Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[xantia_v6]

I think that 4545.43 is for late S1, 4545.73 is for S2. The S2 sensors fit in the hole and electrically compatible, but are a few mm shorter and don't work reliably in an S1.

[Mandrake]

Does anyone know the part number for sure before I order ?

[Mandrake]

After cross checking a few different suppliers I'm reasonably happy that 4545.43 is the correct part so I've ordered a Delphi sensor matching this from Autodoc.

The cut-off seems to be October 1997 from the listings I've looked at, which means there was 3 months end run of Series 1 that actually use the Series 2 style sensor, since series 1 ended on January 1998. (Again according to the same sources...)

My car's RPO is 7515 which is 6th June 1997, so well before the cut-off.

[DHallworth]

Hopefully you don't have any trouble with AutoDoc.

The fact it takes them 2 weeks to deliver drives me nuts.

I also had problems with a aftermarket air suspension height sensors from a Range Rover from them and they were utterly useless at doing anything about it. They weren't faulty, they just didn't fit!

It was only when I posted about them on loads of forums and sent them the links that they finally refunded me and tried to keep the cost of posting the items to me originally. A few more emails and a threat of going public once again saw the cost of delivery refunded as well.

It was at that point I swore blind I'd never use them again.

[Stickyfinger]

I agree with David |Re AutoDoc, similar problems (on disks THEY miss sent), refund took ages even when it was them who made the error.....the 2 week send also angered me, I would not use them myself now.

[xantia_v6]

After cross checking a few different suppliers I'm reasonably happy that 4545.43 is the correct part so I've ordered a Delphi sensor matching this from Autodoc.

The cut-off seems to be October 1997 from the listings I've looked at, which means there was 3 months end run of Series 1 that actually use the Series 2 style sensor, since series 1 ended on January 1998. (Again according to the same sources...)

My car's RPO is 7515 which is 6th June 1997, so well before the cut-off.

I think that S1 Berline production ended in October 1997, and for the rest of the year they were selling off existing stock and building a stock of S2 cars to sell in 1998.

My current V6 was built in July 97, but not registered until March 98.

[Mandrake]

Hopefully you don't have any trouble with AutoDoc.

The fact it takes them 2 weeks to deliver drives me nuts.

I also had problems with a aftermarket air suspension height sensors from a Range Rover from them and they were utterly useless at doing anything about it. They weren't faulty, they just didn't fit!

It was only when I posted about them on loads of forums and sent them the links that they finally refunded me and tried to keep the cost of posting the items to me originally. A few more emails and a threat of going public once again saw the cost of delivery refunded as well.

It was at that point I swore blind I'd never use them again.

Yes, I'm not a big fan of Autodoc as I've often commented on here, but with the close of the UK arm of Mr Auto there aren't a lot of alternatives for certain types of parts... I checked a few others and they either didn't have the part or had a long lead time, and "phone us to order" on the listing, which is never a good sign...

As it happens I ordered the sensor on Wednesday and got a "ready for dispatch" notification the following day, so we'll see when it arrives. Unfortunately the address I've sent it to now doesn't have anyone at home for a few days so not sure what will happen when they try to deliver.

In other news I picked off one more job for the MOT - rear brakes.

The only thing of significance I could find was that there was a lot of "air" in the common section of rear brake line. The fact that it seems to accumulate "air" so frequently in the rear brake lines is what kicked off the replacement of spheres, so I'm hoping that finding the stuffed (punctured ?) rear strut spheres and basically replacing all the rear spheres has finally put that recurring problem to bed. Of course changing the rear spheres will have introduced some air into the lines as well so it's not surprising I found a lot - the question is whether it stays away this time.

