French Car Forum

You're not just flipping the calipers?

Also they could possibly be ground/milled if you had the kit. Being an old-schooler I actually final scrape some things like this, too. Best success in such endeavours was sorting an HS-8 carb with a nasty dent in the vacuum pot; knocked out to barely there and then scraped inside to a beaut seal once more.

Hello there,

I had this problem, and (after reading through this forum VERY carefully) got on with it SUCCESSFULLY! Everything went well, with no major glitches. Took me about 4 hours all told, not having much mechanical experience.

I decided to get hold of a pair of caliper refurb kits, just in case. No motor factors had any, but finally found a website that sells them at a reasonable price,

http://www.brakepartssuperstore.org.uk/ ... d5520.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

but it turned out I did not need them.

Hell Razor5543

Hell Razor5543 wrote: I had this problem, and (after reading through this forum VERY carefully) got on with it SUCCESSFULLY!

Excellent Patience and care really is the key to this job... Please the forum was useful for this

Welcome Hell Razor I just activated you an had a little smile to myself at your justification... I have a Xantia just like yours (i.e. tatty blue) Well, I did last time I looked. Better check in case you've just nicked it...

Hello again,

The oxide is, as stated by Jim and others, very hard, but it is also very brittle (like roof slates). When I found this out I tapped directly onto the corrosion to crack it, and then across the face to dislodge it (using a sharp cold chisel and light taps with a hammer). I then wire brushed the faces to get a clean surface, followed by a shed-load of grease to slow down the re-ocurrance of the problem.

I was talking to a friend (who is an MoT mechanic) about this problem, and when I mentioned that I wished I could have fitted some sort of gasket between the caliper and the trailing arm to prevent metal to metal contact, he suggested cutting out two pieces of cardboard to fit, soaking them in grease, and then fitting them (he said that that is all a normal gasket is anyway). I am thinking about doing this next time I have to work on the rear wheels. Any thoughts on this, anybody?

Jim, Rattiva II is safe! My Xantia is an X reg, registered June 2001.

I found this thread when looking for something else, and thought I'd share my solution as someone may find it helpful. This appears to be an old thread so I don't even know if anyone will read it.
Some years ago, after a period off the road I noticed my 2000 Xantia Hdi Exclusive Estate had developed a horrific scraping from the rear brakes. I drove home slowly using the handbrake to stop hoping to save the disks but the noise was still there.
I took the wheel off and the pads out and was surprised that the pads were only half worn. Closer inspection revealed the calliper was off centre and rubbing on the disc. I removed the calliper, luckily this was easy as I'd taken it off before and put copperslip on the bolt threads, the mating surface of the calliper was very heavily corroded. This problem is caused because the bracket is cast iron and the calliper aluminium and when you introduce water to the mix, especially salt water, a chemical reaction takes place which greatly increases corrosion.
I removed the calliper and with it on the bench I chipped, scraped and wire brushed all the corrosion off, which took forever! Problem was when I tried to refit the calliper the disc was not central in the calliper and at an angle. I considered having the calliper face machined flat and fitting a spacer between the calliper and the bracket to centralise the disc. Making the spacer would be easy but I don't have the equipment to reface the calliper and the cost would be more than a new calliper.
I had almost accepted by now it was either a search of the local breakers or a new pair of callipers, both of these were inconvenient as I needed the car mobile quickly. It occurred to me these look similar to BX callipers and I knew I had some somewhere. I hunted out several BX callipers but I didn't know which were offside and which were nearside as none had a bleed nipple or pipe attached. When I looked more closely I realised the callipers didn't appear to be handed so I took the other calliper off the Xantia and compared them side by side. Each had 2 holes, one on each side and both holes and seats looked the same. The only difference I could see was the pipe and bleed nipple were reversed and the pad retaining bolt is put through the opposite way. I thought could it really be so easy to fix, just swap the nearside and offside callipers. The corroded face would then be on the outside and the outside face which is flat and shiny new would be on the inside. If I apply copperslip to the mating surfaces before fitting it will keep the moisture out and prevent the problem recurring. The only problem I had was the pad retaining bolt is in the wrong way round, it's now fitted from the back with the nut in front and the bolt can't be removed to get the pads out. This bolt can't be removed with the calliper off the car or the two halves will come apart which could cause more problems. I found some nuts to fit the calliper bolts and bolted the two halves together so I could remove the pad retaining bolt and turn it round. Any suitable nuts and bolts or even a G clamp can be used as long as the two halves are tightly clamped together before removing the pad retaining bolt. The rest is easy, refit the pipes and bleed nipples and bleed the brakes, one of the easier jobs to do on a hydraulic Citroen!
Hope someone finds this helpful and the experts don't throw up their hands in horror saying "you can't do that because.............!"

P.S. Never did find out if BX rear callipers are the same as Xantia!

C5 calipers are notorious for this.

A belt sander is the way to go.......to get rid of hard oxide.

We've all come up against that problem at some point.
Copaslip works well and is what I use, copaslip though not copper grease which doesn't halt the galvanic corrosion. Some people favour a paper gasket which has many reports of success.
Swapping the sides is a good solution if you can, it was reported some time ago that a member here found that some calipers cannot be swapped in that manner as the drillings on each side are different. Can't remember the exact ins and outs of it but basically luck if the drawer which type you have, I wonder which type my car has.
Anyway I'm pleased you fixed it.