XANTIA Hydraflush

[Skull]

Pumped steering lock to lock to drain steering rack. Emptied my reservoir, pump line and refilled today with 5 Ltr Hydraflush (£26.10) @ 141,250 miles I tried to get the clear fluid to run through all the brake lines but was running low.

My HDi is supposed to have had a flush at 60K but I wonder how thorough they were

Surely these bits of seals should have been removed by now .....

Skull's HDi

Skull's D FILTER

Skull's remnants of pipe seals

Will follow up tomorrow I'm going to filter it all through the wife's flour sive

[white exec]

5L is normally enough for one of these systems.
iirc, rear-right brake bleed screw gets fluid through most of the system, except for the other three brake caliper 'dead ends'.
Looks from the photos as if the filters are doing their job of catching big bits.
H'rincage usually works well in dissolving microscopic dirt: goes in clean, and comes out noticeably dirty, if left for the recommended 1500-5000km.
H will shift dirt, but not dissolve rubber particles (or seals!).
Apologies if I have misunderstood.

[Skull]

Chris

Yes that's the stuff I've used, drained off reservoir and cleaned filters first - put it in the other day and will leave it in for [edit] MINIMUM 930 miles according to instructions (MAXIMUM 3,106 miles) , back right brake had a big splurge of air but none of them run clear colour so I guess it must have mixed with the old LHM still in the circuits.

Whilst I was at it I put the car in for MoT with a pass

Main reason for flushing system is a brake pedal / ABS feel at crawling speed (no warning light) sensors and rings seem ok, take the fuse out and brakes are normal (abs light lit) so hoping a flush will improve things, rather than faulty ABS block/ecu.

Just for interest I will keep a sample of old LHM / old Hydraurincage when I change the fluids, I'm also planning on renewing Accumulator sphere as it's ticking about every 12 seconds.

I will follow-up in [edit] 3,000 miles or so ......

[white exec]

900 miles (1440km) seems a bit brief.
My 5L containers here (genuine Total H'cage) say 1500-5000km.

[Skull]

Cheers Chris you're right mine says the same brain fart

So 930 miles is the minimum 3,106 miles maximum see you next year sometime .....

[admiral51]

Skull looking at the colour of the LHM clinging to the filters does not seem too bad, a little bit black but more of a yellow hue to it.
When i did my HydraFlush i actually had an easier job of checking the fluid was fresh as can be seen in the Old and New Pics **Edit Old and Fresh LHM not HydraFlush **
I kept the HydraFlush in for just shy of the 5k (km) as i wanted to get a good flush done but as Chris and others pointed out HydraFlush is very good at what it does but does not have the lubrication spec of LHM .
Every time i have done the LHM/HydraFlush change i can concur that one of the rear brakes does produce more air/bubbles when doing the bleeding.

Congrats on the MOT pass, another Xantia lives for another 12 months

[white exec]

Total Hydraurinçage is essentially LHM plus some cleaning solvents, according to the MSDS sheet.
It is designed not to harm rubber components in the system, so is fairly gentle in its cleaning action, and therefore needs a prolonged period (up to 5000km) to do its work. That equates, I guess, to about 4 months' normal usage (of 10k miles/year, in old money).

Some cleaning solvents have a 'rejuvenating' effect on rubber components (printers know all about Blanket Reviver!), but this can be overdone. Hence, I'm guessing, the recommended min-max mileage for H.
_________

There will doubtless now be forum contributions about Blanket Reviver...
Keep 'em coming.

[Stickyfinger]

[Skull]

My HDi is supposed to have had a flush at 60K but I wonder how thorough they were

Surely these bits of seals should have been removed by now .....@ 141,250 miles

I think it would be fair to say that the previous large pieces of debris would point to the filters never being cleaned

Skull's HDi post Hydraflush D filter

Skull's HDi D filter cleaned

Well 3,067 miles have gone pretty fast .....fully drained the tank and filters again although there really was less in them than expected .....

Just for comparison a picture of the fluids pre and post flush. (All taste the same )

Skull's HDi fluids

The ABS symptoms have eased whilst the Hydraflush has been active but never disappeared at low speed crawl in traffic conditions.

The short test drive would suggest that's still the same .....

[Hell Razor5543]

When you added the hydraflush did you bleed the brakes until you had hydraflush coming out (usually pinkish in colour)? If you didn't get the pink stuff through it would suggest you still had LHM in the callipers, not hydraflush, so they might not get a proper cleaning. As the steering/suspension are circulatory the hydraflush gets around them, but the brakes dead-end at the callipers.

[Skull]

Pumped steering lock to lock to drain steering rack. Emptied my reservoir, pump line and refilled today with 5 Ltr Hydraflush (£26.10) @ 141,250 miles I tried to get the clear fluid to run through all the brake lines but was running low.

Hell Razor I did bleed plenty through each brake line but never got it to run 'clear' so presumed it was 'blending' somewhere before the exit bleed nipple.

My thinking was that the Hydraflush process would help clean the ABS block

I think that's a good reason not to let your fluid get too old in the first place

[white exec]

If you got a colour change in the fluid coming out of the RR caliper, that would indicate that the H'flush had got through to there. The RR caliper is the longest route across the car, and so bleeds out a good bit of the system. The other calipers remain dead-legs, which is why they need separate bleeding, although much less by volume. You sound as if you did it right. SFAIK, the ABS is also self-bleeding, like the steering.

What is the "ABS effect" you're still getting?

[Skull]

Cheers Chris

The 'ABS effect' is actually as if the ABS is activating but on dry road conditions ....no dashboard warning/activation lights.

It only happens occasionally at low speed (under 10 mph) with the usual light pedal pressure under normal braking just as you ease off the brake pressure and generally just before the car comes to a full stop.

ABS rings and sensors have all been cleaned and checked without any improvement ...hence the Hydraflush in an attempt to flush the ABS unit.

Tomorrow, weather permitting I'm going to bleed the brakes through again and try and get some green LHM+ to each leg of the brake lines.

I have acquired a second-hand ABS unit & ECU off another X2 HDi but I had hoped the Hydraflush might have provided the solution.

The brakes are fine at high speed or higher pedal effort which is presumably why it hasn't been detected on MoT tests.

I still don't have LEXIA

[white exec]

Open to suggestions on this one. Could well be not an ABS fault, but odd behavior of brake discs/pads.
Hmm...

[admiral51]

Would that be at the speed where ABS would start to operate/disable.
Just thinking aloud so probably a stupid thought