Xantia Activa hydraulic return harness

[djadams]

I suppose I have had 12 mostly trouble free years of Activa ownership so I can't really complain...

It turned out that having purchased the bits to repair the rear ram, the big leak at the back was actually coming from the disintegrated four-way return connector above the ram, so that was an easy fix and my ram remains stock (and still gently seeping) for now. However, on the way to the MOT station with the rear return harness repaired, nicely repaired sills and a shiny new offside track rod-end, the return harness that takes in the flow from the main pressure regulator let go, gushing LHM all over the test station floor while the system was up to pressure.

View under the airbox is like this:


The leak is somewhere in that bit of sheathing circled in yellow, but I really don't want to patch up this brittle bit of 24 yr old rubber again, I want to get this whole harness out and remake it...
I know I'll be making my own harness from fuel hose and t-pieces, because I'm pretty sure they were unavailable when I made a temporary repair to that same harness five years ago (that's still holding up just fine!). But before I start pulling things apart, can anyone give me a steer as to what else connects to that same harness? To get that whole harness out do I need to get to things under the car as well as bits that are accessible from in the engine bay?

Annoyingly I was using my usual MOT station near where I work, not near home, and my recovery service refused to recover me because the car didn't have a valid MOT (despite the fact that it was being legally driven to and from a pre-booked test) so I ended up just having to drive it home. 40 miles at about 25mpg LHM consumption, in case you were wondering...

[Stickyfinger]

Use good quality pneumatic push fit connectors and the black flexible air-lines made for trucks....

[djadams]

Ooh - that's an interesting option, I hadn't thought of those, I was going to use fuel hose and barbed plastic T-pieces... I'll look into that, thanks for the tip!

[Stickyfinger]

I have replaced my rear return lines....over 6 moths ago.

BUT.....Do NOT use the cheap ones (ebay/amazon from China)....get them from a good truck supply place

In fact used metal ones designed for food processing machines which have double seals made by a company called CAMOZZI (Italian), their Series 8000/Brass/Nickel plated Dual-Seal.

https://store.camozzi.co.uk/

[djadams]

For the benefit of anyone finding this thread later... I should have known the harness in question is the dreaded octopus... The branch that had failed takes in the flow from the regulator, with the flow from the front hydractive electrovalve teed into it, then what I hadn't clocked until I got the reservoir out for a better look is that up near the reservoir in a "triple tee" it picks up from two hard lines on the bulkhead (one bringing flow from the rear height corrector, the other bringing flow from the front height corrector and roll corrector) and finally, the most awkward branch down to the steering rack pinion valve. The bulk of it can be tackled from above, but the steering return branch needs to be disconnected through the FR wheelarch, then unclipped from the back of the front subframe underneath. And because it's made of 24 year-old liquorice, the easiest way to get it out is to very gently flex it so it disintegrates into manageable chunks...

This is what it's supposed to connect to:


And this is what mine looked like yesterday afternoon:


The failure that caused the catastrophic leak was two tiny little tears (approx 2mm each) underneath the section of sheathing in the top left corner of the bucket above, which open up if the hose is twisted very slightly, and I guess it had spent the last 24 years very slightly twisted when installed...

I've finished cutting off the over-moulding on the "triple tee" that joins the bulkhead lines and steering line into the flow from the regulator, and the tee that takes the flow from the electrovalve in, too. I'll order up some decent Gates fuel hose and re-assemble with that for now I think. The original has lasted this long, so remanufacturing it with decent hose (the original stuff does seem to be absolute garbage) should last until the late 2040s or beyond. By then I'll be in my early seventies and approaching retirement age so I'll have time to make it again, then...

[Jaf]

In some ways not too bad a place to happen...could have been half way down a mountain.

"Licorice pipes"! Slightly better than a chocolate teapot I suppose.

Would be very interested in seeing your new pipes when you've made them. And how much it costs, so as to compare with a set from Drxantia at about 200 euros.

I've had to replace a couple of the pipes but it's all very dodgy now.

[djadams]

In some ways not too bad a place to happen...could have been half way down a mountain.

Very true! In the mot station half a mile from work is not a bad place to break down, all things considered...

"Licorice pipes"! Slightly better than a chocolate teapot I suppose.

Marginally...

Would be very interested in seeing your new pipes when you've made them. And how much it costs, so as to compare with a set from Drxantia at about 200 euros.

It's taking longer than I'd hoped, but only because I made the mistake of ordering the hose from autodoc, and they've apparently packaged it up, they've just not bothered to actually send it to me. I suspect I'll miss my chance for a free retest...

Once I've got it, I'll take some pics as I assemble it...

[Stickyfinger]

I did not like the "fuel hose" approach as the pipes are quite heavy and the clips do not fit them (often)

[Jaf]

How long's the free retest period? Get 2 months in Spain. If it fails again its something like 5euros, then each retest goes up in price. (I tried resetting the engine warning light on the AX a couple of times and driving straight through. Failed!)

