Newbie Xantia questions

[Stewart(oily)]

I am experiencing the dreadful brake pedal feel in my recently acquired Xantia, its not a fault its a damned spring between the brake pedal and the doseur valve, search this forum for ideas on how to remove it.
Stewart

[Clogzz]

http://www.aussiefrogs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20151

[mezuk04]

The best place for a price comparison firstly is gsfcarparts.com

and if your local Citroen dealer has the same part in at the same price you may as well get it from there...however GSF do a good Postage service and are quite happy to accept returns if you no longer needed them.

[GB]

Another question:
- how long should it take for both brake and STOP warning lights to switch off following engine start up? How many seconds?


Regards,
GB

[Clogzz]

Used to be 13 seconds for most of the years that I had the car.
After replacing both rear spheres in December, it’s become 18 seconds.
Some cars take less time, others more.
Hope that more findings get posted about that, because I don’t know how long can be taken to be ‘normal’.

[mezuk04]

Mines (oh dear I mean the BIL's) is within the second.

[Mandrake]

It does vary a bit from car to car.... and it will be affected by whether the car has the one or two output pump - early models with the one output pump have about THREE times the pumping capacity supplying the main suspension/brake system than later 2 output pumps on anti-sink models.

Also diesels and petrols idle at different speeds.

That said, on an anti-sink Xantia with all spheres and system running well after a 12 hour overnight break you can expect it to take 8 to 14 seconds for the light to go off.

My own testing shows that if you bleed the regulator and let it pressurize again it takes about 8 seconds for the light to go off even when the car doesn't have to do any lifting, so if it takes only 1 or 2 seconds its highly likely theres a fault - either the accumulator sphere is dead flat, (therefore taking no time to pressurize) or the warning light is telling fibs. (If you calculate the pumping capacity of the pump there is just no way it can fully pressurize the accumulator in 1 second)

With an early non-antisink model the amount of gas in the suspension spheres affects the lifting time (and light out time) quite a bit - because overnight they loose enough pressure that ALL the oil is expelled from the spheres and with low gas pressure you have to pump more oil into each sphere to bring them back to operating pressure, so the pump needs to pump more CC's of oil into the system.

This doesn't really apply on antisink models because even if the suspension spheres are low on gas the anti-sink system keeps the suspension at the same pressure - the height might drop an inch or so over night but the pressure hasn't changed, unless it drops to the bump stops....

The same amount of oil must be pumped back in to correct the small height deficiency regardless of how well gassed the suspension spheres are, so it takes about the same amount of time. (It will take a lot more time to lift from fully depressurized though)

The spheres that WILL affect pressurizing time on an anti-sink model are the accumulator sphere and possibly some effect from the anti-sink sphere....

Other things that will affect it are leakage in the system somewhere (for example leaky Hydractive 2 electrovalves can slow down the pressurization a lot) or problems with the pump such as an air leak on the input causing it to lose its prime...(or just a sick pump in general)

Regards,
Simon