Rear Ride Height

[xantiagreen]

Hi, Just got car back from garage earlier this evening , had all round discs pads and rear height corrector seal kit fitted but now the ride height gets stuck when the car is raised, when it fully lowered it takes it goes down to the ground when raised to driving height the back is slightly low, got three passengers to sit in back and car rose to correct height when they got out it didn't go back down to level out.

Same if you raise the car fully and then drop to correct driving height the rear will stay up and the front drops (bit like this chaps) " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. a comment on there says "it's a small plastic clip on the back of the height selector lever. they break and cause the back end to lose touch with the rest of the car". another chap says,

"it's because of a small plastic clip. i have the same problem, but i solved it. Cost 5$ at local citroën reseller".

Thanks in advance.

[Peter.N.]

It sounds as though the corrector linkage is stuck, give it several doses of WD40 over a few days and it should free off.

Peter

[Old-Guy]

If the plastic link (a.k.a. 'dog-bone) is broken or disconnected, one end of the the car will not self-level; it will be stuck on either LOW or HIGH until the control lever between the seats, is moved to the other extreme.

It sounds as though the height corrector mechansim wasn't cleaned and thoroughly lubricated when the garage removed it. However, it's important to understand that the car's ride-height is dynamic and even when sat stationary under an unchanging load, it won't return to exactly the same height when coming down to Normal as when going up to Normal because of the hysteresis in the mechanism. Moreover, it takes at least 20 seconds for the system to respond to a change in the height control lever position - and that's once the STOP light is out indicating full hydraulic system pressure.

If I were you, I'd check the LHM reservoir level (car parked on a level surface, engine running, suspension on HIGH, wait a good 20 seconds after the car has stopped rising, orange 'flying saucer' indicator should be on or just below the top mark. If it's low, add LHM very slowly until the 'flying saucer' reaches the correct level.

As Peter says, the mechanism is a bit sticky (or a bit of muck is stuck in the height control valve), so flush the rear height control mechanism with plenty of WD40 or spray-on penetrating oil, do a thorough Citarobics session, flush again. The real cure is to take the mechanism off and thoroughly clean and free it up on the bench, but most of us (Xantia/XM owners) put up with less than perfection. Once the WD40 or whatever has had a chance to blow away (and the mechanism is nice and free), give the mechanism a good soaking with a suitable spray-on grease - white grease or non-fling chain grease - to lubricate and protect against the salt spray.

[Stickyfinger]

System crash caused double post

Did not know Citroen made PCs as well Did they make Windows Vista ?

[myglaren]

System crash caused double post

Did not know Citroen made PCs as well Did they make Windows Vista ?

That would be Windows Visa surely?

Various members have contributed to a quite thorough guide to renovating height corrector mechanisms, mainly Malcolm and Kev.
The thread is here.

[xantiagreen]

It sounds as though the corrector linkage is stuck, give it several doses of WD40 over a few days and it should free off.

Peter

Where am I aiming the WD40, I know where the rear height corrector is?

[xantiagreen]

System crash caused double post

Did not know Citroen made PCs as well Did they make Windows Vista ?

That would be Windows Visa surely?

Various members have contributed to a quite thorough guide to renovating height corrector mechanisms, mainly Malcolm and Kev.
The thread is here.

Aprreciated!

[Old-Guy]

System crash caused double post

Did not know Citroen made PCs as well Did they make Windows Vista ?

I hate to confess this, but this elderly second-hand Thinkpad is no longer running the original Vista Business Ultimate (I think - label is almost unreadable), but Ubuntu Linux. However, this is only the second time it has ever crashed in 18 months. I put it to Sleep for the umpteenth time over the last several days and it froze on wake-up. Having forced a shut-down (power button), it rebooted perfectly - no problems or errors.

Ubuntu (10.04 LTS) is soooo much faster than Vista: -

With a leisurely 5,400 rpm 120Gb HDD, but 3Gb RAM, Ubuntu boots (completely) in under 50 seconds, shuts down in under 9; like a tart, tries to join any available wireless network it can find, and immediately latches onto the first (of an unlimited number) for which it knows the security code. Vista used to take 5-6 minutes to bring up a usable desktop but for at least as long again, coughed and stuttered while Vista did housekeeping in the background, anywhere from 15 seconds to 10 minutes to shut down - and this was a clean factory re-install with all the latest updates!

Was dual boot so that I could use Vista for a few jobs which are too much work to convert to Linux alternatives, but when Vista collapsed in a heap about 6 months ago, it was easier to do the conversions than spend several days doing another Vista re-install. I don't miss the Windows aggro one little bit.

