School Boy Error = £££££s

[admiral51]

Time to fess up
6 months ago i changed the hydraflush in my Xantia back to LHM, cleaned the tank and filters, bleed the whole system as usual and everything was spot on, ride comfort excellent and a smug smile on my face as the old girl apart from the cooling fan issue ( to be sorted as i have replacement fan ) is doing cracking service on her 350+mile weekly drive to work and back.

However today i did a quick pre MOT check over her as she is booked in for Thursday for MOT and i have an LHM leak on the N/S rear. Can see it from underneath as the back plate is showing obvious signs fluid contamination
So took the wheel off expecting to find a return pipe leak and or worse but no, it was a school boy error and i must admit it here it was all my fault.
I could not see any drips below the caliper and the contamination was all over the top half of the back plate, nothing below so cleaned the caliper up and all the pipes and then i started her up and with the brake pedal wedged firmly down i found the problem
I had not fully nipped up the bleed nipple, not a massive leak, took nearly 2 mins for the LHM to show at the top of the nipple with the brake pedal fully pressed and suspension on high so a quick nip and problem solved no more leak
Bad news i now have to replace both rear discs and pads and do not have time to do it before MOT so handing it over to my trusted local garage to do both fronts and rears and a full service and the MOT. Rear discs and pads were done 2 years ago

And the amount of LHM lost over 6 months has not dropped below the minimum level, no warning STOP light and when checked it is still just above minimum, check and double check is now my motto

Colin

[white exec]

Oops...

[admiral51]

Oops...

Yes well and truly but in my flimsy defence over tight them and strip the threads and or collar so hey ho lol

[Hell Razor5543]

Oops, indeed. Might I suggest that (next time you have to do any work on the brakes) you carefully apply a little copper slip grease to the threads of the bleed nipples. That should prevent them seizing up in future (but only on the threads, as you don't want to contaminate the LHM fluid).

[admiral51]

@Hell i have lost count of the times i have done the system flush/bleed change of brake disc and pads on Xantia's i have owned over the years, and yes even put the copper slip on all the nipple threads when i first did it on this one, what a muppet hey lol
Just a cautionary tale for others, doing it on axle stands like i always have done one wheel at a time,i got complacent and will not make that mistake again

[admiral51]

Well good news and bad i guess
Car failed its MOT as expected as i asked for it to be done before any work done so i knew what state she was in.
N/S rear brake no braking effort.
Brakes showing an imbalance across the rear axle .
Those i expected.
Did not expect n/s front suspension pipe leaking replace immeadiately.

However it turns out to be another not so well fix by your truly, strut return pipe is leaking again even though i thought i had got it sorted but a new pipe and bracket has been delivered from my own stock so fingers crossed for the retest tomorrow

[admiral51]

Well as for the retest what retest
As posted in another thread when i first took ownership i mentioned that the handbrake was not sitting correctly and i thought i needed new cables, but was pointed out by Chris i think that it could be down to a sticky caliper, guess who was right
I have decided to replace both front calipers with new and will be keeping both old ones as i think they may be serviceable for another forum member who has more time and experience to refurb them than me.
So retest maybe on Tuesday and i now have a cracking 11 plate courtesy renault clio that whilst being quicker than walking i hate

[admiral51]

I had a look back and my apologies Gibbo, was you not Chris lol

Re: Once Again I Own A Xantia
Post by Gibbo2286 » Mon Nov 26, 2018 4:26 pm

admiral51 wrote: ?Sat Nov 24, 2018 5:26 pm
Have quite a bit to do but to be fair most of it is basic Xantia servicing but i tried HydraFlush before and found it was OK but since then i always stuck to LHM and changed it after 1-2k miles and then again after another 4 months.
An issue i have found is that the handbrake cables need to be replaced, well i think so based on the fact the handbrake travel is more than it should be. Not in the sense of clicks etc but the handbrake does not sit down on its stop if that makes sense, it is a bit floppy, had that before on a previous Xantia and i replaced the cables, for the life of me i cannot remember how to do it, need to trawl through my old posts, sure Jim was the one who told me how to change them and they are handed


That's actually a symptom of sticking calliper levers, not going back to their stops. maybe a look at them first before replacing the cables would be advised.