Mechanically the rear brakes seem in very good condition - which they should be when I serviced them only a year ago. Despite the car sitting outdoors for nearly 6 months through the winter without use and only having a small amount of use during the current repairs the discs are in immaculate condition with a nice finish with no pitting or surface rust on either side:

The pads have plenty of thickness and turn out to be Bosch as I thought. (I couldn't get the full part number off the back unfortunately as part of it is rubbed out) The only thing I would say is there are slightly glazed:

So I gave them a scruff up on the concrete and they look good as new again. The callipers are still perfectly aligned with the discs, (no skew) there's no rust/rubbing between the pads and pad guides, the pistons move in and out freely etc. In short there is nothing wrong with them.

A test drive shows they are working normally again (the rear is not flying to the top under hard braking) so it was probably only "air" causing the issue, again. So hopefully that doesn't come back now.

While I wait for the ABS sensor I have another job to do - front right lower suspension arm.

I still have an entire arm waiting to go in. It's not a job I've done before - anyone have any advice ? I'm aware of not tightening the bolts of the large bush until the car is standing on the ground at normal height so the resting point of the bush is properly aligned, but that's all.

Does anyone know where I can find the tightening torques for the nut on the lower balljoint and the two bolts which hold the arm onto the car ?

Taking the car for a test drive to check the rear brakes was very enjoyable - it seems to be driving very nicely, the rear suspension ride is immaculate (and is actually showing up the adequate but less than immaculate front suspension ride now...) the brakes are working well despite the ABS being inactive at the moment due to the sensor fault, and the engine seems to be running very smoothly with lots of get up and go despite the hot weather. None of the intermittent sluggishness which it has had from time to time in the past.

Still no news on the windscreen replacement - it's looking very much like it's not going to be until after the MOT has expired. Hence getting everything else fixed and tested before the MOT runs out so they can do the windscreen replacement at the house and I can drive directly to the MOT test...

The delays with the windscreen are causing another inconvenience - my mum is coming over to stay for a while at the end of July and I was going to put her on my insurance and let her use the Xantia - but at this rate it's not going to be ready by the time she's here!

[Mandrake]

So that's the ABS fixed now. The sensor was indeed open circuit. Interestingly this sensor must have been replaced before (not by me though) as the cable was routed incorrectly skipping one of the brackets and having an extra grommet and cable length left over at the plug end...

On a quick test drive for the ABS sensor I discovered the intermittent wiper function was not working. All primed up to post about that when I got home but it started working again half way through the test drive!

Unfortunately after all the work I've done with spheres and bleeding the rear brakes they seem to be full of air again as the car is lifting up at the rear, also there is a "buzz" on the brake pedal when you touch it lightly, which is an oscillation caused by air in the brake lines.

On a hunch I checked the LHM tank when I got home from a dump run:

God damn it! After a couple of minutes idling it cleared up again:

After the next dump run I saw the same thing, with it being full of large bubbles but clearing after idling for a couple of minutes.

With the engine revs held to 3000 for a minute or so I started to see a lot of very fine bubbles forming on the surface like a fine froth.

Has anyone ever had success eliminating the air leaks that cause these kind of bubbles ? I've been trying since 2005 without a lot of luck... (see my posts from 17 years ago!!!)

The low pressure feed hose from the tank can't be leaking at the tank end as I've previously sealed it with black sealant at the seams in addition to the clamps.

The clamps at the pump end have been replaced not that long ago but I suppose that short length of joiner that the two clamps bite on could be getting old and hard ?

Maybe an air leak on the power steering return or similar ?

Feeling a bit exasperated that I now have a hydraulic air leak issue (again) to try to solve before the MOT - it's going to keep getting pulled up about the rear brakes if I can't solve this air leak/bubble issue. :/

[myglaren]

This is a very long thread Simon but there are a number of proposed solutions to eliminating those bubbles.
The filters are there to break them but sometimes seem to be overwhelmed.
Hope something there will work for you.

[Mandrake]

Well! A day of ups and downs!

First the good. I decided to have a look at the inlet hose for the pump at the pump end and I'm glad I did. I had forgotten that I've had to replace the 50mm joiner section at the pump (years ago now) due to the original moulded piece being split - I found the old split one still sitting in my toolbox in fact.

