C5 Rear trailing arm bearings

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411514
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C5 Rear trailing arm bearings

Post by 411514 »

I know that there are several posts on this forum and elsewhere concerning replacement of rear arm bearings on a C5.

I read these before attempting the job, and found them to very helpful. I have now just completed the job, and thought it would be worth a new post to highlight a few of the issues I found which did not appear to have been mentioned in past posts.

The old girl is on about 170k miles, and has been faultless in my five year ownership. About a fortnight ago I started to detect the slightest 'cracking' noise over bumps and potholes, which appeared to come from the rear nearside. I had heard that the problem if left can tend to damage the arms, and so though it would be worth doing ASAP.

Previous posts have covered where to obtain parts. I bought SKF bearings from GSF with a 40% voucher, and the remaining parts from Citroen. For what it is worth, I would suggest that it is only really necessary to replace the bearings, bearing seals, and plastic tube. The remaining metal parts could probably be reused. Certainly, I bought two packs of the shims (at £20 each) which contain about 10 shims per pack, when all is really needed is two shims, and again the old shims could probably be safely reused to save money.

Order generally is (each side), depressurise suspension, up on axle stands, wheels off, anti-roll bar off, disconnect brake line from caliper, disconnect suspension strut rod from arm, arm bolt out and remove arm, extract old bearings/seals/gubbins from arm. Reverse to refit.

Starting with removal of anti-roll bar, this was the first headache. Three of the four bolts were stuck fast and wouldn't budge. I tried my Clarke 240v impact wrench, which has never failed to shift a nut before, but this didn't work. In the end, I found the only way to remove the bolts was to heat them to almost red hot with a blowtorch, and then with a scaffold pole on the of my breaker bar just about got them shifted. It looks like the shank of the bolt was coated either in threadlock or corrosion.

Second problem was disconnecting the strut rod from the suspension arm. I tried everything to no avail, and in the end had to butcher my scissor ball joint splitter, and use the jaw as a wedge to crack the rod out of the arm. I would suggest that this is the only way to do it. As far as I can work out, it is necessary to detach the rod from the arm, as although I tried, it doesn't seem possible to remove the arm with the rod still attached (not enough clearance to manipulate the rod from the strut piston).

Removing arm bolt didn't cause any major problems, and arm came out with any real issue. ditto bearing seals. At this point I did not find what I was expecting. Previous posts have described finding a handful of loose rollers and a cloud of rust. My bearings however looked perfectly fine. Plenty of grease left, and all rollers still in cage. I found the easiest way to remove the outer bearing races from the arm was to use the blowtorch to burn out the plastic tube, which allowed me to push a long chisel (old handle less screwdriver) through from one end, to rest on the rear of the outer bearing race at the other end, and they tapped out no problem. This seemed to be easier than methods suggested by previous posters, such as running a ring of weld about the race to cause the race to contract. With the outer races removed, this is clearly where the problem lay. The surface of the races was heavily worn, with dimples about the lower half of the race, where the roller bearings had been running.

Refitting new bearings was relatively painless. I took the step of separating the outer race from each new bearing the night before, and put the outer race in the freezer overnight, along with the metal spacer tube which is inserted through the bearing inner race. Hard to tell whether or not this is necessary, but it certainly seemed to work.

All in all, not a terrible job, but certainly worthy of the Haynes four spanners rating. I swapped the clutch and flywheel on this car recently, and I would suggest that the rear arm bearings were more difficult. It seems to be the sort of job that, when done once, is much easier. It took me the best part of the day to remove and replace the first side, whilst the second side took less than two hours.

Seemed to solve problem, no cracking noises now.
Sam

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Re: C5 Rear trailing arm bearings

Post by jgra1 »

Nice write up sam. Thanks
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Re: C5 Rear trailing arm bearings

Post by Stickyfinger »

Job done....good one
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Re: C5 Rear trailing arm bearings

Post by djoptix »

I've just done this job on Bertha (more of her later).

