pikesrelaybus

Hi All, Just a quick post about changing the rear leaf spring. On the ends of each spring is a bush, mine had rusted and the circular part of the spring had cracked, and then started knocking. The job is relatively easy to do but the carriage bolts that go through these bushes are long, have a spline head and probablyt covered in mm of rust. This i what you'll need, a wire brush to remove as much rust as possible with some light oil. Then a deep reach socket set, Think it was 24mm and a e24 spline socket, and a very long bar to provide pressure. I found it easier to fix the spline socket onto a small wrench and cable tie it in place such that rotation on the nut side made the wrench push up against body work (with some wood and cloth providing protection). It took some time to remove the nut but then I don' really have a air wrench that's strong enough to remove this nut. Bought the tools pretty cheap off eBay and the whole job was about an hour. The two leafes of my spring are held together with a single nut and a small rectangular piece of plastic ptfe? interfacing between the springs. There is a recess in the hub that the nut head fits into, kind of important that the head is located correctly before doing up the U bolts. I was advised to buy new ones which I did. That was pretty easy, do them up and then just rubber mallet the axle in place and then tighten the U bolts up, repeat till it's all located and tight. Don't forget to reclip the brake cable back onto the spring.. Hope this helps someone..

Paul.h has hit the nail on the head. Diagnosing electrics can be a nightmare but breaking things down makes it much easier. A ammeter in series with the battery terminal gives you a starting point. Connect the ammeter up on a fairly high range before removing the battery lug, the meter will then show you the current flowing. Pulling fuses one at a time isolates any potential faulty circuit, a circuit diagram detailing items on each circuit definately helps. One point that might be mentioned elsewhere but I'll just say it here, a typical cranking battery will loose "life", whereby a life of a battery could typically be 5 years, if it's allowed to discharge below 10.8volts and then recharged quickly, like when you jump start a car. If your battery goes flat, charge it at 10% it's A/hr rate. ie 70A/Hr battery, no more than 7 amps. I've one of those smart chargers with just under 4A maximum output, my OEM battery is now 6 years old despite some recovery driver ignoring my plea's to stop starting it with the battery in it's current condition. Battery's also like to be charged - all the time. Until to isolate your problem I'd suggest leaving a small charger connected to maintain the battery voltage while your car is inactive.

Update... We're at 92k miles now, still hunts at tickover. I've also had a few P0235 (turbo boost sensor errors). If I understand things right the ECU monitos the manifold pressure, engine speed and throttle position a determines if all is well as they all interact with each other. With this slight revving I guess sometimes it detects a infridgment of these levels and lobs the light on. The ECU only illuminate the engine management light when it's detected the same error a few times. I've also noticed that now and again it says I've no oil but clearly there is and at the right level. I'm beginning to thing the sensors are failing or becoming inaccurate. If the turbo boost sensor is the one that fits on the top of the manifold, I've had that one out before and it was covered in soot and garbage. However, I'm not so sure. I think that may be a airflow temperature sensor as the little bead thermister was within the probes protective plastic cage, which, before I cleaned it was full of soot and rubbish. Still, I hope that someone may have an idea...

This seems a little wierd. Iveco 3.0ltr, 160ps HDi engine, sometimes, quite often actually, it "hunts" at tickover just after starting. Rev's fine, drives fine, doesn't seem to be linked to engine temperature. Just hunts, it's not even enough to see the rev counter needle go up and down, probably only plus/minus 50-100 rpm but it's enough to make me wonder what else is going to happen... So far this engine @ 75k miles has done fine, only needing a throttle body and a new belt tensioner.. Hmm, any thoughts?

Thanks for your help Paul.h. Its back together now. With all belts removed and the tensioner not fitted this is how I worked it all out. The inner (thicker) belt that drives the water pump and alternator goes on first. The tensioner is easier fitted upside down with the pulley upwards. This allows a index finger and thumb to start the bolt into it's thread. With a couple of turns the tensioner can be rotated and the peg located and engaged into it's recess. The peg stops the tentioner totating. Do the bolt up as much as you can as my torx bit + holder + ratchet won't fit onto the bolt with the bodywork in the way. Do it all up and then put the belt into the correct location. It's fairly easy to know the route once you've had a look. With the tensioner in place it's time to pull it's pin, using a ring spanner on the nut of the pulley, take up the tension. There's no way to get the pin out unless you use a loop of string wrapped around a screwdriver. You can then twist and manipulate this noose to pull out the pin while taking the strain on the spanner. Relay gentle and the tension then rests against the belt. Inner belt done. Fitting the outer (thinner) belt is somewhat easier. I didn't turn anything or use excessive force doing this procedure. If you remove the idle pulley the belt goes on a treat. The idle pulley, just right of the crank is held in place with a single bolt. Obviously it's somewhat difficult to move this pulley in place with the belt on it. I didn't like the thought of trying to bully the belt on using screw drivers and rotation method so i used my now trusty loop of lawnmower start cord and placed it over the top of this pulley, using a pry bar to pull it downwards. It doesn't need too much force to persuade the bolt to engage into it's thread but you need more fettling of the pry / cord to get the pulley to sit on it's locating mount. When you look at it you see what I mean. This provided a spread of pressure on the plastic pulley as opposed to locating pressure, such as a screwdriver would have done to one spot, probably breaking the plastic pulley. Anyway, all quiet again, hope this helps someone. To be fair to my bus, this grumbling bearing has been moaning for 20-25k miles. Citroen told me to ignore it and call the AA if it broke, thanks citroen..!

