Best way to fix my Activa ?

[wurlycorner]

out of interest what colour/s and spec are they?

I was thinking that last night but can't remember the right paint names so dodged it

Ok so here goes;
s1 t1 number 1 - Metallic blue, air-con, no ABS (from memory - this is the one I've seen least and not seen the longest!)
s1 t1 number 2 - Metallic green (4th one down in this brochure " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) no air-con, ABS
s2 t1 number 1 - Dark Metallic Grey (love this colour), no air-con, ABS
s2 t1 number 2 - Silver, no air-con, ABS. On CX-L this was identified as the oldest s2 CX in the UK, based on RP number (don't ask me what it is now!)
All are 1985 C reg
None have sunroofs (thankfully)
None have leather, all are the lovely standard GTi black/grey herringbone VIP

The DTR T2 Safari is an F plate, with air con.

[naxmon]

Hi guys, I know this is a very old thread but I've been reading it carefully and trying to follow it closely.

I am in the process of restoring an Activa V6 here in Colombia... not surprisingly, there are plenty of Xantias still running here, however not many Activas and moreover, very few with the Activa system working properly.

Now to my problem, my car drops to the front left side when parked, after a couple of hours or sometimes after a couple of days. I have disassembled and cleaned Hydractive regulators, electrovalves (the 3 of them and corrected leaks), anti-sink valves, checked activa rams and suspension cylinders for leakage, no leaks on return pipes. Height- and roll correctors were also disassembled and overhauled. None of what I've done so far has improved a bit this behaviour. This happens only when parked, if engine running, the car stabilizes (with some well-known activa red-lights behaviour nevertheless...).

I have been wondering if it might be worth it to disassemble and check also the SC/CAR regulator (electrovalve was already checked and "repaired" with the spring hack). I haven't done it as I found it very difficult to remove the pipe behind it without lowering the whole rear suspension block, but I wonder if it might be helpful or just a waste of time knowing the symptoms.

Guys I know this is very old and might be in other posts/threads but I haven't been able to solve this issue, any help or hint would be very appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

[Hell Razor5543]

Hi, and to the Forum. I personally will not be able to help you with any advise, other than to wait until members with Activa knowledge see this thread and respond.

[CitroJim]

And a big welcome from me

Just a quick one as I need to be somewhere else shortly...

Have you checked the health of the Activa Accumulator sphere under the battery tray? As it's hidden it's often missed.

Happy to advise further when I'm next on the forum...

[Hell Razor5543]

I know that the Activa spheres can be biblically tight, and require quite a bit of careful work to remove them! A trick a Citroen mechanic told me was that he would loosen off all of the spheres on his car every 6 months or so, and then do them back up hand tight. That way, when he had to replace any spheres, they were not difficult to undo.

[CitroJim]

That is a good policy James. I used to do that with mine...

I also used to loosen off the rear brake calipers every six months..

Note that the Activa accumulator is like the anti-sink sphere and has a 4.5mm pipe screwed into the back of it - this pipe must be loosened first before unscrewing the sphere from its mounting bracket...

[Michel]

Hi Naxmon,

My wife is Colombian, we live in the UK. We travel to Colombia once a year or so, so if you are ever needing small parts and can purchase them online in UK or Europe and have them shipped to me, we can bring them for you if it saves you a decent amount of money..

[CitroJim]

Some questions...

Does the car sit level with the engine running and stationary and when driving?

Is the Activa system working properly when driving?

What is the pressure regulator tick-rate? i.e how often does the pressure regulator cut in and out of operation. Each cut out is identified by a distinct tick sound and this should occur no less than every 20 seconds.

With the engine running and the car stationary (parked) does the Activa system 'dance' in time to regulator ticks? By that I mean does one side drop and then rise at the same rate as the regulator tick? Like a side-to side shuffle almost...

Have you followed the exact procedure to level the Activa system? It is possible to have it maladjusted such that the car can ride level but sink to one side when stopped...

Some Activas, however well set-up they are and however healthy the hydraulic system generally will still sink to one side when parked and the engine is not running... Sometimes this has to be accepted and tolerated...

