Idly leafing through IHFS catalogue - kind of thing that us deluded XM types think is enjoyable!
Well it struck me that I still don't understand whey there are so many different types of spheres just for the XM.
for example: For the front: XM55FH, XM50FP, XM50FN, XM50FB, XM45FM

Does anyone know what all the different suffixes mean and is there any difference between the three XM50 variants?
Can you buy these in the uk anywhere?

Cheers
Steve

PDF catalogue follows that you may need to download and rename something.pdf if you want to view it...

Well if they are IHFS then they also do 'comfort' spheres. So that will account for quite a few variations.

I got a Hydractive front sphere from Euro Car Parts, that was IHFS, I also bought a set of strut spheres on Ebay from AEP and these were IHFS.

Steve.

Someone on another thread, that I can't find at the moment, posted a reference to a web site www. mycarparts.org in the Netherlands. So I had a browse,as you do,and a couple of things caught my eye.
1. If you go to Citroen parts - suspension- and select the boxes according to model you end up with a list of appropriate spheres for your vehicle.
2. They claim there are only two manufacturers of spheres left Citroen and IHFS.
Worth a look anyway.

Robert.

Hi all

The other 2 manufacturers are Technosir from Italy and Lizarte from Spain.

The sphere differences refer to volume, static pressure, and damper characteristics -eg orifice sizes, disks thicknesses (that regulates when the extra orifices open up to the flow)-. Eg the XM50FN is 400cc while the XM45FM is 450cc (rare application that one, was only applied to the V6 for about a year between '93+'94).

What is obvious from the part code is only the static pressure, eg 50 bar, 45 bar, 55. Volume in XM hydractive front corners is 400cc in almost all of the cases (except for the 450cc above). Even non-hydractive XMs have 400cc corners (u would expect them perhaps to have a somewhat larger volume to compensate for the absence of the middle sphere wich adds 450 or 500cc per axis depending on model year).

Unfortunatelly in no catalogue I have found any indication of the codes that obviously refer to the dampers. At some point of time I had the sphere catalogues from all IFHS, Lizarte, and Technosir, and compared the data to find they agreed between them, but none had any damper spec detailed other than codes.

FIY, I have compared the above listing with the myparts.org website and have also found it to be correct. So buy safely, I'd think.

I'll never stop saying: don't buy from a shop called buy-parts-buy: they sell rusty refills for the price of new spheres from GSF, and the worse, each sphere had different and wrong dampers, ie in the front I had different dampong right/left. Front centre orifices were 1.1 and 0.9mms, more CX-style sizes (XM hydractive: 0.5 and 0.6mms). Result, car felt extremely unsafe in any other road than motorway. At any B-road, not even with my father's Volvo I had not felt such a scary vagueness at turn-in. So unless u check that they've changed that practice, don't try them.

cheers
George

GSF do a shere application table which gives all the pressures, part numbers etc. I can't remember how I found it but I printed off a copy and it was produced by GSF. If anyone wants a copy, let me know