The problem with replacing this section is that the internal diameter of the original moulded piece is different at both ends - smaller at the pump end than the hose end. When you fit a single diameter substitute, a diameter which you can push onto the hose is a bit of a sloppy fit on the pump spigot and this would seem to be the problem.

When I examined it I realise that the jubilee clamp was quite a long way down the spigot and not near the bump on the end of the spigot - this is OK if the spigot was a tight fit as the hose would stretch over it, but it's not a tight fit and the inner diameter of the hose is too big for the clamp to seal below the bump on the spigot. So I've moved the jubilee clip up so that it's in line with the bump to try to clamp directly onto the bump and this seems to be doing the trick, as far as I can see this was the source of air leak.

Of course after doing work like this I needed to do Citrerobics to clear the system out, and this is where everything went wrong. I was watching the top of the reservoir and it was looking very clear on the first two cycles, but on the third down cycle when the car was already down on the bump stops there was a sudden "woosh" of bubbles that took a while to dissipate. I turned the engine off and went to get a drink assuming that maybe I hadn't bled the rear suspension properly when I'd fitted the spheres a couple of weeks ago, however when I came back it was doing this:



I have NEVER seen this happen on a Citroen before so I grabbed the phone to record it. It probably kept doing this for about 2 minutes. I should have realised at that point what had happened but I carried on doing Citrerobics until everything was clear and then went for a test drive. It was at this point that I realised the rear suspension was rock hard in the firm mode.

I got back and did a bounce test and confirmed it - the rear hydractive sphere (also replaced at the same time as the strut spheres) still seems fine but BOTH rear strut spheres have had catastrophic diaphragm failures and the rear is absolutely rigid in a firm mode bounce test on both sides. Completely different to how it was just a few hours earlier when I was doing the dump runs and the ride was absolutely great.

I'm really shocked that both rear strut spheres have failed, so I've emailed Westereon to let them know and ask what they can do about it.

Has anyone seen this mad bubbling in the LHM tank before ? Has anyone had rear strut spheres fail in the middle of a Citrerobics session before ? Is this a risk of a sphere being New old Stock ? (They're both Citroen OEM types whereas the hydractive sphere was an IFHS branded one, presumably newer)

The only sphere I've had fail in front of me was many years ago when Dad and I re-gassed an accumulator sphere - it worked on the car for all of two minutes before the diaphragm went pop.

Chances of this car being ready in time for the MOT are getting slimmer and slimmer now....almost zero.

How long can an MOT be overdue before you have to SORN a car ?

[RichardW]

That's a bugger... Probably only one has failed, the roll bar will prevent them moving individually.

No need to SORN it just because the MOT is out, as long as it's taxed DVLA don't care, you just can't use it on the road.

[myglaren]

That doesn't look good at all.
Never had a sphere fail or had to replace one.
Closest was the rear on the Xantia failing to attain the correct height and being very bouncy.
Height corrector bracket rusted through and snapped. £17 fix.

[xantia_v6]

I bought a Xantia V6 which had sat for a year or two, and both rear corner spheres failed on the 10 mile drive home.

On my current Xantia, I fitted a pair of NOS front corner spheres (not multi-couche) and they both failed suddenly but separately after a few months of use.

[Mandrake]

That's a bugger... Probably only one has failed, the roll bar will prevent them moving individually.

Maybe, but it turns out both have failed!

No need to SORN it just because the MOT is out, as long as it's taxed DVLA don't care, you just can't use it on the road.

Phew. Luckily the Tax renews just before the MOT runs out rather than the other way around. I checked and it's Taxed until August 2023!

I bought a Xantia V6 which had sat for a year or two, and both rear corner spheres failed on the 10 mile drive home.

On my current Xantia, I fitted a pair of NOS front corner spheres (not multi-couche) and they both failed suddenly but separately after a few months of use.

These are supposedly "new", but what does new mean ? They're Citroen branded - both the spheres and the boxes, and I find it unlikely that Citroen are still taking delivery of Citroen branded spheres from IHFS (who makes them) in 2022. They might be "new" as in unused (they look brand new, no rust etc, and have possibly had the gas pressure topped up) but if they've sat in a warehouse for 10+ years the diaphragms will have gone brittle with age.

