C5 Pump change pressurising resevoir ideas needed.

cachaciero · Post by **cachaciero** » 27 Jun 2011, 23:05

Well the suspension pump finally gave up to day!
So as it was a nice day decided that the pump I purchased a few months back was going to be fitted and it was by the end of play today.
Fortunately the new pump runs fine, unfortunately it doesn't pump oil so I am going to have to pressurize the reservoir, now this is a bit of a bitch as I need to make something up, air is no problem electric tyre pump will see to that it's just finding something that I can use as a cap....any thoughts welcome.

cachaciero

BX · Post by BX » 27 Jun 2011, 23:38

I think that this pressurisation is really a form of superstition. I refilled a system once that had been drained completely dry, and left dry for over a year. When the reservoir was filled and the battery reconnected the pump started running. After running for a number of seconds it started to pump fluid and the suspensions started to rise without any problems. The fluid should now be changed again as it has covered over 130,000Miles without being touched.I have also topped up a system after leaks (return pipes from the front strut) without any problems.
I can see a case for filling the top of the reservoir with dessicated air to prevent the fluid from absorbing moisture. One way of part doing this would be on a good day with low humidity, to open the cap and drop the suspension to the minimum thus expelling as much air as possible. Then rise the car to maximum height and replace the cap.

Post by **myglaren** » 28 Jun 2011, 00:04

I believe that the one-man-brake-bleed gubbins fits and works.

Gibbo2286 · Post by **Gibbo2286** » 28 Jun 2011, 08:37

I used a cap off a plastic shampoo pot, hole drilled and a tubeless tyre valve pulled through, a couple of strokes with the tyre pump was enough.

Similar thing works if you want to seek ot radiator leaks. G.

wheeler · Post by **wheeler** » 28 Jun 2011, 08:37

BX wrote:I think that this pressurisation is really a form of superstition. I refilled a system once that had been drained completely dry, and left dry for over a year. When the reservoir was filled and the battery reconnected the pump started running. After running for a number of seconds it started to pump fluid and the suspensions started to rise without any problems.

I've changed a fair few of theese & yes the odd time they just pump & fill straight away but in most cases i've had to pressurise the system to get the suspension to rise. If it doesent start lifting after a minute of the pump running then i wouldnt recommend running it any longer as there may be a risk of the pump running dry & damaging it. I just use a normal cooling system pressure testing kit that has various cap adaptors & a hand pump, Half a bar is all that is needed.

cachaciero · Post by **cachaciero** » 28 Jun 2011, 22:08

Well more to report and a thank you for pointing me at the Gunson easy bleeder works a treat.
Having got the pump to prime and raise the suspension it allowed me to do something which I had thought about for a long time. That is to apply a vacuum to the tank as a way of sucking air out of the system partly because I don't believe that depressurising the system with a Lexia is ever going to get all the air out of the system, and so it would appear to be the case, with suspension depressurised the vac pump had to do quite a bit of sucking before getting a stable vacuum in the top of the reservoir.
Also something else I saw while monitoring pressure in the reservoir makes me wonder if the difference between self priming or not maybe the difference between having the cap on firmly or not having the cap on. I say this because when I refitted the pump for the second time today I deliberately had the cap on tight and it primed no problem, yesterday when trying to get it to go I didn't have the cap fitted.

Fitting the pump for the second time? did I hear someone say?
Why?

Well sometime ago when trying to work out which pumps were fitted to which cars somebody in the trade who specialise in Citroen said that in fact all pumps will do H3+ which mine being an Exclusive has. So the pump I fitted yesterday, rather than mix and match bits I decided to fit as was having checked with the Lexia.
True the part number was different but the Software was the same as were all the other numbers, again the Lexia appeared to allow the setting of the + options.
Having fitted it yesterday and testing it today twas true, the new pump did switch the centre spheres as the man said. I was just about to wrap up the Lexia session when something made me stop and check the headlights which are, being an Exclusive Xenon HIDS.
By now some of you will have worked out where this is going

True the pump operated the Centre Spheres BUT it didn't send ride height signals to the headlights which they require to set the correct dip beam angle. So pump out transplant of original head on new body after which all is good.... I think!!!
I'm a bit concerned that the numbers on the motor don't agree with the original although as far as I can see the motors are identical.

Just to wrap this up most pump motor failures I have seen reported seem to have been because of failures of brush wiring, in my case the motor appears to have failed due to armature shorts judging by the state of a couple of adjacent segments on the armature which look like they have been getting extremely hot.

cachaciero

wheeler · Post by **wheeler** » 29 Jun 2011, 18:28

I take it you changed/checked the setting with Lexia to the BHI having Xenon headlamps ??

cachaciero · Post by **cachaciero** » 29 Jun 2011, 21:43

wheeler wrote:I take it you changed/checked the setting with Lexia to the BHI having Xenon headlamps ??

Hi Wheeler
Yes I did indeed set the option in the BHI. I have to say it does seem strange that apparently the logic is there to operate the center valves but not to send data to the lights as i would have thought the HIDS would be an option on lower trim levels where as H3+ was only ever fitted to the Exclusive and would never need to be enabled on any lower trim level car. Maybe I will re-visit this one day.
Checked the Lights today with the Lexia and they both had fault codes showing lack of step signal from the BHI, that would be from the first pump fitted, Cleared them and they didn't come back and I could see tthe parameters changing as I raised and lowered the suspension.

However I do have a new problem "et".

The suspension is showing a failure which says that the pump is intermittently open or short circuit, the parameters recorded show that the car was in motion and that the sensor supply was missing.

Anyway the real problem is that I can't clear the fault it just comes back and says fault still present which it clearly isn't.

The suspension works just fine and all the parameters check out.
If the fault was still present I would expect there to be different values on the fault parameter page, i.e I would expect the software to clear all recorded values then re-enable the fault detection logic which would instantly pick up a permanent fault and log it together with a new set of parameters. This being French logic may not apply

cachaciero

wheeler · Post by **wheeler** » 30 Jun 2011, 09:08

Might be worth trying a software update on the BHI ?

cachaciero · Post by **cachaciero** » 30 Jun 2011, 21:35

wheeler wrote:Might be worth trying a software update on the BHI ?

Thought about that as well, thought about it with other BHI as well, tried downloading to that (hoping to resolve the lights issue)but without success. I assumed that the required file existed within the installed Lexia system it certainly lists it but maybe it is only on the installation disk. However when trying the download I got a very quick flash of a message which talked about unlocking the ECU. Gave up at that point pending more research. Any thoughts appreciated.

cachaciero