I took the CX Turbo for a 900km drive over the weekend and it drove perfectly - even the old VDO Tempostat cruise control I repaired worked (most of the time...).
On return I parked the car overnight and when I moved it in the morning found a puddle of green blood under the front. I know the steering rack is leaking, so I suspected this had become worse.
Up on the hoist and I noticed a fair bit of LHM was hanging around above the rack, around the ABS unit under the spare wheel. Hoping it was the top-up LHM bottle stowed in the spare wheel leaking, I lowered the car back to the ground. No sign of leaks from the bottle, unfortunately. I removed the spare wheel and noticed a burnt-out wire in the fat loom emerging from under the steel plate which covers the ABS unit, bolted to the cross-member. The loom also looked oily...
After removing the plate, heart sinking, I saw that the loom had a clear burn track through the binding tape all the way around the rear of the engine to where it disappears under the air cleaner on the right side. A close inspection showed the source of the LHM leak - the burnt wire had also melted a small hole through one of the rislan return lines bundled along the same route across the top of the cross member...
So there you go, a burnt wire caused a hydraulic leak!
What seems to have caused the short is the loom rubbing on the edge of the steel cover plate under the spare wheel. A warning here for anyone who runs one of these cars - maybe the cover plate is only fitted to a CX fitted with ABS - I can't remember what the arrangement is on earlier models, but assume there is something there to 'protect' the wiring...? On mine the spare wheel places a bit of strain on the wiring where it runs past the LH sphere and down under the cover plate. That'll need attention.
Strangely, I didn't smell the wire burning and it made no noticeable difference to the running of the car or any other functions?
I traced the wire, removing the air cleaner assembly etc and unwrapped the loom. The burnt wire was green (like most of the wires...) and was spliced into the fat yellow on the tachometric relay (Big Blue). That fat yellow appears to be the fuel pump feed wire which is +ve with the engine running. The burnt green wire runs back to the AEI control box, although its function does not appear to be critical as the car starts and runs fine without it connected? I assume its function is to signal the ignition unit that the engine is running, but it must also rely upon the flywheel sensors. There is another green wire spliced into the same junction which runs to the aux air valve.
Anyhow, it could very easily have been far far worse, or disastrous! Although it made a bit of a mess in the loom, it miraculously did not cause any other shorts.
Check and protect your wiring! - Anything in your Citroen can leak LHM... even the wires!
Cheers, Steve
On return I parked the car overnight and when I moved it in the morning found a puddle of green blood under the front. I know the steering rack is leaking, so I suspected this had become worse.
Up on the hoist and I noticed a fair bit of LHM was hanging around above the rack, around the ABS unit under the spare wheel. Hoping it was the top-up LHM bottle stowed in the spare wheel leaking, I lowered the car back to the ground. No sign of leaks from the bottle, unfortunately. I removed the spare wheel and noticed a burnt-out wire in the fat loom emerging from under the steel plate which covers the ABS unit, bolted to the cross-member. The loom also looked oily...
After removing the plate, heart sinking, I saw that the loom had a clear burn track through the binding tape all the way around the rear of the engine to where it disappears under the air cleaner on the right side. A close inspection showed the source of the LHM leak - the burnt wire had also melted a small hole through one of the rislan return lines bundled along the same route across the top of the cross member...
So there you go, a burnt wire caused a hydraulic leak!
What seems to have caused the short is the loom rubbing on the edge of the steel cover plate under the spare wheel. A warning here for anyone who runs one of these cars - maybe the cover plate is only fitted to a CX fitted with ABS - I can't remember what the arrangement is on earlier models, but assume there is something there to 'protect' the wiring...? On mine the spare wheel places a bit of strain on the wiring where it runs past the LH sphere and down under the cover plate. That'll need attention.
Strangely, I didn't smell the wire burning and it made no noticeable difference to the running of the car or any other functions?
I traced the wire, removing the air cleaner assembly etc and unwrapped the loom. The burnt wire was green (like most of the wires...) and was spliced into the fat yellow on the tachometric relay (Big Blue). That fat yellow appears to be the fuel pump feed wire which is +ve with the engine running. The burnt green wire runs back to the AEI control box, although its function does not appear to be critical as the car starts and runs fine without it connected? I assume its function is to signal the ignition unit that the engine is running, but it must also rely upon the flywheel sensors. There is another green wire spliced into the same junction which runs to the aux air valve.
Anyhow, it could very easily have been far far worse, or disastrous! Although it made a bit of a mess in the loom, it miraculously did not cause any other shorts.
Check and protect your wiring! - Anything in your Citroen can leak LHM... even the wires!
Cheers, Steve
The CX isn't really a car that needs ABS.
dumb question .... But I bet the ABS doesn't work without this wire, but there is no error as it just thinks the car isn't running. You couldn't allow ABS to work without the engine running as it would immediately exhaust all the the braking capacity without the pump spinning. Jump on the brakes on a gravel road, and I bet the car skids, as the ABS module thinks the engine isn't running