When they go brittle they work OK for a while but can fracture when they are put under high stress - such as being folded back on themselves tightly when the suspension is set to high. Also rear strut spheres are the lowest pre-charge pressure of any sphere on the car at 30 bars (next lowest is 45 bars on the front) which means they flex the most when subjected to maximum pressure at high ride height, so are the spheres likely to fail first as a result of brittle diaphragms.

In any case here are the LHM fountain videos to prove they've both failed, and spectacularly so!





Westeron want the spheres back for inspection before they're willing to send replacements, so I've refitted the originals so as not to leave the car disabled. While they are indeed very stiff, they apparently are not punctured because the ride is firm but not bouncy as it was on the punctured spheres. So the car is as driveable again as it was before I fitted the "new" spheres.

When I did Citreorobics after re-fitting the old spheres while monitoring the LHM tank I saw no bubbles at all, zilch. I then bled the rear brakes (again!) and got quite a lot of air out presumably from either the punctured spheres or from the air leak at the pump or both, and went for yet another test drive.

This time the rear brakes are working nicely - the car was pulling to one side a bit at first but after a few good hard stops the brakes seem excellent.

I got back home and immediately checked the LHM tank with the engine still running - calm as a millpond with no bubbles whatsoever even though the car had been driving hard for about 20 minutes. A totally different story than before I fixed the hose on the pump!

So it does look like the ill fitting hose on the pump inlet was the original source of air that kept finding its way into the rear brakes. Fingers crossed that no longer happens, because if that's that problem solved the rear brakes should be able to pass an MOT with or without the new spheres at the rear.

So, two steps forward and one step back today but I'm very pleased to have apparently found the air leak in the system that has probably been there for years now. I think all it came down to was the hose clamp needed to be right on the bump on the end of the spigot where it could get some bite rather than further down the spigot where the diameter was too small for the hose to clamp onto....

[Mandrake]

So today the replacement spheres arrived from Westeron (after seeing the LHM fountain videos he said don't bother sending the old ones back, not surprisingly) and unfortunately they're the wrong ones!

They came in an IFHS box but they look like they might be re-manufactured, not sure as they don't have a recognisable part number on them and look like they've possibly been repainted. (although it's a very nice job if they have)

As soon as I did a bounce test I knew they weren't rear Hydractive strut spheres - in hard mode they feel like like a non-hydractive sphere. In soft mode they bounce all over the place and are way, way too soft with massive overshoot from a bounce test.

I took the car for a quick drive around the block to confirm and it's wallowing and bucking like a boat on the high seas...totally un-tennable ride and "handling" that would make a sailor seasick.

So the old spheres went back on for a second time and the ride is usable once again. At this point I'm just going to ask to send them back for a refund and try my luck elsewhere.

So, can anyone help me with:

(a) What is the correct Citroen part number / reference for a rear strut sphere for a 1997 Hydractive 2 Xantia V6 hatchback (30 bars) that I can use for cross reference checks ? I want to be 100% sure I order the right sphere and the only way to tell on some sites is to manually cross check with the OEM part number yourself.

(b) Does anyone know another source for IFHS spheres ? Can they be ordered directly from IFHS ?

(c) are there any other brands that are considered as good as IFHS ? Autodoc don't have IFHS but do carry a number of other brands like Monroe but I have no experience with them.

Edit: These guys seem to carry IFHS spheres but I would need to know the correct IFHS part number as the listings are a little vague:

https://moto-dynamic.com/manufacturer=i ... 2?pageId=4

Edit 2: This document seems to suggest I'm looking for XA 30 RK ?

https://shate-m.by/static/Catalogs/IFHS ... _11_LR.pdf

https://moto-dynamic.com/xa-30-rk-suspe ... 1803,22890

I just don't seem to be having much luck with the car lately, although to be fair to it neither of these sphere issues is its fault!