Thanks for the info. Should have said it's a Iveco engine, it's 2008 relay 3.. Not sure what effect removing the front headlamp does, maybe alignment?. I know pictures paint a thousand words but without I'm still a bit lost. I get the alternator belt, acknowledge there's lots of special tools, I recognise the use of a tool to take up tension before removing the pin. Get all that. Maybe I need to have a jolly good look at this crackcase pulley. It just looks so simple, one large nut, a inner and outer sandwiching a thin ring of rubber, I assume some kind of shock absorbing sandwich. This crank pulley is a double, obviously for the two belts. I can't see anything that could expand to take up slack on the outer belt, unless one component moves. ok, let me re-ask the question, is there only the one tensioner on this engine? but, thanks for the quick info.. Tensioner should arrive tomorrow and somehow I'm managed to get the new belts fitted.

Hi Folks, Alternator tensioner gave up, all that's left is the bearing, less a few balls. New tensioner ordered and while it's apart, new belts. The inner belt is thicker than the outer belt that tuns the Air-Con pump. So, I removed the lower plastic cover and the small cover inside the wheel arch. There's not much room but I managed to undo the retaining bolt and with some persuasion remove the broken tensioner. Belt fitting is easy as there's not many pulley's. I have two interesting points, I probably did it all wrong. The inner (alternator & water pump) belt has a tensioner, mine, as I said, has failed. You can only get this belt off by removing the outer belt (air-con) but there's no tensioner, only an Idle pulley which has a flat surface running on the rear of the belt. I undid this idle pully to get the outer belt off. Getting the new belt on was tricky and in the end I made a loop of lawnmower start-cord and usng lumpy screwdriver, pull downwards on the idle wheel and gentle manipulated it back onto it's little hub before doing the bolt up quick. There's a small grove on this plastic part, its done 70k miles. Anyone know of a faster/correct method. Citroen have told me that there's some kind of tensioner on the crack pulley but all I see is a kind of rubber sandwich making up the pulley. Where's the tensioner?. Is it centrifugal? Citroen even said, never run the engine without this belt on, I assume becuase the pulley will get bigger? Not that I can see it but is there a release mechanism? Anyway, it's a fairly easy job, not quite sure how I'm going to get the release bolt out of the tensioner, I guess by taking up the tension with a wrench, pull the pin and then relax it onto the new belt gentle. Fingers crossed it all works, not having alternator for 3.5 hours on a rainy night isn't fun, I'm lucky the engine didn't boil too.. thanks for any responses..

Hmm, still not convinced. The pump should only run when it's not a) iced up and b) the tempature inside needs to be cooler than outside, just like summer conditions. If the temperature inside needs to be higher than the outside (aka Winter!) then the pump should be inhibited, otherwise it'll cool the heated air and you end up with warm'ish air, not warm/hot air. There's only one exception to the last comment in that the pump will never run in winter conditions and that would be wrong, especially in some countries, therefore I wouldn't be surprised if manufacturers make "climate control" systems run the pump regardless of setting for a set period each journey to prevent seals drying out. Mine appears to run all the time unless I hit the inhibit button of course and when it's bitterly cold outside we can't get warm unless the pump is inhibited. I remember my C3 behaving in this logical manner and I think next time I'm near my dealership I'll get them to humour me.. If anyone with a Relay that has climate control fitted could confirm this then I could start exploring further.

Hi, I have a another "possible" problem with my Relay. It's not a huge problem but involves the Air Conditioning. Can someone with a Relay / Jumper that has the automatic climtate control, whereby you can adjust the temperature / has digital readout check to see if they're pump clutch drops in when the temperature is reduced and disengaged when the temperature is increased. Afterall, logic prevails that you don't need to have the air con on when it's freezing cold outside and your trying to stay warm..! On my vehicle the pump continues no matter how high the temperature is set. This isn't a huge problem as I can simply press the air-con button (has a snowflake on it), and the pump dis-engages. Note that while it's dis-engaged the temperature readout will flash if a low temperature is required, kind of a, "You need to reengage the pump if you ant that" kind of hint. There has been times during very cold night driving that no matter how hi we set the temperature only luke warm air comes through, disengage the pump and we cook..! Possibly faults?, well I would definately say the fault is on the control panel and not somewhere else as the pump can be forefully engaged and disengaged via the snowflake button.. I suspect the answer will eventually come from myself but it'll be nice to confirm the normal operation before I rip my console apart. I suspect it's a faulty/short switch somewhere on the control pcb.

