The perfect day for doing the strut top to satisfy the MOT man. He was spot on though lots of corrosion and crinkly metal/rubber bits giving the impression that the strut mounting area was badly corroded. It isn't, its just the strut top assembly much featured in the "speared Xantia" posts on the forum.
I had a newish one from my previous car, if I can recall they are over £100 to order from a citroen dealer.
I have done the job before, so I just set too, and got on with it with no consultation with the good book. Its done now, but I have made the most of the sunshine and been at it most of the day. The main time consumers were:-
1 I had to repair my trolley jack before I even started
2. The sphere wouldnt unscrew by hand, and my homemade tool based on an axlestand and a P shaped threaded rod was too big so I had to improvise and use the threaded rod poking back through two holes in my multi-hole bike spanner.
3 The drop link, its rusty threads, and the 5mm allen key arrangement to hold the pin while unscrewing the nut, took ages to dismantle.
4 Attempting to fit the top of the gaiter to the top of the strut took immense patience and a lot of time.
5 I managed to pull the driveshaft out of the diff slightly, and out poured a fair quantity of gearbox oil in a nice slick under the car.
In the end I have a heady cocktail of gearbox oil and LHM which seems to have penetrated every last piece of my clothing.
If I ever have to do it again I would have a new drop link ready to go in and at the first hint of stubbornness getting the nuts off, out would come the hacksaw-job done
Neil