Xantia - couple of things

[ecohouse1]

Was changing the spheres at the weekend and even depressurising the system - the o/s front shere was very stiff to remove and needed the tool until almost the last turn! It then sprayed me with LHM!! Am I right to assume that it was ruptured and if so would that have meant it wasn't working very effectively as a spring?. I still have the A/S sphere at the back to do as ran out of daylight! Have that pleasure next weekend

Also I have noticed that when I press the brake pedal the internal heater fan speeds up when the engine is running!! Is this normal! Its only a slight increase but it is noticable.

Thanks

Alan

[red_dwarfers]

If you get LHM out the sphere it usually means the sphere is not a lot of good though the technical reasons behind this I'm not sure of.

The whole brake pedal blower thing, I and a few others have picked up on it too. Its so far been put down to one of those Xantia quirks!

When you do the anti sink sphere, don't forget to unscrew the 9mm union before the sphere. If you can use a flared spanner on that union do as it can be a touch tight.

[Xaccers]

If you get a spray it means that it hasn't ruptured but is soooooo low on pressure that it wasn't able to squeeze the lhm inside it out when you de-pressurised the system.
When you expose it to the much lower atmospheric pressure by unscrewing it, the nitrogen balloon inside the sphere is able to expand spraying all over you (normally).
Apparently it makes a good hair conditioner.

If the sphere membrane has actually ruptured, the sphere will be full of lhm and will dribble out when you hold it with the hole downward, and will feel heavier than normal

[robert_e_smart]

Apparently it makes a good hair conditioner.

Fortunately it is a poor hair dye.

[Xaccers]

Apparently it makes a good hair conditioner.

Fortunately it is a poor hair dye.

That would be funky!

Also if you pour waste LHM into a TD's fuel tank after doing a flush/bleeding the brakes, it doesn't produce green smoke

[citroenxm]

The OTHER reason for this holding pressure is that when you lowered the car to the ground, one of TWO things didn't happen..

A) Either the car did NOT lower completely to the bottom setting, IE the fronts didnt get right down to the internal bump stops

If A did happen then when you opend the Pressure screw to release excess pressure, as the front struts had not lowered completely the anti sink Valve kicked is as system pressure was released, in that, kept remaining pressure in the front struts.. Keeping pressure against the front spheres..

B) If the height didn't go right right down , this could be possibly caused by a sticky control levers on the front height corrector not telling the height corrector to go right down to absolute minimum...

If you follow that.. well done.. How do I know this, I had it on a Xantia Estate I had in once...

[ecohouse1]

Ah that makes sense! I lifted the carto high with the lever then slipped the trolley jack under the subframe an lowered her as far as she would with the jack under. Once I had the LHM shower, the other sphere spun off no problem!

[citroenxm]

ah there you are.. the car needs its weight to lower and dispel all fluid and pressure...

[thorter]

It is sensible to understand how the anti-sink system works to avoid being sprayed with LHM!

The anti-sink valves isolate the relevant front or rear suspension unless the hydraulic feed from the pump/accumulator exceeds the pressure in the suspension. So to release the suspension pressure, you need -
1 Engine running
2 Suspension lever on low
3 Pressure release screw closed until all suspension pressure has gone.

If you do not wait long enough, some pressure will be trapped in the suspension! You do not necessarily need weight on the wheels, but, if not, it is very difficult to tell when the pressure is totally discharged. In addition, with wheels off the ground, the height corrector on low might not release the pressure if the linkage is not exactly set.

Fred