Reason for Inconsistent Height (Xantia)?

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thorter
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Reason for Inconsistent Height (Xantia)?

Post by thorter »

The following may be useful if you have similar symptoms.

I have owned an HDI Xantia Estate for nearly a year. Sometimes the front suspension has been very hard, and at these times it was higher than normal. At other times it has been fine. The height variation has been greater than specified, perhaps a 40mm range.

I have just removed the height corrector assembly, expecting to find one of the pivots partially seized. The pivots were free, but on close inspection it was obvious that one prong of the spring for the roll bar input was contacting the arm for the ride height setting.

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n237 ... orFoul.jpg

You can see where it has been catching. The ends of the spring were originally crudely cropped with sharp edges, so I filed off at least a millimetre, and also rounded the corners (the photo shows it after filing).

The effect was that quite a bit of force was needed to get past the point where it fouled. This presumably caused an UP demand into the height corrector until such time as the increasing height built up enough force to push past.

Fred
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Mandrake
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Post by Mandrake »

Theres no doubt that if the end of that spring was scraping against that plate it would upset the accurate operation of the height corrector, but the thing that puzzles me is how did it get like that in the first place ???? :shock:

Regards,
Simon
Simon

1997 Xantia S1 3.0 V6 Auto Exclusive in Silex Grey
2016 Nissan Leaf Tekna 30kWh in White

2011 Peugeot Ion Full Electric in Silver
1977 G Special 1129cc LHD
1978 CX 2400
1997 Xantia S1 2.0i Auto VSX
1998 Xantia S2 3.0 V6 Auto Exclusive
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thorter
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Post by thorter »

I am fairly sure that it has been like that from new. I checked for distortion of the frame, but it seemed fine. With the height corrector in place and everything centralised, the gap was about 1mm either side. It is probably not safe to have much more than this before there is a risk that something can disengage at the limits of travel.

It would appear to be either an extreme tolerance buildup (unlikely given eveything else looks OK), or an out of tolerance spring, As I said, the cropping of the spring is very crude, though otherwise it looks to be a good quality part. So it is quite possible there are other similar ones out there.

In retrospect, the excess height happened very infrequently in everyday use on relatively flat roads. Once the height has settled. the corrector will stay very near the neutral position where it was not catching. The problem became much more apparent on a recent holiday in France with many steep gradients, hairpin bends, etc. This would lead to large height errors from time to time, then a cycle of over correction would build up.

Regards

Fred
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