Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[CitroJim]

The rear clamp can be reached through the wheel arch but only if it's correctly orientated... The one in Alasdair's picture above is correctly orientated...

Else that, a 16mm ratchet from under might do the trick too but whichever way it's a fiddle but it is doable in the majority of cases...

I'd certainly be happier if it was removed for welding...

[RichardW]

I wonder if removing the rear bank pipe would in fact free up quite a bit of access to the front pipe....?

[xantia_v6]

I wonder if removing the rear bank pipe would in fact free up quite a bit of access to the front pipe....?

Having recently tried that to make more room for dislodging the driveshaft centre bearing, I would say that it would make life more difficult. The rear bank pipe connects to the catalytic converter, and that joint is no fun either.

I still think that repair in place will be 2 or more hours quicker than attempting to remove and refit the pipe, and much less likely to result in leaking joints.

[RichardW]

Ah I see that now - I had assumed the rear pipe was clamped to the outlet as well. Book time is 0.9 hours to change the front pipe.....

[Mandrake]

Thanks to Richard's help (and his grinder cutting disc ) we got the new drop links and track rod ends fitted on a lovely hot Sunny Sunday afternoon.

I think Richard was a bit bemused by my home made laser wheel alignment system that I had brought with me - and the fact that I seemed to have forgotten how to operate it! I don't know why but I kept getting my figures muddled up and it took many attempts before the alignment was correct and the steering wheel centred properly! (Last time I used it was about 3 years ago)

The bad news is that it didn't make one iota of difference to the "rattle" from the front right suspension area when hitting potholes on a sharp right turn. So now we know its not drop links or track rod end, but still don't know what it is. There is no rattle at all over potholes when going straight ahead, nor on a left turn, only on a right turn that is more than about 30 degrees - such as you might do on a small roundabout. In fact potholed roundabouts such as the one on my morning journey to work never fail to rattle it loudly.

We're both a bit stumped as to the cause - we checked the lower ball joint for slack again and couldn't find any, checked the inner track rod joints for visible movement and couldn't see any, checked the steering rack was bolted to the chassis tight, checked the strut tops were bolted to the body tight, and we also checked the lower arm bushes for undue play and just cannot find anything amiss. This is my 3rd Xantia now and I have driven two others regularly as well and none of them have ever had a rattle that behaved the way this one does.

Replacing the bottom ball joint just on the off chance that it could be faulty even though we've checked it for play on multiple occasions isn't really feasible as the previous attempt to remove it mashed the slotted flange of the joint making it completely impossible now to remove without first removing the entire hub and welding a tube or an old socket to the joint... (or fitting a replacement hub)

Anyone have any ideas ? Unless it fails the MOT I think I'm just going to have to put up with this really annoying rattle!

[Hell Razor5543]

Are there any double walled areas where a small object could get lodged? I hear tell of somebody who had a rattle from the back end of their Xantia when a washer dropped into an awkward place to retrieve it from, when they were replacing the radius arm bearings.

[xantia_v6]

Have you checked that it is not the well known 288mm caliper rattle?

[Hell Razor5543]

Have you checked that it is not the well known 288mm caliper rattle?

Ooh, now there is a thought!

[Mandrake]

Have you checked that it is not the well known 288mm caliper rattle?

Pretty sure its not that, I had that on the left calliper on the old V6 and the characteristics are very different. For a start that happened on straight ahead as well.

This rattle only occurs on a relatively sharp right lock, on the right wheel, causes significant kickback on the steering wheel and does not stop if I apply the brakes.

I was driving down a fairly windy bumpy road near Richards on Sunday on the way home and observed the rattle while I was braking reasonably hard so I think that rules out calliper rattle.

One thing that occurs to me though is although we inspected the "end" bush on the lower arm (the one at the tip of the arm that usually fails) and that was good, we didn't really get a good look at the other bush (P bush ?) at the base of the arm. Is it possible that smaller bush is faulty so that when you are driving at a sharp right hand angle any bumps you hit force the base of the arm in towards the middle of the car and make the arm knock against the bush housing or the chassis ? If it was that bush it might explain why it doesn't happen on the straight ahead or on a left corner - because the forces hitting the front of the wheel would be pushing in a different direction.

I would imagine that a faulty lower ball joint would rattle no matter what angle the steering wheel was at when you hit the pothole ?

Maybe I need a new lower arm bush ?

[RichardW]

The rear P bush looked in good nick to me - this is the one that usually fails. We didn't unload the joint as the susp was on high, and nor did we turn it around... I think bottom ball joint shaped bullet has to be bitten!!

[BenC5HDi]

I believe Jim had a mystery knock similar to this on his Activa and it was the front bush on a lower arm. Took him ages to work it out as it appeared totally sound under all but the most vicious of long-bar levering.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

[Mandrake]

The rear P bush looked in good nick to me - this is the one that usually fails. We didn't unload the joint as the susp was on high, and nor did we turn it around... I think bottom ball joint shaped bullet has to be bitten!!

If you mean the lower ball joint - you did recheck that a second time with the crowbar with the car back on the ground and suspension at normal height remember ? And couldn't see any movement.

We didn't check the front bush did we ? To check it properly we'd really need to disconnect the bottom arm from the hub and then swing on the arm to see how much give it has ? When attached to the hub the strut top rubber will support the hub position to a great degree as it is so stiff, so I wouldn't expect to see much movement there unless the hub was disconnected.

Part of me is thinking that a lower arm with bushes already fitted is a heck of a lot easier to replace than a stubborn damaged lower balljoint, albeit more expensive... although then there is the issue of trying to choose an arm with good quality rubber bushes! It would be a shame to replace the original factory arm and bushes with inferior replacements only to find that too doesn't fix the knocking...

By the way contrary to what I said earlier, I actually noticed the front right suspension knocking somewhat on potholes on sharp left turns today too - not as bad as on a right hand turn, but it was definitely there. Yet straight ahead (less than about 20-30 degrees lock either way) it does not knock even on bad potholes. A clue perhaps ?

[Mandrake]

Could this be the same noise ? Front small bush on the lower arm ?

http://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/v ... 30#p452150

[Hell Razor5543]

I have just looked at GSF. Are these of any help? They are for a 1997 V6 Xantia;

http://www.gsfcarparts.com/422pc0270
http://www.gsfcarparts.com/422pc0280

[lexi]

Best price up Lemforder unit. This is getting spendy now.

The bottom ball joint. If it is same as C5, you can break the tin covering on the ball joint at top and get plus gas in there. Weld a mahoosive nut at the bottom, all in situ.
When all strapped up, with breaker bar and scaffy pole it will come off. Need a decent welder, none of those little 90amp jobs.