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Level Switch for Coolant Reservoir / Degassing Tank |
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gmerry
 
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   Member No: #21
Location: Scotland |
esteve, hope you have been lucky and survive this one. the problem seems to be lack of development engineering for the thermostat housing, maybe to do with V engine configuration, that is the root cause. for interest, I have added a link for the Cartier level sensor patent EP0907070 - Click Here - regards G |
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e3steve
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 Member No: #1163
Location: Warsash, Hants & Palma de Mallorca, Spain |
Once again, thanks to you all for your input and kind words. I'm not quite feeling the love for Citroën themselves right now, but that's soon to pass. I just adore the C6 but just can't help thinking to myself that it's hardly surprising how values plummet instantly, once their half-hearted attempts at manufacturing leave the showrooms! Such fantastic innovations, jury-rigged alongside such poor attention to detail.... All will become clear, if you haven't already found out for yourselves. I obtained a shiny new "coolant output housing" -- fifty nine quid from my local Citroën dealer -- and decided to get down & dirrrty this evening. All would've gone pretty well if most of the lumpy & tubey bits in the way hadn't decided to disintegrate before my very eyes. I barely had to touch anything and... Oh, another bit's broken! I didn't even raise an eyebrow at the task ahead (many thanks, Cruiserphil, for the documentation!), let alone my voice. I didn't shout at the underbonnet area; neither did I curse nor swear! I'm now into replacing the three tiny (brittle!) plastic tubes that traverse the butterfly housing; they, all three, snapped off at the point of entry into the rubber coupling tubes. I also now need to replace the entire fuel return assembly, which runs from the "coolant/oil heat exchanger", via a curl of jacketed tubing, through the "fuel temperature sensor" and to the front and rear cylinder banks' injectors. Each of the three entry/exit points from/to said "fuel temperature sensor" snapped off in unison! Grrrrrrrr! The engine's copious ancillaries, harnesses and pipes have completely eaten three of the spring clips which retain the return unions in the injectors -- one from the front bank and two from the rear. This happened in spite of probing the work area with a strong Snap On magnetic pickup tool whilst prising the clips from their comfy beds. I'll get a dozen, just in case..... Bear in mind that I still love this car (teeth gritted....). There are other things I could mention, but I sense that you're all glazing over. So, first thing I noticed was that there seems to be a fair sheen of oil within the 70mm diameter-or-so riser hose which attaches to the "air conduit" which, in turn, attaches to the butterfly housing. Is this normal? The second alarming discovery can be seen below: Rear bank "air distributor"  Front bank "air distributor" after vacuuming  andwhat we scraped out of the butterfly housing  Oddly, the EGR valve pipes seem pretty clean, and the clips that retain the unions between the pipes and the butterfly valve's unions' flanges appear to be original. Well, that's the story so far. Let's see what else I can break off when I start putting the fuel system back together, hmmm? I daren't risk going for a pee......  EDITED in blue |
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Tjensen
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 Member No: #954
Location: Bergen |
We must learn form your problems: What is causing clogging and dirt to gather in the air distribution system ? In the simple old times, that would have been backfiring or in the not-so-old times leaks and problems in the engine crankase ventilation system, allowing oil deposits into the system. It should have been nice and clean. | ||
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eduardomaio
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  Member No: #869
Location: Lisbon |
This week was my turn with a broken thermostat and again suffering from the poor Citröen service. In the back of my mind I was always thinking why I didn't go for the Lexus GS450h instead, at least their customer service is splendid.  Anyway, I was lucky, I got a strong smell of hot coolant and immediately checked the water level. Poured about 2,5 liters and found that when the engine was hot water would drip. I suspected the thermostat was the culprit, as I have read so many stories in here, especially the topic from Chevrons. Makes no sense that such an expensive and top of the line car is missing something so trivial as a low level coolant sensor. Another funny thing I found out, one of my HID bulbs is out (giving a pink colour), no warning on Navidrive, but when I plugged Lexia into the car I got an error about a failure in a HID bulb 
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gmerry
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Member No: #21
Location: Scotland |
Hi all, I would like to work up an option using the Cartier sensor as found on some 407 variants. The patent has a pretty good description of the sensor operation, I now realise that the sensor has the electronics incorporated so much simpler than I had thought. So needs an external 12v supply, a ground and will switch a signal current. Pretty much what Phil said all along. I would appreciate anyone with superior electronic skills to me to advise:- -circuit impedance for the signal - I'm going to start with say enough resistance to limit this to say 50mA. This will set the control voltage. -source for the 3 wire plug (other than scappie, PSA use a lot of their own stuff) -current for oil pressure switch - note I can measure this with high impedance digital multimeter. 10.3mA I'll probably use the Cartier low level signal to drive a volt free contact - thinking here of a solids state relay - and use that to switch the oil pressure sensor to ground. All sensible comments on the electronics gratefully received. G |
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e3steve
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Member No: #1163
Location: Warsash, Hants & Palma de Mallorca, Spain |
