leak from sphere

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toofargone
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leak from sphere

Post by toofargone »

Hello
Xantia 1.9td estate 1997 started leaking fluid from rear right sphere, 30 miles from home. Can I assume that the sphere itself will be at fault--or is there any chance it is just a seal. I suppose it would be leaking about half a pint every 20-30 mins.
citronut
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Post by citronut »

if its leaking around the kneck you might find either the sphere has started to unwind (not tight enough) or the last person to fit it did not lube the seal before spinning the sphere on, hence damaged the seal,

or its the feed pipe damaged, or maybe its got the elderly BX syndrom of coroded ram body, so it has sprung a leak

regards malcolm
Pleiades
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Post by Pleiades »

When was this sphere last removed?

It is a common fault for someone to remove the sphere with the intention of replacing it and not seeing the old hard "O" ring in the grove, they see the nice new "O"ring with the new sphere and end up fitting the sphere using 2 "O" rings.

I have seen the joint of a sphere leaking on countless occasions and found this to be the problem.

The other much rarer fault could be a pin hole in the welding at the sphere neck, this I have only witnessed on a couple of occasions.

Regards
Martin.
toofargone
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Post by toofargone »

thanks for the replies.

these are the spheres that came on the car--a number of years ago. will check the mounting etc.

thanks again
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AndersDK
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Post by AndersDK »

Check that the plastic leakback hose is seated correctly in the bellow.
Might be a split bellow.

The plastic hose does not carry any pressure, but it does carry rather large amounts of leakbacks, which comes from the designed leak in the suspension cylinder seal, to keep cylinder and seal lubricated.
Its the (cars) rearmost plastic hose in the bellow.
(the front most is for venting the bellow during compression)

Also on top of the rear subframe there is a rubber "T" connecting this plastic hose with its mate from the other side. The plastic "T" is known to split or loose one of its hoses.
Anders (DK) - '90 BX16Image
toofargone
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Post by toofargone »

thanks again for reply

i finally got the sphere released but noticed that the collar of the cylinder was not uniform the whole way round. there seemed to be a hole or depression at one point.

perhaps it is a cylinder i need. have also realised, just like a recent post, that the spring at the bottom of the cylinder seems seized in.
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CitroJim
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Post by CitroJim »

toofargone wrote:there seemed to be a hole or depression at one point.
They are quite soft alloy and are a bit delicate, especially if someone before you has tried to get a sphere off using , err, brutal techniques. The face that's important is the one in the resess where the seal fits, afew dings on the very top surface should not matter overly. A good sphere seal should do the trick on minor imperfections.

One thing to watch with rear cylinders is that the thread on the sphere is in good condition. If it is at all damaged it will damage the thread in the soft alloy of the cylinder. Threads can be damaged by dropping a sphere and I've seem a couple of new ones with less than perfect threads.

If necessary, Martin at Pleiades can clean up threads and he may be able to rescue your cylinder once it's free. Martin recently posted advice about removing those clips.
Jim

Runner, cyclist, time triallist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
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