Is it possible to remove the damping elements from Xantia spheres?

[octinum]

As it is very difficult to find Hydractive style spheres in Turkey (both for H2 and H3+) now, I have an idea.

Is it possible to remove the damping elements in the "neck" part of the spheres with the green Xantia spheres (and also, the grey C5 H3+ spheres), and install them in other spheres? Has anyone tried it?

As I mentioned elsewhere, I bought a Xantia Series 1 VSX, same as my own VSX, as spares (it was written off after an accident, with almost all the Hydractive components intact). The spheres looked new. But when I checked, I found that at least the front ones were non-hydractive spheres.

If swapping the damping components in the spheres is possible, then I would be able to simply get regular spheres, have the damping elements inside my spheres installed in them, and use those. The damping would be the same as my Hydractive 2, with maybe some change in spring rate. That is for the front of course; I think the rears have a bigger pressure difference between the non-hydractive and hydractive variants.

Fingers crossed.

[mickthemaverick]

I'm afraid I can't offer comment on that idea but I'm sure you'll get some responses from those who can. Good luck

[Stickyfinger]

Better to recharge the original spheres....are they "blown" ?

You can change them, they are held in with a peened edge, reworking them IS NOT EASY.....I refer you to Mandrake the master of such things

viewtopic.php?t=55077&start=15

another discussion, note the comment re HA spheres.
viewtopic.php?t=25476

[thorter]

Not much hope unless you are an accomplished machinist with a suitable workshop. I have converted spheres to accumulators by turning off the retainer of the damper assembly, but not then reinstalled the damper. Even holding a sphere in the lathe with the damper bore concentric enough to work on is a challenge. You could, of course, fix a damper back with bearing retainer, but I doubt it would survive for long immersed in hydraulic fluid. But it might be worth checking out chemical resistant grades?

If you think you have the skills and resources, one route to investigate might be machining the damper and/or sphere neck to create a clearance for a thin sleeve to be pressed fitted to the sphere. I have no idea whether there is sufficient material to do this. The sleeve would need to be strong enough for a press fit, but also soft enough to spin over to retain the damper, possibly stainless steel tube. It would all need to seal well enough not to spoil the damper characteristics.

It all depends how desperate things are. It is unlikely to be cheap or easy unless you already have access to the necessary skills and facilities.

[thorter]

Well, a quick check suggests some Loctite retainers have good oil resistance. I would suggest confirming details with Henkel, but if it is verified it is OK in contact with LHM then it should be possible to swap the damper assembly from one sphere to another, fitted using bearing retainer. It is necessary for the gap to be in the correct range, though very likely it would be. If the gap is too big, it could be shimmed so that there would be two bond lines.

Clearly you can get the sphere filled to the correct initial pressure, so seems like you may have a solution.