Indeed Paul.h, I have now confirmed, no more error codes and throttle seems more responsive. As a side note, the old valve motor is a four pole "stepper" type motor, whereas the new one seems to have a standard motor in it with gears, motor brushes? who knows. Watch out bolting it back in, I knocked off a glow plug wire, soon let me know.. I totally agree with all the crud inside, this is a modern diesel engine. I noticed also the butterly disc is also screwed onto it's shaft, the old one was press fit possibly welded in place..

SOLVED!!!. Well, it was logical really, I have a throttle position/actuator fault and that's what it was. I will explain to fellow Relay/Jumper owners. This vehicle is drive by wire. Your foot position on the throttle is electronically transmitted to a motor controlling a butterfly valve on the inlet manifold, obviously via a computer to protect the engine from faults. For the untrained eye, like myself initially, the air enters from the front, is ducted through the air filter, down to the bottom part of the engine (via the air flow sensor) and ends up on the centre of the turbo, behind the engine. You'll only see this flat on your back. Then the outlet of the turbo goes via a section of metal pipe and then rubber pipe to the radiator at the front. The other side of the radiator goes up through the wheel arch and onto the end of the inlet manifold. On the manifold, which is just under a long plastic wire holder, is a sensor, mine is marked with EGR and on the end of that manifold is the throttle housing and motor bolted on to the end. I initially checked this sensor and found that it was complete fouled up but alas, the whole of the inside of the manifold is fouled up with soot, coke, oil, whatever, it's disgusting and I was surprised. I cleaned the sensor, which appears to be a temperature sensor, with gentle air from an air line, cleaned it up and refitted it. The easiest way to get the throttle body off is with a 3/4" wrench and 13mm socket on the engine side, there are four bolts holding it down. The two at the front with a 13mm spanner. Removal is towards the right having chopped off the citroen jubilee clip. You'll need a replacement 60-80mm jubilee clip. You'll be amazed at how choked up this valve will be. On mine the motor comes away from the valve assembly with two security torx bolts (the one's with a centre pin). Inspection on mine found that the motor faceplate has rusted and caused the output spindle to bind. The motor and valve interface by having opposite quadrants. Imagine a clock face cut into quarter hours. 12 to 3 = 1, 3 to 6 = 2, 6 to 9 = 3 and 9 to 12 = 4. Quandrants 1 & 3 are on the motor and Quadrants 2 and 4 on the valve assemble. There's a little rubber buffer that goes inbetween the quadrant surfaces. Apart from the binding of the motor, the valve itself was stiff with all the crap within the valve, thats just after only 60k miles. On top of this, one of the quadtrants on the valve also acts as a travel limit. The valve can only be anywhere between fully open and fully closed, nothing beyond those limits, however, yeah, you guessed it, with that bit broken it not only fouled the movement but the valve no longer had set limited and the reason for the error code. I cleaned it all up and put it back together less loose broken part to find that I could only get just over 3000 rpm, that means the motor shaft is 180 degree's out, a simply change. Now that my valve was all clean and the broken part removed it now got stuck. Once it sticks the engine drops from tickover to probably around 400-500 rpm and the throttle won't work. So, it's a new throttle body and motor, you can't buy them seperately. Citroen sell you this part for £480 however, watch out, in 2009 this "WAHLER" part was superseeded with a "PIERBURG" model, Citroen part number 163676. It has a different connector so can't be plugged back into the vehicle directly. However, there is a interface lead, Citroen Pt Number 160645280 for an additional £191 that will allow this part to work. Both the valve and interface lead are available on eBay for £285. Check out http://www.partinfo.co.uk/files/PI%201088.pdf for details of this change. I am awaiting delivery of mine and it will take 10 minutes to fit. I find it quite difficult to accept this high charge from Citroen when the exact same part can be obtained cheaper. I would have happily gone along to Citroen and had them fix it if I could actually afford it, I have had to look at this problem myself and despite the modern engine techniques and limited space to work, actually it wasn't reall that difficult.

