Dowty Seals work!!!!!

[c.morewood]

Says it all
No longer do you have to go looking round breakers for a suspension cylinder when corrosion around the rim
means it has let go and started leaking. Today I ground down the rim and then emry papered it so there was a smooth finish.
. careful to keep it square to the sides of the cylinder. Removed the old cylinder..in !0 minutes !!! Even bigger smile and replaced it with the new cylinder and a Dowty seal , I added a bit of Bule Hylomar seal as an added extra, Put it all together and .... No leaks!!!
I now have 11 Dowty seals for sale to members at cost £12.00 each. ( I had to order a minimum of 14)

[oscar]

Hi is that £1.20 or £12.00 each(£160.00 for 14)?

[c.morewood]

£12 each unfortunately...They came from India and I guess each took his cut... I took a gamble that they'd work.. and they do.

[CitroJim]

Excellent news Chris

[oscar]

Did you check pirtek as they do dowty seals i use on sump plug.
There really great device as don't need to be tight to work either less chance of stripping threads out in soft metals

[c.morewood]

They wanted a minimum order of 50!!
I phoned around all the locals .. being in the oil city and then started on Google.. di a lot of e mailing before deciding on a company near Derby

[RichardW]

Nice work Chris!!

£12 is a bargain compared to £160 for a new cylinder (some of which are not available) plus the 10 hours or so of pain involved with removing the blasted pin in the other end of the ram!!!

[c.morewood]

10 minutes Richard... 10 minutes!!! boy was I happy.. I allowed 2 days for the job and had it done.. including some Kurust treatment ... in a couple of hours

Thinking about it, if you had a small grinder, you could probably do the grinding in situ, providing you could ensure thet the bits didn't get into the cylinder and piston.. that would save the agony of getting the pins out.

[CitroJim]

Chris, now we know would it be worth the forum investing in a bulk buy? I'd be happy to use forum funds for that as it can benefit us all in the end...

[CitroJim]

Thinking about it, if you had a small grinder, you could probably do the grinding in situ, providing you could ensure thet the bits didn't get into the cylinder and piston.. that would save the agony of getting the pins out.

It would but I'd be very worried about swarf in the bore Chris and getting it sufficiently accurately flat to seal effectively might well be a struggle.

How did you grind it down initially?

[c.morewood]

VERY gently with a grinder.. there was almost an oops moment as I realized just how much disappeared in one pass.. but I managed to sand it out with Emery paper.
I'm pretty sure that if you used something like brake cleaner spray, that you could clean all the swarf out with the pressure.
The reason they're so expensive is that they're not a common size and not available individually.. I just thought that if they did work.. I still wasn't 100% convinced when I saw them..They'd save the forum members so much hassle especially those with Xantia between Rpo's 8209 to 8518.
As for a bulk buy .. well there's 11 here if you want them Jim.. they'll fit any Xantia cylinder and I'm pretty sure they'll be as reuseable .. if not more so that the current rubber seal.

[citroenxm]

This would only be good for those who have these ODD SIzed cylinders fitted to their cars like chris has.

As for standard 3.5mm and 8mm unions, Ive got a fair few cylinders about all over the place, every time Ive taken a subframe off..

and two more in BUT Ive discovered tonight with chris morewood that theres a high chance the HDi 90 in for parts has these abscure sized fittings on it!

Monday will tell!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Hi Chris

Top quality perseverance! Just dipped into the forum, and noticed your post on the dowty seals. Well done! I donated a couple of my old cylinders from MK1 1.9TDSX a while back to Jim for experimentation, with a couple of dowty's and a bit of machining they should be fully functional again.

Kind Regards
Neil

[CitroJim]

I donated a couple of my old cylinders from MK1 1.9TDSX a while back to Jim for experimentation, with a couple of dowty's and a bit of machining they should be fully functional again.

Hi Neil, they're in the process of being experimented on as we speak. It's been a long time in the waiting for the right circumstances here..

I shall be reporting very soon

[c.morewood]

I believe Paul has discovered that the odd pipe unions fitted to Xantia suspension cylinders RPO 8209 -8518 are a standard fit on C5's