Ohh, gosh yes - rack gaiters can be proper type-2 'fun' on a Xantia...
ekjdm14 wrote: 26 Aug 2026, 14:22 At least the weather held out till I could finish, it's not looking great the next couple of days to say the least!
We got rained on yesterday whilst out and about - it was lovely - especially the smell of the petrichor We were in a garden centre at the time so the effect was very much heightened...
Petrichor, that's a word you don't hear every day! Yes love the smell, who couldn't?
Not so keen on the rain if I'm honest but Gawd knows we needed it, so I'll give it a pass. Type-2 fun is one way to describe it, with how my hands and right elbow feel today though I'd call it a few other choice names...
Type-2 fun incoming in 2 large doses, she failed on BOTH rack gaiters! Can only guess the new one popped off one end, and the one I replaced 9 years ago has chosen now to die again.
Cannot face that job right at the moment, I'm still aching from the first round. I shan't repeat any of the words uttered when I finally find the will to do it, but I'm sure you can use your imagination & not come up with any worse.
Yep, think I might be better off sanity-wise just dropping the rack and giving it all a good clean up while it's out. If nothing else my hands will thank me!
There was another failure point I was a bit miffed about, and I quote-:
MoT man wrote:Brake operation stored air pressure or vacuum depletes when ancillary equipment is operated (no pressure on the pedal) [1.1.3 (c)]
Not sure what the heck that was about, language barrier means the only explanation I could extract was "no pedal, it on floor"...
All I can assume from this is they didn't like how low the pedal sits courtesy of the silly spring delete, it's been like that for many years though with no problem, there's plenty of extra travel available after the brakes are fully applied but either way all I'm going to do there is add a spacer where the silly spring used to be. To be honest I think if that's what the fail was for then he's misclassified it, certainly no warning lights when using other hydraulics and accumulator is good for at least 5 heavy jabs on the pedal. Ach well will see on retest I suppose, providing the weather allows the work to be completed in time for partial retest!
Bit miffed with GSF now also, ordered parts to supposedly arrive today but no delivery & no notification that they've even shipped. I paid £3.99 extra for delivery today as well, I'll have a rocket for them if I don't see brake pads and rack gaiters by bedtime!
For the moment though, think the youngest lad has found us a stop gap car. Old Focus 1.6 petrol with MoT till January for £350 sounds reasonable (well, considering it comes at a cost to me of £0 lol. Not gonna complain about that).
We were in a garden centre at the time so the effect was very much heightened...
Yep, rack gaiters have a nasty little habit of doing just that... 
