Dirty Lhm, 8th Sphere Or Front Height Corrector?, Rear end rising

Hi all,

I had another look at my suspension problem today and got a second opinion.

1: Car is pitching back and forward under and acceleration and braking, wallowing about and obviously not performing the function that should stop it doing this.
2: Car apparently feels like "a BX estate would when the wrong spheres were fitted, wallowing about and not floating along the road"
3: As stated below rear height corrector has been internally stripped and appears to be working correctly.
4: Rear height adjustment appears to be correct as car settles at correct height at some point when rising and falling at rear.

The car is going on a four post ramp tomorrow for inspection and if necessary adjustment.
I am phoning Marsh Citroen and Pleiades tomorrow for more help.

Any ideas ? Mechanical part of electrovalve ? Icorrect rear spheres ?

Can't wait to get to the bottom of this !

Cheers,

Mark.

This post has been edited by mark on August 07, 2007 11:37 pm

If u unplugged a certain fuse in the panel under dash in cabin (find in car's manual), the suspension ECU will go off and put the car in "hard", ie electrovalves will cut the middle sphere. If u do this and your ride continues to be the same "wallowy", could be that your rear electrovalve is not working properly and keeps ur car in soft permanently. Prob a mechanical problem in the evalve -but I think David Hallworth here had found his electrovalve being constantly energised so car was permanently in soft (I don't remember what was the cause)-. Or could be that rear corner spheres are soooo wrong (orifice too large), that the middle one doesn't make any great difference whether in or out of circuit (I have had this in my car).

If by removing fuse the car correctly becomes hard, it means prob. the evalve is OK mechanically but electronics are not working -keeping car in soft in permanence as David's-.

Finally, I take it u r u sure u installed the diode-box correctly and didn't connect any unwanted wires?

Do u know the radio-trick to listen the current going to the evalves (lower of long waves, blip throttle to listen electricity cutting-out/cutting-in)? Although better measure current at source at the ECU.

Good luck, u'll soon find the problem, is not that a complex system.

George

Not knowing the car's history, might I suggest four possibles;- 1. Comfort spheres fitted by previous owner; 2. Accumulator spheres fitted in place of suspension spheres ; 3 . Suspension spheres "modified" at some time by a previous owner. or 4. Incorrect spec spheres fitted, perhaps in some earlier life by an owner who bought some second hand off some other model.

(says Marsh Citroen put him 3 rear new spheres a month ago)

Thanks Brian for the sphere advice.

Thanks George.

Will do the fuse check this morning.

The diode box was fitted by maker of boxes and cars previous owner Roy Macay so I am sure there is no problem with fitting. He also fitted one to my 2.5 estate and I fitted one to another 2.5 with no problems.

I did not know the radio trick but will try this morning.

Will keep you all posted.

Cheers,

Mark.

Hi Mark / All,

Thought I'd better chip in since this was mine (however briefly)!

First of all - the shock absorber reference relates to the aux belt tensioner which Dave Alstin (Marsh Citroen) fixed. (Usual aircon car flappy belt syndrome).

I only drove the car from the south back to Scotland so didn't get a chance to investigate the problem properly myself. It's got the makings of a great car once this niggling problem has been sorted out - given the amount of money I spent on it and all the work the original owner had done - and I'm pleased Mark was happy to take it on. Although we both felt it would be something relatively simple - I don't think either of us considered the possibility of Marsh having fitted the wrong spheres. (I'll be very upset if that turns out to be the case.)

The problem only became apparent when the car came off the ramp at Marsh (7pm) and was sitting rear up. Dave (having already done all the work listed) fiddled about with it for a while and eventually adjusted the rear height - although I don't think this was a problem when it went in. (Hard to say as I'd only bought it the night before).

We both knew it wasn't right when I left - and had I been able to leave the car until the morning I'm sure Dave would have sorted it out - but I had to get back to Scotland (not great planning with the benefit of hindsight). When I left - neither of us had any idea what the problem could be though!

The anti-sink sphere hadn't been replaced and the LHM hadn't been flushed (although may have been done previously).

I can say the suspension ECU is OK & the diode kit was fitted correctly!! That's as far as I went before Mark wanted the car though.

Not sure what else I can add at this stage. It'll certainly be interesting to see what the solution is. Having spent £700+ on it (ouch) - I think I've done my bit to try to restore this one to it's former glory but simply didn't have the time or space to get stuck in about it! Looks like Mark has the bit between his teeth on it now though - so well done!

Roy

This post has been edited by mackay1 on August 08, 2007 02:06 pm

Thanks for that Roy, very helpful and keeps others in the loop.

I am getting all the spheres checked this afternoon.

The two rear left and right hand spheres look / are new but from the printed serial number have been diagnoised as GSF fronts.

I'll give an update on them all later.

Cheers,

Mark.

Hi,

OK - I'm upset.

Mental note: Thou shalt only buy spheres from Pleiades in future.

Roy

This post has been edited by mackay1 on August 08, 2007 05:35 pm

The plot thickens !?!

The two new rear centre left and right spheres were diagnoised yesterday as being GSF fronts.

However, upon closer inspection they appear to be correct for 2.5 hatchback rear, serial number M45352 14/03/07.

This still leaves the new rear centre sphere which I have to remove to check the serial number.

Could the one rear centre, if it is wrong, be causing all the problems ?

Cheers,

Mark.

This post has been edited by mark on August 09, 2007 09:39 am

Hi mark

The centre one cant be very wrong as it has virtually no damping. If it was flat you would have a permantly hard ride - which you would also have if a corner sphere had been fitted to the centre in error!

Peter.N.

But could another wrong sphere in this position be causing the problems ?

This post has been edited by mark on August 09, 2007 11:21 am

Without having the numbers in hand: it could if they had fitted a sphere significanlty bigger in volume and similar in static pressure to the one specified for ur car, e.g. something like a BX estate rear sphere or a CX estate rear. The central orifice of the dampers in the hydractive blocks are 1.25mms and some of the spheres specified for those older Cits are around that value. But because they are of bigger volume (up to 600cc for CX?) than the XM spheres they'd make the effect of a softer suspension on an XM. However this should be negated by the hydractive, if it works ok -unless ur driving style is so smooth and slow that u rarely activate it-.

Anyway, make sure of what u have at the rear and try the fuse thing, you'll already have eliminated 2 possible problems. If it's not these, and as Roy knows that your ECU was working, then it has to be an hydractive valve or somethigng overthere.

regards
G

Thanks for that.

Now i'm totally stumped.

Spoke to Pleiades Wed and Thur who are also stumped. They don't want to sell me the mechanical part of the electro valave as they don't think it will solve the problem. They also don't think the unchanged 8th rear anti sink sphere, LHM or rear height corrector is the problem.

Drove the car for 100 miles yesteday in town, on motorway and on fast A roads. When changing down for a fast right hand corner the drivers side rear wheel feels like its trying to lift off the road as the front squats.

Cheers,

Mark.

Everybody being stumped I would replace all suspension spheres and make sure they are original Citroen. Removing the after-market spheres you might find one or two have the wrong orifices. Just a suggestion, but I have unpleasant experiences with GSF products. I do hope you will get the car in good shape.

Hi Mark

Even if the eletro valves are stuck open it should drive OK it will just roll a bit. Have you tried unplugging the suspension computer? this should automaticaly make it go into hard mode. Have you checked that both drop links are present and correct?

Sorry if I have duplicated every one elses advice, I couldn't bring myself to read the whole string again!

Peter.N.