaded, certainly felt like it at times, but it wasn't the easiest of house moves having only the Xantia and a Transit Jumbo to do it... still, that was way back on the 21st. The frustrating thing was the new address, which I'd researched costs of before committing to, came with a price hike on the insurance to £1500 annually for the Xantia which made it so expensive I could no longer afford to drive it. This has me MASSIVELY disappointed, but I'm in that trap of it cost as much to cancel and restart with another insurer as it would to keep it going so for now it's been taken off the road to get the repair work done and will return to service in a couple of months. Weirdly, for my housemate to insure the car it's a third what it is for me to do so, and since he's selling his Porsche and likes the Xantia it'll become his car and work as a shared ownership deal which suits me very well. Up here I don't need a diesel estate as much, but housemate does. Interestingly, I've been told I should carry on treating the Xantia very much as though it's mine and I'm happy to do that. One big advantage and reason for being up North is an opportunity to work in classic car restoration, something I've wanted to do for a loooooong time. It might seem odd then that I've been putting off going to the unit to play with the Xantia (and the Alfas and the Lancia and the Rolls Royce). Fact is, I've been putting off going to the unit in part due to the work I've got on art-wise but also because we had no hot water here, so I didn't want to do a day's work on cars and not be able to have a good long soak in the tub at the end of it. I've now spent most of a day there piddling about with little bits of metal and trying to get my bodyworking skills up to scratch again. The Xantia had two areas I wanted to address, the first was a small rust scab on the rear arch, something I'd treated before moving house but which had come back shockingly fast which led me to believe something was up. A blitz with the flapwheel and the outer arch just sort of went ker-poof in a cloud of rust dust leaving me with a rather large hole to repair. I cleaned this up, made a repair patch and found I'd somehow got the template wrong so had to make a second patch but didn't get to repairing it today. Fiddly thing to make and I couldn't get the shape exactly right, but what I've made is a close enough fit to the original profile that a light skim of filler will help blend the repair in neatly. The gaffer tape was a temporary thing to protect the hole from the weather as we weren't sure if it was staying in the unit or going outside before I got to finish the job. The other part was the door jamb section, which I'd already cleaned and hadn't got worse. There was some thin metal to cut out from the outer skin, but the inner skin was absolutely solid. I gave as much as I could of it a go over with the dremel, flapwheel and then rust converter to keep it nice and solid before making a patch to fit the surprisingly small hole. Had some issues with the welder playing up, but I think that's down to needing to clean the earthing clamp and earth location (used the door latch). Yes, I remembered to disconnect the car's battery! I was a bit miffed that the patch moved a smidge as I was welding it in and the top of it stands proud. I don't especially want to entirely redo it, I just want this solid, but there's a chance I'll go back and redo it at a later date. Splashed some Hammerite on it just to prevent any flash rusting, I'll clean this back before finishing off the job. It's a bit of an ugly repair to me, I was trying to make it flush fit because it's such a visible location and to achieve that I'll likely have to redo the top half of the repair unless it dresses back really well. The welding bit takes no time at all, it's the fabricating of complicated patches and dressing that seems to eat up the hours, that and getting used to unfamiliar tools and workspace. Biggest mistake I made was probably using donor metal from an Alfa 75 to repair a Citroen, the two metals are more keen to have holes blown through them than to be stuck together, even with the MIG on the lowest setting. I suspect the welder Ratdat gave me will be better suited to the task, the shop MIG is a bit on the powerful side but it is a very nice bit of kit all the same. I had also ordered some Fido Dido stickers from eBay. They've arrived, they're pretty good, but they're four times bigger than I expected so I have to rethink their location as they're not going to be anywhere near as subtle as originally planned now. Oh, and if anyone has a pair of clear Saxo side repeaters do let me know, they're a straight swap for the orange units on the Xantia and look way better, we tried it out with the units off my brother's Saxo.
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Aug 14, 2014 19:47:44 GMT
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It's welded. I don't ever want to weld this car again. I need to give it a second fill just to get the finer profiles sorted and a top coat of white paint instead of the temporary Hammerite finish it currently sports. I'm happy that it's solid enough but the welding that I did left a lot to be desired because I couldn't get a decent continuous seam going between the initial stitches. This was the least fun bit of welding I've done to date. The Alfa metal welded really nicely and predictably, no blow through, no strange spittiness, and even the ability to nicely seam weld. But the Citroen metal was a nightmare and easily the most unpleasant bit of metal gluing I've had to do. At least it looks passable, the final fill and colour will make it look reasonable but I doubt it'll be what you can call an invisible repair.
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