Toying with the idea of replacing the spinning HDD with an SSD - recently converted a (former) client MD's XP laptop (about £70 retail for the SSD): absolute magic - XP boots in about 1/5th the time (30 seconds or so) and everything runs that much faster. Client chuffed to bits.

[Old-Guy]

It sounds as though the corrector linkage is stuck, give it several doses of WD40 over a few days and it should free off.

Peter

Where am I aiming the WD40, I know where the rear height corrector is?

The idea is to use WD40 or spray penetrating oil, to wash off the usual stiff mix of old grease, dirt and grit. So you need to use a straw to direct a jet of liquid at the coil springs and the linkages. A fiver's-worth, or whatever, of spray will save several hours work - just don't do the job on your drive unless you first spread a bag of cat litter underneath to soak up the greasy gunk! Talking of which, a spray can of Gunk would be a better starting point than WD40. Keep the latter for de-watering the mechanism afterwards.

[Stickyfinger]

System crash caused double post

Did not know Citroen made PCs as well Did they make Windows Vista ?

I hate to confess this, but this elderly second-hand Thinkpad is no longer running the original Vista Business Ultimate (I think - label is almost unreadable), but Ubuntu Linux. However, this is only the second time it has ever crashed in 18 months. I put it to Sleep for the umpteenth time over the last several days and it froze on wake-up. Having forced a shut-down (power button), it rebooted perfectly - no problems or errors.etc etc

Personally I would ditch it and put XP release3 on a partition with the Lexia software and Win7 64 on another, neither are large and Win7 will get the best out of the disk and mem....this config works well on my old Sony.

[xantiagreen]

It sounds as though the corrector linkage is stuck, give it several doses of WD40 over a few days and it should free off.

Peter

Where am I aiming the WD40, I know where the rear height corrector is?

The idea is to use WD40 or spray penetrating oil, to wash off the usual stiff mix of old grease, dirt and grit. So you need to use a straw to direct a jet of liquid at the coil springs and the linkages. A fiver's-worth, or whatever, of spray will save several hours work - just don't do the job on your drive unless you first spread a bag of cat litter underneath to soak up the greasy gunk! Talking of which, a spray can of Gunk would be a better starting point than WD40. Keep the latter for de-watering the mechanism afterwards.

I have just ordered Gunk degreaser, Plusgas penetrating oil and some white/lithium waterproof grease. Hope it works otherwise its off to westroen for a refursbished cradle possibly rod connector, think its £65-£70 fitted.

[Peter.N.]

Look along the anti roll bar and you will find a clamp with a rod attached to it, that connects to the height control valve.

Peter

[Old-Guy]

You'll need the Gunk and spray grease for regular annual 'servicing' of both height corrector mechanisms. The front one suffers much less because it's in a much more protected position - especially if the engine under-tray is still fitted. As you'll know, the rear one is very exposed to all the spray and muck thrown up by the front wheels. Personally, I'd give the rear one a good clean and re-grease every autumn - prevention is far better than cure.

I've realised that in my last post I advised using a "straw" - the proper term for the little red tube taped to WD40 aerosol cans, not a drinking straw!

[RichardW]

We've rather missed the point of the OP's post -which is that is has been to the garage for 'Rear height corrector seal kit' (whatever that is!) and NOW the height correction is screwed up. If it was working before then the garage have screwed it up, so it is back to them to fix it surely? If it was working before it went in, then it hasn't magically seized up overnight. Nonetheless, the advice re lubricating the mech is valid all the same - once it gets back to working!!

[Mandrake]

I seem to recall having a similar problem with the rear height corrector on my previous Xantia after it came back from a Citroen indy... I don't recall what it went in for (its very rare for me to get anyone else to work on my cars) but I noticed that it wouldn't reliably correct in one direction, and that they had greased the height corrector linkage, possibly in an attempt to fix it. Also sometimes trying to raise the ride height with the height lever resulted in a metallic "twang" from under the car...

Its a few years ago now so I wish I could remember the details better but I remember discovering and fixing the problem - there was an alignment problem with the height corrector linkage - I THINK what it was was that the height corrector linkage assembly was not bolted onto the car straight, (down the axis of the car) therefore the manual height control override rod was coming at the linkage assembly at a slightly sideways angle...

That was enough to cause the override linkage to intermittently "catch" and foul, the "twang" it made was the fouled linkage jumping free. All I did to fix it was loosen the height corrector linkage mounting bolts, straighten the alignment, re-tighten them and then check and re-adjust the ride height.

Edit: Or it could have been the height corrector was slightly crooked relative to the linkage mechanism, (there is a small amount of movement on the two bolts before they're tightened) sorry I can't remember the details a bit better.