Xantia front ride height

ohms · Post by **ohms** » 13 Oct 2007, 19:20

Hi all,

having a few problems with the front ride height of my TD xantia. The rear goes up and down perfectly, but the front will only go up and won't come back down. I jacked it up and had a good nose around the front height corrector and from what I can see the problem lies with the rod that pulls the height corrector back and forth(referring to the linkage rods that are connected to the height lever in the cabin). It looked to me as though the 8mm bolt that serves to clamp the linkage rod to the front height corrector is too long and is catching on the underside of the car when the lever is set to full low. So I chopped the end off the bolt, but am now having trouble setting the thing up.

I set the lever to normal ride height and then reclamped the linkage rod and tested to see if this made any difference. Now the car is stuck in high at the front and won't come down no matter what I do with the adjuster in the cabin.

Haynes doesn't divulge on how to set it up plus, I ran out of light to play about with the settings some more. I have a feeling I need to set the cabin adjuster to full high and then clamp the linkage rod.

Any opinions?

deian · Post by **deian** » 13 Oct 2007, 19:49

Set the in-cabin adjuster on NORMAL height, and take it from there, the car will take it's time to settle on the right height, it's a tedious process, but I know it should be set with the thing on normal height because of the way the mechanism works.

Mandrake · Post by **Mandrake** » 13 Oct 2007, 20:24

Start by slackening the clamp on the override linkage so that it is free to slide - if you tightened it while the ride height was right up or down it will be set wrong and will be forcing the height to one extreme.
Now set the height lever to its normal position and idle the engine for a couple of minutes and the front should settle to the correct height - if not you may have something else wrong as well.

Assuming all goes well the next thing is to set the clamp properly, which must be done with the suspension resting at normal ride height and the lever set to normal as well. If you slide the linkage you'll notice it can slide about an inch - if you look at the main height corrector linkage at what moves you should see a peg in an elongated slot - the peg must be set to the middle of the slot and then the clamp tightened. Done!

Of course it goes without saying the car must be safely on a pit/hoist/ramp during the whole procedure.

Good luck.

Regards,
Simon

ohms · Post by **ohms** » 14 Oct 2007, 19:17

Well after much messing about this afternoon I've sort of got the car riding at the correct height in the normal driving selector position. It is however still a bit high at the front.

With the clamp fully slackenend off and the corrector in it's natural middle position it sends the car to the full high position.

It's taken me about 5 hours and a lot of effin and jeffin to get it where it is now, somethings not right.

Any ideas on what the problem is likely to be? the car seems to go up and down as it should now, but can be temperamental when going from the driving position to full low. Takes a bit of fiddling with the height selector to get it to go down.

citronut · Post by **citronut** » 15 Oct 2007, 08:38

you should never try adjustting any of the hight adjustments, untill you have made 200% sure all of the linkage is not siezed and the white nylon links are connected, as these are the usual point which cause problems, none of the adjustments can allter without being loosend by someone
regards malcolm