[djadams]

I did not like the "fuel hose" approach as the pipes are quite heavy and the clips do not fit them (often)

Yes - I'm hoping the Gates stuff I've ordered will be relatively easy to work with (I've had really good experience with it in smaller sizes), but I'll not be surprised if I have to use alternative hose clips to go over the more robust hose. Being a reinforced hose, it also likely won't bend to as tight a radius as the OE stuff so I may well have to use some elbows in the 8 and 10/12mm bore sections to get the hoses to sit in the same locations as oe - I'll see how I get on.

How long's the free retest period? Get 2 months in Spain. If it fails again its something like 5euros, then each retest goes up in price. (I tried resetting the engine warning light on the AX a couple of times and driving straight through. Failed!)

It has to be back at the test station within 10 working days in the UK - so allowing for the public holiday yesterday, I have until this Friday, otherwise it's another full test fee of about £50. The couriers now say they have the package but it's not yet out for delivery, fingers crossed it turns up and I get a dry evening to construct something that works...

[djadams]

My Autodoc order finally arrived yesterday and they'd got most of it right - the 12mm, 8mm and 4mm stuff had all been correctly supplied, and is lovely supple stuff, easy to work with. Annoyingly whilst they'd merrily charged me for the 10mm Gates fuel hose I'd ordered, they'd sent some cheap nasty 10mm coolant pipe - it's not even oil resistant so no use to me. As an emergency recovery to try and get to my MOT retest, last night I ordered a metre of 10mm Chinese fuel hose from Amazon which cost more than the Gates stuff, but arrived this afternoon.

Last night I set to and started assembling what you see below...
1200mm of 8mm hose running from the "triple tee" down to the steering pinion valve
310mm of 4mm running from the triple tee down to each of the bulkhead rigid pipes, so far so simple.
Bizarrely, the "in and out" barbs of the triple tee suit 12mm pipe, though the stub on the reservoir and the tee to take in the flow from the electrovalve both suit 10mm pipe. I've assembled the complex section that goes from the bottom of the triple tee to a point just in front of the top of the gearbox in 12mm hose, using plastic elbows where the original had tight turns so the new one will follow the route of the original pipe. From there I'll fit a reducing elbow from 12mm down to 10mm and use 10mm hose from there, picking up the electrovalve tee and on to the pressure regulator return. I have a similar reducing elbow on top of the triple-tee, and will then run a short bit of 10mm hose from that back to the reservoir. All the joints where the hose goes onto a barbed fitting have been secured with new stainless "single ear" crimp-on clips, should be secure and leak free. What you see below is now assembled into the car, with the reservoir back in place. The original click-clips fitted the 4mm Gates hose nicely for where it meets the bulkhead rigid pipes, but I found it easier to use a "jubilee" style screw clamp to secure the 8mm hose to the pinion valve return as access for hose-clip pliers is pretty tight down there!

Now I have the 10mm hose I need, once the kids are asleep this evening I should be able to knock up the last few bits, get it all connected up and slot the airbox back in ready to set off for an MOT retest at 6am tomorrrow. Wish me luck...

[djadams]

Finally! (And show me an activa that doesn't have worn outer shoulders on the front tyres...)

That means we're back up to seven working activas in the UK. Phew.

[Stickyfinger]

Finally! (And show me an activa that doesn't have worn outer shoulders on the front tyres...)

That means we're back up to seven working activas in the UK. Phew.

Tyres, the softer the side wall the worse that will be (remember the Pilot Sports were quite still in the sidewall)......check tyre pressures. On my 17in TR1's I have increased pressure from the recommended for the 205/15's.

Define "working"

Well done

[Jaf]

Lovely, well done.

Autodoc always take 2 weeks over here. It never used to bother me but now that people like amazon can deliver in 48hrs it winds me up!

Where did you source the triple tee and elbows from? I've got a metal reducing connector on the pipe from tank to pump, but it weeps (and I don't like the stuff the pipes are made of).

[djadams]

Where did you source the triple tee and elbows from? I've got a metal reducing connector on the pipe from tank to pump, but it weeps (and I don't like the stuff the pipes are made of).

So sorry I didn't see this before! The triple tee is the original one - I just carefully cut off the over-moulding that holds the hoses onto it and crimped new Gates fuel hose onto it (so much tougher than the original un-reinforced hose) with single-ear clamps. The elbows came from amazon and are just generic barbed plastic (nylon I think) elbows. They don't look like the most robust fittings, but shouldn't be subject to much in the way of mechanical stress and should be chemically robust to LHM. I used the same single-ear clamps to crimp the hose securely onto them, rather than screw-type hose clamps.