[naxmon]

Hi Jim,

thanks again for your time with this matter. About the SC/CAR accumulator, I haven't checked the pressure but it is relatively new (less than 8 months and bought directly from IFHS), I am in proccess of repairing my sphere tester but will report on its pressure.
Now, about tick rate, when the car is cold (cold means 15°C here in Bogotá), the tick rate is about 30s or sometimes even more. As the car's temperature increases (an so LHM temp as well) the tick rate decreases to less than 5 seconds
I assume I have an internat leak somewhere but I have checked already all 4 suspension and 2 sc/car cylinders, none has leaked more than a few drops.
I also have noticed this " dance" when stopping at traffic lights and it matches the tick from the regulator as you mention!
Due to all these symptoms I installed an electronic pressure gauge to check the values when driving (as soon as the pressure gauge project is finished, I will post some info on it...), The pressure when cold keeps between 165-140bar relatively steady, but when hot it goes down in average to 120-130bar and consequently the pump is working almost in a constant manner.
I am due to check the return output from the sc/car corrector when hot. I won't be home this week but I will report back as soon as I have tested it.
About the sc/car setting-levelling proceure, I tried to follow the directions I found on the xantia007 website and got a decent result when the engine is running.
Thanks Jim also for the info concerning the "relatively normal" drop on some activas, it seems now I will have to check on this pressure loss before and then re-level the mechanism.
@Michel, thanks also for your offering on bringing small parts to Colombia, very nice from you and I will be contacting you in case, please feel free to contact me if you need something for which I could be helpful here.
I'll keep you posted as soon as I can test.

[CitroJim]

Excellent! You have carried out some very god diagnostics there and from that I would, like you, suspect an internal leak somewhere...

I'll assume you have changed the LHM for new

The top suspect for an internal leak is one of the hydractive electrovalves or the SC/CAR electrovalve... Normally they leak when switched to soft mode and often when switched to hard mode they don't which gives a potentially useful diagnostic test.

Force continuous hard mode my removing the fuse to the Hydractive ECU. This is usually F8 in thee engine bay fusebox (a yellow 20A) but do check as some may vary.

If the tick rate when hot is then normal an the 'dancing' stops, suspect a leaky electrovalve... If this is the case I can offer a few tricks to fix them and how to identify which one it might be...

[myglaren]

The top suspect for an internal leak is one of the hydractive electrovalves or the SC/CAR electrovalve... Normally they leak when switched to soft mode and often when switched to hard mode they don't which gives a potentially useful diagnostic test.

Would it be any use to disconnect the return hoses and see if there was a significant amount of LHM being returned on a particular one, as a way of identifying which component was at fault?

[CitroJim]

The top suspect for an internal leak is one of the hydractive electrovalves or the SC/CAR electrovalve... Normally they leak when switched to soft mode and often when switched to hard mode they don't which gives a potentially useful diagnostic test.

Would it be any use to disconnect the return hoses and see if there was a significant amount of LHM being returned on a particular one, as a way of identifying which component was at fault?

Yes! Exactly that! That was going to be precisely what I was going to recommend as the next step if forcing permanant hard mode resolves a normal tick rate

[naxmon]

Hi guys, sorry for the delay on doing these tests... Well on saturday drove the V6 approximately 200Km and went directly to run some tests as Jim indicated, the result: front electrovalve: leaking, disassembled, stretched small spring (about 30%), then reassembled and leaking stopped, pressure kept very well and relatively steady (40-50s interval on pressure regulator)!
However, in the process of disassembling the electrovalve and reassembilng, the car went cold, so decided to drive again for some 40 minutes, and sadly again, pressure went very low (90 to 100bar).
Tomorrow I will test again all 3 electrovalves when the car is on the low pressure-hot state to see if the small spring repair was unsuccessful or I have another leak somewhere else.
Additionally, tested the SC/MAC accumulator sphere and it is ok
I'll report tomorrow on the leaky EV test result. Thanks guys.

[CitroJim]

Watching with interest Keep us informed...

[naxmon]

Hi Guys,
last week re-checked the front electrovalve and found a small leakage. I decided to replace the EV for another one and the leakage stopped. However, as I told you in my last post, the pressure in the system kept very low when the car was hot, so I decided to check the return flow from the safety valve and the pressure regulator after driving the car for about 2 hours. The result, safety valve return: some drops, nothing considerable. Pressure regulator: High return flow when accumulating pressure.
This result led me to install another pressure regulator I had with promising results. I'm due to test the car on a longer drive but I managed to keep good LHM pressure after driving 1.5 hours with the "new" regulator. It seems that my old regulator suffered some kind of internal leakage when it was hot (my theory is that probably the seals in the regulator were changed by the previous owner and he used the wrong type?...)
Again, I'll do some more stress tests on the V6 to see if this issue was solved. Thanks Jim for the ideas and tips, I'll keep you guys posted.

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Naxmon
Proud owner of:
Xantia 2.0i 8v 1994 "Sinker"
Xantia V6 Activa 1997
Peugeot 407 2.2 2006