Xantia - sticky rear suspension when going high

[Jaf]

Hello. Slightly irritating thing.

I've been parking through the summer with my Fred on high suspension (better shade for the cats). Weirdly she won't raise at the rear unless I put some weight on the rear (I stand on the tow bar and jiggle a bit). She's then happy doing citroaerobics, down/ up, repeatedly.

If I try going low first she will not raise high, until I stand/ jiggle on the tow bar. Static weight, such as a full load of shopping, doesn't help.

Any ideas please? Thanks!

[Stickyfinger]

First thing to do is check/wash out with lots of with spray lube (like wd40) the rear height corrector and cycle between Up/Down a number of times....if that works then use a good thin oil on the central pin and the dog-bone link ball joints.

Remember, use axle stands under the sills as the car WILL/Could DROP on you and do you a lot of damage

[thorter]

Presumably the car has anti sink, and this can result in confusing behaviour of the rear suspension when it is not being used in exactly ordinary mode. It is too long ago for me to remember very clearly, but the antisink valve isolates the rear suspension if the anti sink sphere (which serves as a reservoir for the rear suspension and thus the rear brakes) is at higher pressure than the main feed from the front accumulator. Thus the rear brakes can have a separate independent reserve.

The pump regulator pressure has hysteresis to avoid rapid pump cycling, and it is possible for the antisink sphere to be at peak pressure at the instant the engine is switched off. When restarted, until the pump pressure matches this, the anti sink valve remains closed and the rear suspension is isolated. You often get this effect after having the suspension on high when jacking the car. It can take a while before if decides to go down to normal height.

[Jaf]

Thanks Stickyfinger. I'll have a look in a couple of weeks (too hot atm).

Thanks thorter, she does have a couple of leaks which won't help if it's a pressure problem.

[aerodynamica]

In my experience this is caused by the pivot Bush where the dog bone connects partly seizing. The manual lever in the car has a rod that leads to a pair of spring fingers and this allows the manual lever to be moved but that the spring fingers are not strong enough to move the corrector valve against the other seized pivot.

You can certainly try soaking it all on wd40 and it might help but I've found that once corrosion has built up in that pivot it just sticks.

A further thing that aggravates this is it the manual height adjust lever end is not set central in the lever. This causes a bias to the manual lever being more to the high position or low dep on what way it's maladjusted. It's very hard to get this correct when there's lots of wear and/sticking parts in the assembly. If your rear height is going fully to low but not to high it is possible it's just that the free- moving part isn't centralised.

I rebuilt my F & R corrector mechanisms with modified pivots to use ceramic sealed bearings and the suspension was great after that.