Stiff suspension after spheres regassing - C5 X7

[GolfMk1Vr6]

Yesterday i took the car for a drive and it feeled a bit softer. I did the bleeding method twice and somehow it's 10-20% softer but still stiffer than before.

If air gets into the circuit somehow, the suspension wouldn't be more softer because air is compressible?

[Kees]

@GolfMk1Vr6:
It has no use to think about air in the system. You bleed it a few times, so don't worry, there's no air in the system.
But as i said before all sphere's works together, and the center sphere is for the soft mode/ride.
You regass the corner sphere's, because they lose pressure, so why didn't the center sphere is also lose the pressure?
Make it yourself easy, and regas/replace the center sphere.
Greetings,
Kees.

[GiveMeABreak]

Yesterday i took the car for a drive and it feeled a bit softer. I did the bleeding method twice and somehow it's 10-20% softer but still stiffer than before.

If air gets into the circuit somehow, the suspension wouldn't be more softer because air is compressible?

No, because air is compressible, but LDS fluid is not. So this causes locks in the system - just like air in the braking system which means the fluid is not getting to where it should and pressing the brake pedal causes spongey soft brakes that don't work.

If the ride is the same level of hardness at the front and rear then the centre sphere you didn't do wouldn't cause that. If you didn't change the front centre sphere for example, then you would get a firmer ride at the front, but the rear would still be normal as it's riding on 4 spheres.

As you know these saucer spheres are not really intended for re-gassing, so I can't comment on that, but other issues can be:

Incorrect sphere pressures
Airlocks in the system
Incorrect height settings
Faulty hydraulic stiffness blocks
BHI

[lcwin]

Change the front center sphere .
I hope you did not put the rear sphere to the front as the damping is different . Never over inflate your sphere more than 20% as it will affect the position of membrane inside the sphere which should be about halfway inside. Anything more can cause rapture or reduced suspension travel . The older round sphere can be inflated more. Do a simple bounce with car locked for 30 min or more and then start car and do it again on all 4 sides. It should be quite easy to push down with the engine On .
Finally sphere can rapture after refilling.the bounce test will tell you. I usually just set car to lowest position,jack up side slightly and change sphere unless I am doing center sphere. I will use lexia to depressurize if doing center sphere. After its change just set car back to normal position.

[vallium]

9. Check fluid is between the 'a' & 'b' marks in the picture below.

If you have fluid between A & B marks when low and then completely depressurise the system with diagbox tank will overflow. Ask me how I know

[GiveMeABreak]

Not a complete disaster though, and for normal use it's fine for the reasons I've said - as in just topping up when you haven't depressurised the system manually or with Diagbox. But yes, 100% agree that if you are planning to depressurise in future for sphere changes or other maintenance, then I'd either manually depressurise the front or the back independently using the valves screws which should reduce any fluid loss - otherwise make sure you've plenty of rags to soak op any spillage as you don't want this flowing onto the BHI or the Pump.

[verdi]

Hi Marc
Regarding the Hydraulic liquid - Does a brown/rusty color of the LDS before bleeding, means air in the system? I dont see any bubbles.
after a bleeding the LDS became clear.

[GiveMeABreak]

LDS is a reddish / brown colour. The bubbles are more like a 'fizzing'.

When you have it on the lowest setting during the bleeding process, when you get to the turning of the steering wheel part, I would actually turn the steering wheel left to right about 8 times, slowly, just to give the system time to work out any air. If that has been done and the suspension it still hard, then it has to be the spheres (incorrect gas pressure or no gas) which will mean it is only the fluid pushing against a membrane with little or no gas and therefore no compression, resulting in a hard ride. In this situation the vehicle will only be suspended form the small amount of gas in the sphere (if there is any) and the tyres.

As I've said, these spheres are not supposed to be re-pressurised and they have spikes inside the gas chamber to puncture the membranes in the event of over-pressurisation to avoid explosion of the sphere casing.

If the re-gassing operation has failed, has leaked or was over-pressurised then this can be the reason. I suppose you have to ask the question: is the car now worse than it was before you had the spheres 're-pressurised'? If so I think that is where the issue lies.

Personally, I would only fit new spheres to avoid all these issues.