G, I'd be happy to work alongside you with this. I really want to improve upon this gorgeous vehicle and, hopefully & between us all, we can pick up where Citroën themselves left off! I bought mine because I'd been promising myself one ever since I saw the horse-racing camera stunt on Top Gear -- C6 vs. BMW 5-series -- and, also, ever since I observed William Gaminara's character, Prof. Leo Dalton in Silent Witness, driving one. I just love these unusual and unique beasts! Citroën have always been innovative; but with innovation must come reliability, and the only reliable Citroëns that I ever owned thus far seems to have been my old 2CV6 and my BXs. Spheres aside -- and even those failures were restricted to the oldest BX that I owned (the 19RD auto) -- I don't recall any of my BXs ever giving me grief. Not ever! So, with that in mind, I'd really like to be able to get my C6 properly sorted. We seem to suffer all manner of silly failures of switchgear, xenons, cruise control communication devices, etc, some of which should be addressable; but this ridiculous overheating-due-to-low-coolant party trick is just unforgivable in this day & age! And Citroën should be ashamed of themselves for letting such a glaring error of an omission get past their in-house QC. Even Peugeot, who are renowned for poor build quality (I'm using an '04 607 2.2HDi auto whilst my C6 undergoes minor surgery and suffers the waiting game for the replacement incidental brittle engine parts -- Jeez, what a piece of old  !), managed to remember to include a low coolant sensor!Rant over. So, onto the job in hand: I'll see if I can find the time next week (I'm due to be in Palma de Mallorca to address a yacht's monitoring system's problems -- ironic, or what?!) to play with the Cartier probe that's in my C6's header tank. Having pulled it and given it a cursory look-over, I was thinking that it may have been an ultrasonic device. These are quite common within yachts' tank systems, like black- and grey-water high levels, whereby their output changes when their oscillating frequency is altered by becoming immersed. Industry-standard outputs are either digital (on or off) or analogue (0 to 10V or 4 to 20mA outputs, both mainly for linearly-scaled calibrations but, sometimes, and in the case of ultrasonic probes, for detecting the presence if a body of liquid). Having read the patent that you kindly provided the link to, we can see that this is a low current conductive probe; and yes, we should be able to use its output to drive a solid state relay. I shall carry out some tests and report back. |
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gmerry
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Member No: #21
Location: Scotland |
OK, cartier low level switch. Looking end on into the electrical connection, one can see the terminal numbers 1, 2 & 3. Terminal 1 is earth Terminal 2 is signal Terminal 3 is fused +12V supply (ignition on). The signal is normally +5V (ie when submerged) and falls to 0v when liquid level drops. I got the connector out of a crashed 407 and the wiring colours were terminal 1 green/yellow terminal 2 orange terminal 3 white regards G |
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e3steve
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Member No: #1163
Location: Warsash, Hants & Palma de Mallorca, Spain |
Thanks G; I'll be on it during the coming week. I like your idea about utilising the oil pressure warning circuit. Good call. I'm just in the process of getting myself a Lexia 3 Diagbox; one that allows alterations to the vehicle's parameters, so perhaps there's a provision for low coolant level(?), somewhere in the BSI / ECU. Any idea as to where one might obtain the passcode for a C6? Would a dealer, or Citroën HO provide same to an owner? Good weekend! |
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C6Dave
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  Member No: #1
Location: Northumberland |
e3steve wrote ... Any idea as to where one might obtain the passcode for a C6? Would a dealer, or Citroën HO provide same to an owner? Good weekend! You won't get it off a dealer I'm afraid. There are several members who have bought one so hopefully they will be able to assist |
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eduardomaio
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Member No: #869
Location: Lisbon |
A member of the portuguese Citroën forum was looking at the Citroën Service website and found out on the 3.0i the expansion tank had the level sensor. I then went on to browse the parts for the 2.7 HDi and upto ORGA 10674 the level sensor was included. I didn't find any change related with this ORGA number regarding the engine electrical wiring. Was the switch discontinued and the cable is still there, or was the switch included without being connected to anything? Can anyone with one of the first C6 with a ORGA inferior to 10674 check this? |
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C6Dave
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Member No: #1
Location: Northumberland |
Now that is interesting, a tanks was fitted until RPO 10674 with a level switch after RPO 10674 there was a different tank with no switch (as already posted): (Click to enlarge)  Level Switch part number was updated and covers: - 1323 G1(1) for C1 engine DV4TD - 1323 S8(1) for C5 engines DV6TED4 , DW10BTED4 , DW12TED4 - 1323 V2(1) for C5 engine ES9A - 1323 V1(1) for C6 engine ES9A Looking at those above it may be easier to find one at a breakers as it was fitted to more cars than the C6 Tank 1323 V1 costs: £45.70 inc Vat Switch 1306 F2 Costs: £19.31 inc Vat |
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Pappnase
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 Member No: #1044
Location: Bonn |
Thanks guys for your research efforts. If the old version still works it might be worth a few quid. Also I still have a brand new XM sensor somewhere. Wonder if this one works. And e3steve, to my knowledge the China lexias all have the same passcode, 03114. Papp |
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Hattershaun
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 Member No: #320
Location: Bedfordshire, UK |
eduardomaio wrote ... A member of the portuguese Citroën forum was looking at the Citroën Service website and found out on the 3.0i the expansion tank had the level sensor. I then went on to browse the parts for the 2.7 HDi and upto ORGA 10674 the level sensor was included. I didn't find any change related with this ORGA number regarding the engine electrical wiring. Was the switch discontinued and the cable is still there, or was the switch included without being connected to anything? Can anyone with one of the first C6 with a ORGA inferior to 10674 check this? Just checked my car, which doesn't have a level sensor. It's an early car from Nov 2005, RP 10606 and 2.7hdi. Looking at all the different engines on Citroen Service it only appears that early petrol cars had the sensor. I wonder if a sensor could be fitted to cars that didn't have one from the factory and it would just plug in work. Here's hoping! |
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C6Dave
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Member No: #1
Location: Northumberland |
OK, the only relevant wiring diagram for cars pre RPO 10674 I can currently find is the one for the multifunction display screen - Click Here - Hopefully that will help with the Coolant Level Switch, however if someone with a 3.0 Petrol with the system fitted can provide a Vin, then we may be able to get others |
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eduardomaio
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Member No: #869
Location: Lisbon |
Hattershaun I have checked it again and it doesn't appear on the 2.7HDi as you mention. Now I'm not sure if I was checking the 3.0i and thought I was on the 2.7 or if it was just wishful thinking 
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