This does sound like a earth problem. Finding it can be tricky but not impossible. What are you like with a digital multimeter and soldering iron?. Personally, I'd look at the relastionship between these three things. It seems daft that the reverse lights, horn and heater have stopped working, hence a earth fault. Using your multimeter, or even a bulb with two long wires with croc clips on, Isolate each side of the circuit, ie check all the lives and then check all grounds, I wouldn't be afraid of taking off the footwell covers and have a jolly good nose about with a torch. I'd isolate which wire colours are commonly live and which ones commonly ground. Usually red and yellow for live wires, that's 12v, browns, blacks, ground etc. But best to look it up. If you find that say the rear cluster has no ground then try giving it a ground using a piece of wire with a 2 amp fuse in it, place a small bulb across the fuse. What your looking for is some kind of change, ie the reverse light comes on. If you make a mistake and short a positive to ground the fuse will blow and your lamp will light up but no more damage will be caused. If the relay clicks when you hit the horn then I'd say firstly, the relay is there to allow more current to the horn and seconly your fault lay's beyond the horn button which in effect works fine as the relay clicks. What you really need is a circuit of these area, (Direction, horn, lights etc.). Citroen have these to hand and can print them off, whether they'll do you a favour and print a copy for you, who knows but I'm pretty convinced this is a earthing issue. With your bits of wire or multimeter you could confirm this. Basically, you need to elimitate possible causes until you come across the actual problem. One quick thought, if you had complete failure of these items and no intermittancy then your really looking for something that has totally failed, broken lug, caught wires, duff relay. I'm guessing that there could be potentially relays (solenoids) that feed different circuits. If you suspect a relay it's releativily easy to check it. Once checked, mark with tipex so that you have a indication that you've illiminated it. Testing relays, most have a circuit showing the coil and switch. Some relays have some circuitary in them which are slightly more difficult to test but I'd say that if this is a auxillary circuit type relay it'll be a simple one, use a battery, obviously, limit the current using a bulb in series, with the tails shorted the lamp will light, now try the tails (of the wires) across what you think is the coil and listen for a click. You might need to use a 10w bulb, that should be enough current flowing to make the relay click. Use your multimeter or another wire with bulb across the switch part. When you operate the relay this bulb should light. Seems really stupid with all these wires and bulbs but actually it's a pretty fool proof way of testing stuff, don't be tempted to just use a piece of wire for testing shorts, a mistake might be costly, the worse you can do with my silly idea's is light up a lamp bulb. Hope this helps..

Just an update, having cleared the fault and had no light for a week I had a "hiccup" coming out of a junction and a few yards down the road the engine light came back on. This is the throttle position actuator fault as above. I've repeatedly cleared the fault and it just keeps coming back. I conclude therefore this is the cause of my "check engine" fault. Has anyone else has a throttle position actuator fault before. Had to change the throttle position actuator for this reason. My van has just over 60k miles and is used mostly on motorways..

Name: Citroen C3 (2003) Date Added: 15 September 2013 - 12:21 PM Owner: pikesrelaybus Short Description: 1.6 Sensodrive. View Vehicle

Hi, I wonder if anyone can shed any light on this. I'm totally confused. Yesterday I went for a short drive having not used the vehicle for a week or so. At the bottom of our hill the "check engine" lamp with associated beep showed. I drove into town, did some shopping and only when coming out of a junction the engine stalled. It restarted but immediately started loosing power (like the ignition had been switched off) then back to normal. When I got home I put my read on the vehicle and got:- P0235 - Turbo Charger Boost Sensor "A" Circuit and P0638 - Throttle Actautor Control Range / Performance (Bank 1) This morning, having had a good think about things, I decided to have a look and view some "live data" on my reader. Everything appears normal. I've noted and cleared the errors and did the same journey but nothing will repeat. I have thoughts about the last error in that when the vehicle cut out I naturally put my foot down. I think it sensed the difference between input and go and then created this error. I have no idea why the turbo boost, actually manifold pressure error came up, that seems to work fine and changes as you drive. My only thought regards the cutting out, which is quite worrying since I do a lot of long journeys is that I failed to renew the fuel filter. I have a new one but just couldn't work out how to get the top off. I subsequently read that you have to remove it completely and use a vice and strap to do the job. It's about 15k miles overdue. I have tried my utmost to make it go wrong with various driving conditions, light to heavy load, different gears etc. Now all this evidence is confusing me. My only thought is that there's plenty of wires over the engine, lots of them rub up against the engine, could have caused a short, that would explain a lot, not seen anything but I'd be interested what other owners thought or had any idea's for me to check out. If an ex-service engineer in electronics can't work this out, I'm baffled if Citroen garage will sort it without charging me the earth.. Any help would be most appriciated.

Name: Citroen Jumper (Relay) (2008) Date Added: 15 September 2013 - 12:02 PM Owner: pikesrelaybus Short Description: Mk3 LWB H2 Type 16 3.0 HDi 6 Speed Manual View Vehicle