Changing GS Spheres the easy way!
Moderator: RichardW
Changing GS Spheres the easy way!
I have recently had to change my spheres on my GS and after dismantling the one side completely, I remembered that someone on another forum mentioned that you can do the job without taking the cylinder out of the sub-frame. I did this for the other side and it saves a lot of time and effort and also avoids breaking the rubber seal/return pipe clip that will almost certainly be rusty and seized.Basically all you have to do is this: When the rear of the car is supported on axel stands and the opposite side wheel is still attatched but up in the air even on maximum height, remove the top bumpstop using a screwdriver, then depressurise the system using the regulator bleed screw, then use a long throw jack to jack up the suspention arm by placing it under the hub(you may need to incrementally add wooden blocks under the jack to really get the arm up high enough if using the original jack). Once its at its maximum height;ie in the "low" possition, you can then proceed to remove the bottom bump stop. Now that you have compressed the cylinder to its minimum possible length and you have got maximum range of arm movement due to no bump stops, you should take the bracket holding the cylinder to subframe (might be a good idea to oil this a few dats in advance) off and slide the cylinder towards the front of the car while keeping an eye on the return pipes making sure you dont stress them too much. I also removed the pin where the cylinder meets the arm (i dont know if its necessary but its not hard if you oil it a few days before). Now all this is done it is possible to slide the whole assembly forwards enough to get a steel band type oil filter wrench round the sphere (this is fidly and be carefull not to cut yourself on the band). Now, to clamp the cylinder, i simply slid over the pertrusion that the HP pipe goes into, a deep wall spark plug socket with an extention bar attatched (This involves undoing this pipe). Carefully possition the rotation of the cylinder and the oil filter wrench over sphere in a way which allows you to put the arm of a hammer (or equivelent) over the top of the extention bar and underneath the filter wrench handle and then simply twist the wood of the hammer clockwise (this has the effect of pushing down on the extention bar and up on the filter wrench handle and is useful leverage). You should find that the sphere unscrews a bit and you may need to reajust the filter wrench a few times if it doesnt loosen up enough the fist time it moves. Then simply take out the sphere and do the opposite to put the new one in and then screw the HP fluid inlet pipe back on. This may be useful for other Citroens like the CX but I dont know how these are designed. Obviously, the BX ones poke out the subframe so are dead easy.