Spheres,seals,struts and brake surge!

This is the Forum for all your Citroen Technical Questions, Problems or Advice.

Moderator: RichardW

Post Reply
mark g
Posts: 37
Joined: 27 May 2005, 17:29
Location: United Kingdom
My Cars:

Spheres,seals,struts and brake surge!

Post by mark g »

Hi everyone.
I have just managed to change my front spheres (all by myself..quite proud!), however a couple of things I've found out, might be help to someone else.
The new seals for the spheres are on the spheres when purchased, but the second sphere leaked badly when attached, past the seal. I found out that the seal was a tad too wide and got sqaushed out of shape when attached, when already on the sphere. I took the seal off the sphere and fitted it into the hole first, where it fited perfectly and then put on the sphere, tightening by hand only (as per Haynes manual), I was wearing pvc gloves so got a good grip.Then did citrobics.
Then when I drove the car I noticed that the brakes were no longer doing their pulsing/surging eg press pedal "Brakes on, no off, no on again etc". Why would this be I only chaged the spheres, could there have been air in the system?. Seems odd if that's the case as the Rear trailing arm bearings were only changed last week and you need to depressurise etc to do those.
Any ideas anyone?
Finally...sorry for the long post... I checked my strut tops as the car is 1994. The rear rubber part of one of them (from the top) has corroded through and same place underneath, a little. I think about 1/5 has gone at the most, how likely is it that the strut is going to make an appearance through into the engine bay? I assume the new spheres will take a bit of a load off it?
Thanks
Mark
mark g
Posts: 37
Joined: 27 May 2005, 17:29
Location: United Kingdom
My Cars:

Post by mark g »

Oops Sorry forgot to add, car is a Xantia 1.9D (non turbo)
Chrispy
Posts: 177
Joined: 04 May 2005, 15:17
Location: United Kingdom
My Cars:

Post by Chrispy »

For starters get those strut tops changed. Any sign of corrosion and cracking is bad and it's only a matter of time/ a big hole in the road for your struts to play peekaboo with your bonnet. The strut mounts are £70 each approx from GSF.
As for the pulsing brakes, a lot of them do this. Chances are changing the spheres wont have fixed it, but doing citerobics might. Also, this is caused by a flat accumulator sphere being charged and emptied too fast. How often does yor pressure regulator tick? It should be 30 seconds at most. More often than that suggests either a flat sphere or an internal leak. Remember, the accumulator sphere also feeds the brakes so with it being charged and flattened too fast then you'll feel that in the brakes.
Have you done the brakes fix yet? (Changing the silly spring in the pedal canister for pipe).
mark g
Posts: 37
Joined: 27 May 2005, 17:29
Location: United Kingdom
My Cars:

Post by mark g »

Hi
Yes I changed the silly spring in the brake pedal a while ago but it still surged.
Strut tops will have to wait ffor the moment (money).
Acumulator sphere seems okay raises the boot, I get on it, it raises me etc. Also ticks much less than once every 30 secs.
Thanks fo the reply.
Mark
User avatar
CitroJim
A very naughty boy
Posts: 49531
Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 23:33
Location: Paggers
My Cars: Bluebell the AX, Polly the C3 Picasso, Pix the Nissan Pixo, Propel the duathlon bike, TCR Pro the road bike and Fuji the TT bike...
x 6160
Contact:

Post by CitroJim »

If your car has ABS then this can cause the brakes to feel a bit funny if a sensor is duff. I had this problem, and discovered that the ABS warning light had been disabled to mask a duff sensor. I believe the method used to disable the light left the ABS ECU in some sort of partial working state and thus caused a feeling in the brakes similar to what you are experiencing. Certainly, all is now well after getting the ABS working properly.
Change those strut tops as Chrispy says! I did mine recently and it's not a difficult job.
citronut
Posts: 10937
Joined: 29 Apr 2005, 00:46
Location: United Kingdom east sussex
My Cars:
x 92

Post by citronut »

GSF said they dont stock strut tops main dealer only,hard susp dont help strut tops but if they are that bad they wont hang out much longer,try to do them before bonnet gets distorted dramaticly regards malcolm
User avatar
Mandrake
Posts: 8615
Joined: 10 Apr 2005, 17:23
Location: North Lanarkshire, UK
My Cars:
x 664

Post by Mandrake »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by citronut</i>

GSF said they dont stock strut tops main dealer only,hard susp dont help strut tops but if they are that bad they wont hang out much longer,try to do them before bonnet gets distorted dramaticly regards malcolm
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Never mind the bonnet, can you imagine the danger of driving at high speed when suddenly you have catastrophic collapse of the suspension strut causing complete loss of wheel control on that side ? Almost certainly a high speed accident, maybe a fatal one...
It's just as much a safety issue as an MOT issue. Would you drive a car with a tyre that was so bad that it was on the verge of having a blowout ? I would imagine the strut suddenly collapsing would be at least as bad as a high speed blowout, probably much worse.
Get it done...
Just last week I refused to buy a 2.0 VSX because one strut had obvious cracking and sheering in the rubber block and the other one had some cracking. The seller replaced both strut mountings at their cost before I bought the car, so thanks to my insistance I now have brand new strut mountings at no extra cost. I certainly wouldn't be chancing it...
Regards,
Simon
mark g
Posts: 37
Joined: 27 May 2005, 17:29
Location: United Kingdom
My Cars:

Post by mark g »

Hi
Strut tops have been quoted above as £70 each from GSF, but above also says GSF don't do them. Any ideas (apart from Citroen) where I can get these from and roughly how much. Bearing in mind that the car was £300 I've just had trailing arm bearings done, new rear pads and discs, new front spheres, It's going in next week for new timing belt AND new FRONT pads and dics! I've also got a new knocking from the front suspension (Bushes or linkage of some sort - it's not the strut top- I checked), also tracking was to be done last Friday but has seized, so I've got to go back there too.
Also any ideas how much a garages to charge fit both of these as I certainly can't do it myself.
Thanks
Mark
User avatar
CitroJim
A very naughty boy
Posts: 49531
Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 23:33
Location: Paggers
My Cars: Bluebell the AX, Polly the C3 Picasso, Pix the Nissan Pixo, Propel the duathlon bike, TCR Pro the road bike and Fuji the TT bike...
x 6160
Contact:

Post by CitroJim »

Strut tops are olny available from Citroen as far as I'm aware. They cost in the region of £90 each (for bog standard non active ones) and swapping them is well in the realms of easy DIY. On the Haynes "spanner Rating" it would be a 2 spanner job. About two hours work tops. You may need to replace the Drop Links if they do not play and you must get new hydraulic pipe seals. £200 in my opinion is worth it for peace of mind and bearing in mind your purchase price and the work already done it would seem a bit of false economy not to do this one job.
Garage cost would be whatever they charge for 2 hours labour on top of parts.
Do please get the job done before driving it again. I use one of my old strut tops as a doorstop in the garage now and it's not a pretty sight...
Post Reply