mechuccio

You're welcome :angry: thx for the right name for the spanner, it's a bit confusing, in Dutch a Pipe wrench is calles (litterally translated) water-pump-wrench and a box-spanner is called (again litterally) pipe-key. Anyway it's a rather easy job, just take you're time and everything will be fine! good luck (hope that the rain will stop soon) And keep us posted :blink:

and you didn't write this the 22nd of november, but in may :D old news it is ;)

or did you perhaps lock a sprocket or pully and forgot that? in that case you might just get away with a new pully and belt. If the timing was indeed that bad that the pistons got in contact with the valves than a new head could be the solution indeed! edit: did not see that your sprocket got bent in that case you better replace the head. How did you check the timing by the way the second time you've placed the belt? where you sure that it should be okay? because in that case it could still be very possible that a lock somewhere has been forgotten.

yep! I used a pipe-wrench (hope thats the right name for this) -> http://www.onlinebouwmarkt.nl/winkel/images/Pijpsleutel%20-%20Gedore.jpg and with a hammer i could quite easily beat the hollow-axel out of it shaft. but check that website in my previous post! you'll see a step by step photo report. You can see him do the same trick with a hammer and any kind of tool which will fit in the shaft. good luck!

what i know about the first automatic gearboxes of the XM is that they need perfect maintainance, otherwise they can end up as soup within the 100K. What happened before it totally crapped out on you? was there a period where the car wouldn't react anymore, but after switching to park and back to drive it worked again? did it make a whistle kind of sound? if this is the case i'm affraid that you'll be having a very expensive repair coming up :unsure: I wish I could give you better news, but these gearboxes just seem to all die all of the sudden. there is no computer in them which can cause troubles, this gearbox (4HP18) is controlled by the ATF, the speed of the car and the position of the gasthrottle, and everything is "programmed" by the strength of the different springs inside. If you want to replace this gearbox you'll have to get the engine out, but this gives you a nice oppurtunity to really give it a nice cleaning job under the hood, and replace the timingbelt (while you're at it) but keep in mind that an automatic gearbox (and do take a revised one or better a new one!) will cost you around 1000 pounds (thats an average price here in holland) best of luck with your XM those are truly wonderfull cars and with 90K (is that miles or kilometers) it should be able to go on for a couple more years!

Hi there! a post from the netherlands. I have had several BXes and am now currently owner of a nice bx 16TRi and much nicer 19GTI 16V! about the bearings.... its not that hard to replace them yourself! just take care of the job there are a few things which can go wrong. first of all, after removing the brake caliper just leave it hanging on its hydraulics tube, this tube is attached by plastic clips on the support arm you can just click it out, do this immediately! should you forget this and remove the arm theres a big chance that the tube will bend or even break and that will leave you with quit an expensive repair! another importand thing is that you disattach the supportarm from the suspension, there is a small white plastic cap on top of the suspension whitch by a clip is attached to the support arm, remove this clip and take the suspension out. the bolt which holds the arm in its place should be the last thing to unscrew on the inside a normal wrench will fit on the bolt and on the outside you best use a wrench with an extended handle because it needs quite some force, but no special tools ar needed. Further apart from the better camber you'll get there's a big chance that your suspendion will be MUCH smoother after replacing the bearrings if you click here you'll get a dutch website with some nice photoreports of the most common maintainance jobs for the BX. in the top bar click on onderhoud than click on ophanging and the on draagarmlagers you'll get a nice report! Should you have any more questions I'll be more than happy to answer them (despite of my crummy english :unsure:) and if you're willing to pay the fuel I need to drive from the netherlands to england I'll be more than happy to help you :lol: anyway! good luck an succes whith the job.