Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[Hell Razor5543]

Citroen have taken it further (on the Xantia, at least). The callipers are made in two halves, with identical threads, and simplifies the manufacturing process (one part, as opposed to two). One advantage (for Xantia owners, at least) is that, if you get the dreaded calliper oxidation, you can take the drain screw and brake pipe out, dismount the calliper, clean up the oxidation, turn the calliper around, and re-fit it.

[ekjdm14]

This being the oxidation that gives ones rear pads a "wedgie" so to speak, James? If so, that sounds like it could be worth a look on White as Les advised us the pads were slightly tapered despite being cleaned up last June.

Those Lada brakes look a real pleasure to work on, I suppose as with a lot of the service stuff on them where it can be repaired/serviced/tuned with not much more than a hammer, pliers, screwdriver & a couple of box spanners. Ideal for a car that needs to be reliable in arduous conditions like in Russia.

[Hell Razor5543]

Yep. the off angle calliper syndrome. My first post on this forum was to do with that subject.

[ekjdm14]

Ahh, nice to know there are options out there to counter this with a little spanner work. Will have to pull the wheels off and have a look-see sometime. Cheers.

[Hell Razor5543]

This is the thread I am on about;

https://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/ ... 19&t=38467

[Zelandeth]

I had the whole toolbox out there today...total tools used were:

Wheel brace (obviously)
Pair of pliers to pull the spring clips out (not strictly necessary but easier).
Big screwdriver to use as a lever on the piston (could have used the wheel brace to be honest).
Paintbrush to apply copper grease.

That was it. Torque wrench will make an appearance tomorrow to check the wheel nuts mainly because it's there and it may as well see use a couple of times a year...

They do look to be intentionally easy to work on, hadn't realised they were actually two pot calipers before either. You learn something every day I guess.

Will try to find time to go out for a better test run too rather than just five minutes around the block.

[ekjdm14]

.... Torque wrench will make an appearance tomorrow to check the wheel nuts mainly because it's there and it may as well see use a couple of times a year....

They do enjoy a little exercise now & again it's nice to know things are right too since you have the tool for the job. Never ceases to amaze me how low the torques have to be for a given thread size in order to be secure, head bolts & the like can get a bit scary on the last phase but general stuff like caliper & wheel bolts/nuts are surprisingly low-torqued when done to spec as opposed to being done up to what's judged tight enough by feel.

[elma]

This is making me yearn for my old van, it was beautifully simple to work on. My V6 by comparison is like trying to do keyhole surgery.

[Zelandeth]

This is making me yearn for my old van, it was beautifully simple to work on. My V6 by comparison is like trying to do keyhole surgery.

The Saab has moments like that...mainly by virtue of the engine being changed over by 45 degrees in the least helpful possible direction! Also being a crossflow head means that three quarters of the cooling system, the oil pressure switch and oil filter are buried under the intake manifold. Oh...the engine being in backwards (flywheel at the front of the car) makes doing the belts a right faff - and a crankshaft pulley oil seal a right royal pain in the tail.

The tendency of Saab to use a 19mm bolt tightened to a million foot pounds where a 10mm one just nipped up by hand would do doesn't help.

[ekjdm14]

This is making me yearn for my old van, it was beautifully simple to work on. My V6 by comparison is like trying to do keyhole surgery.

I feel similar about the 1.9D over the TD engine bays, all through the work on Black I've been revelling in the space to work in the engine bay, no turbo/intercooler/pipework/LDA assembly/aircon pump & with the HP pump sat low under the alternator all combine to make the Black Xantia a real pleasure to wield a spanner on, whereas having just swapped an injector on White (10 minute job on the NA) there's just so much more in the way of clutter hiding the real mechanical bits.

[Zelandeth]

This is making me yearn for my old van, it was beautifully simple to work on. My V6 by comparison is like trying to do keyhole surgery.

The Saab has moments like that...mainly by virtue of the engine being canted over by 45 degrees in the least helpful possible direction! Also being a crossflow head means that three quarters of the cooling system, the oil pressure switch and oil filter are buried under the intake manifold. Oh...the engine being in backwards (flywheel at the front of the car) makes doing the belts a right faff - and a crankshaft pulley oil seal a right royal pain in the tail.

The tendency of Saab to use a 19mm bolt tightened to a million foot pounds where a 10mm one just nipped up by hand would do doesn't help.

Edit...that was meant to be an edit to sort an autocorrect induced typo rather than a quote...oops.

[RichardW]

Hate to burst the Xantia rear caliper bubble, but the factory fit ones are not the same on both sides.... At least they weren't on Simon's MK2 V6. We tried swapping them over but the hole for the bleed nipple was not deep enough to take the pipe, and it wasn't possible to do up the union. The replacement ones only have one part number, which suggests they, at least, are the same in both ports.

[Zelandeth]

Had the chance to take her out for a proper run out of MK today over to Buckingham, and can say that it's utterly transformed from the car I originally bought.

Now the brake pads have bedded in a bit it actually does seem a lot more interested in stopping in a straight line, which is nice to see. Certainly a lot more so than my Niva or previous Riva ever did.

[CitroJim]

Zel, that's excellent news

[ekjdm14]

Good to hear you're having some tangible results from all the hard work you've put in. There's not a lot more satisfying than performing some overdue maintenance on something & getting an even better result than expected from it. Fingers crossed the brakes continue to improve still further with new flexis and brake fluid.