I'll do a proper write up, but I found the OP to be super helpful; but I also found that by doing things in the right order I didn't need to depressurise the suspension, remove the brake line from the caliper, or remove the height corrector clamp from the ARB.

Tools required:

24mm sockets and handles x 2 (or one and a 24mm spanner) for the main bolt
Good quality T55 star bit
Breaker bar

Summary:

(* Day before: put outer races in freezer, cover ARB bolts in Plus Gas)
* Suspension in high, axle stands under subframe, suspension to LOW, wheels off.
* Remove R-clips, then use ball joint splitter to free the suspension cylinder mount from the arm (but it won't come out yet - don't worry about this)
* Crack off all ARB bolts (you may need heat etc, or you'll break your star bit). Remove both ARB bolts on the side you're going to work on, and one on the other side. Loosen the fourth bolt a few turns. This will allow the ARB to move enough to let the arm on the opposite side to the bolt out, without having to touch the height corrector. (the ARB never actually leaves the car)
* Remove brake caliper (two 16mm bolts). Now that the brake pipe clamp which was mounted to the ARB is free, the flexi on top of the subframe allows you to rest the caliper on the ground = no brake bleeding afterwards.
* Remove the big bolt through the arm/bearing.
* Arm is now free to move. Move it down and forwards a bit. You can now free the suspension cylinder from the arm.
* Manoeuvre arm off the car. You might need to move the ABS wire to the other side of the suspension cylinder on the way down. You can now rest the arm on the ground, or if you can fashion a platform to put it on (paving slab on top of a wheel or something) this will make your life easier.
* Bash out old bearings and gubbins. Refit new bearings and gubbins.
* Refitting is the reverse etc - remember to leave the ARB loose enough to do the other side.

I made a few helpful tools which I'll post in a full writeup on the blog section.
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Re: C5 Rear trailing arm bearings

Post by Mandrake »

411514 wrote:I found the easiest way to remove the outer bearing races from the arm was to use the blowtorch to burn out the plastic tube, which allowed me to push a long chisel (old handle less screwdriver) through from one end, to rest on the rear of the outer bearing race at the other end, and they tapped out no problem. This seemed to be easier than methods suggested by previous posters, such as running a ring of weld about the race to cause the race to contract.
I can offer an even easier way to do this, no blowtorch required, assuming the bearing assembly is the same as the Xanita! (Which I think it is :) )

In the casting of the arm around the plastic spacer tuber there is a relatively large void, and the plastic tube is fairly thin and flimsy - all I did was use a large long handled flat blade screwdriver with a reasonably sharp end and a hammer - just hammer the screw driver end into the side of the plastic tube at an angle near the middle - it will go straight through the side of the tube like butter. Now you can lever the tube against the housing to distort and crush it. Do this a few different times in different locations and in a few minutes you can crush the tube until it looks like a crushed toilet roll tube and can be ejected out through the hole of one of the bearings! :twisted:

Then its just a matter of tapping out the opposite bearing from each end with a large circular drift - something fairly large diameter but small enough to fit through the bearing race at a small angle. Just tap your way evenly around the far bearing bit by bit and it will easily come out.
Simon

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Re: C5 Rear trailing arm bearings

Post by djoptix »

^ great minds think alike, that's exactly what I did. I used an old carpenter's chisel (the chisel was old, that is, not the carpenter) as it's nice and sharp.
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Re: C5 Rear trailing arm bearings

Post by fikse »

Ive used this receipe to get mine, and it was very helpful, so thank you. One thing; ABS cable, this is not mentioned much here. So ill give a tip: Lift up rear seat, there is a lid to open. There you have connectors for the abs. Use a thin rope and fasten it on the connector so you can get it back when finished. Unplug, draw out from up/behind the fuel tank. I was thinking of loosening the sensor itself, but after 13 years of dirt and corrosion its completely stuck. But to relase the connector at the tank was a 5 minutes job.
Surprised how ease the bearing replacement job was. Ive heard this should be a paint to fix, but with just some pretty basic tools it was straight forward. Thanks to your tip.
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