Hi folks,
I am looking for strut top mounts for the early XM, I have some ideas about making them better than the OEM.
I had ordered some, but only got one brand new for a non-hydractive, I purchased it for £80 only,I am looking for another one for the Right side or the U.K driver's side.
Can anyone help me, even if they are broken? I just need a couple,one for each side, I promise to share my idea with Noz and anyone.



Merry X mas and seasons greetings.

Cheers

The new non hydractive head only needs the feed pipe entry drilling out and tapping.
Easily done by a competent machine shop.

Two sources of rebuilt heads now available.
KINGas in eastern europe is a member on here and rebuilds in an elastomer.
There is a Dutch Citroen enthusiast who rebuilds in rubber (his former business).
Spare strut heads for rebuilding are hard to find.
UK ones have often suffered significant metal loss from rust.
They can still go up to £50 each on ebay.
On early strut heads I will not reuse 4 dimple heads due to the early service failures.
Due to the shortage of competent items for rebuilding I am looking again at alternatives.
New steel baseplates can be fabricated at a cost.
The C5 strut head centre might be modified to suit large rod XM struts and piping.

John

Hi John,
thanks for the reference to the Strut top mount, thats what I thought too.
I hadn't realised it before this time that these strut heads do break down.

I had purchased my 1992 ,2.1TD wagon, RP5782 that had made its way to the U.K
and it is an Italian specifications, there is no security punch pad to start the car.
I had bought this two and a half years ago, drove it on the M25 to Southampton from there being shipped to Canada, after it had landed , I went to Halifax and drove it back 2300 Kilometers to Toronto.

I had no problems, as Martin at Pleiades had checked mine out just before along journey, but this could happen any time, right?

Had I known about the strut throughs, I would have added safety cage at the top and or a small diameter, steel belted rubber tyre over the lower centre bell housing(this isn't hard, its just a matter of releasing the pressure in the system and releasing the piston nut at the top, once the piston is down, it is easily done), this would help in case the top membrane decides to give, but after this, there will be no more strut throughs, because the bell of the housing would get stuck below the
neck line.

I was also thinking along the line, why was the strut top made in this manner?

How about using a strut bearing, like they do on a regular Macferson strut,make this fit the XM strut mount?

I am pretty sure that this rubber part could have been replaced by a larger ball joint, only upside down, I am not too good at explaining, but I am 100% sure that this strut top failures can be eliminated.

sincerely

Hi Citroens

Canada, now I think I remember you from our previous correspondence.

I can understand your concern with such a limit source of XM spares in Canada.
I think the risks of strut head failure can be greatly reduced by competent inspection.
It needs an understanding of the various modes of failure and degree of risk that each presents.
We can work through those and the fact that you have a spare loose strut head will help with this.
Examination off the car can be much more detailed.
I will try to put together some links.

A few years ago I though strut head problems might be terminal for XM's.
I am happy now that we can refurbish to get another 20 or so years.

In the study of options I obtained and examined the different XM, Xantia and C5 strut heads.
All had one common design feature of varied directional resiliance.
They were all very stiff laterally but much softer to fore and aft.
I took this to be an important design feature of hydraulic Citroen steering.
Because of this I rejected conventional bearing replacement as an option.

Of the existing design type I classed XM as poor, Xantia a few years later as even worse. The C5 though is excellent. No significant rusting or service rubber failures.
We are now getting lots of early C5's in the scrap yards over here.
Not much demand for the strut heads so they are cheap as well.
I looked at fitting one direct into an XM.
The C5 head fits and seals to an XM large taper strut rod but not the small one.
The C5 head is deeper than an XM one.
A metal converter plate would solve this but clearance to tyre top needs checking.
Then there was sphere position. Unfortunately rotated in getting the resiliance right.
Pipe entry also needs modifying.
Just enough to make it too difficult.

The elastomer rebuild came along with a projected service life in excess of 30 years.
Plenty enough for me so I worked to check the technical spec covered all I wanted.
That included bonnet popping protection rings welded into the components.
The only problem I see now is the quality and quantity of spares to rebuild.
That is the reason for looking at a batch of new baseplates and recovered C5 heads.

Best regards

John

Hi John,
Yes, that's me.
In reality, I hadn't realised the strut top mount problem beforehand about the XM.
I have the two XMs, both are series 1 and both seem to have the same type struts, although one is a 1990 Sedan, V 6 Auto with Deravi steering and the other is a 1992 TD Wagon, both are left hand drive, I had removed the struts from both the vehicles and had them swapped to verify a hard suspension on the front of the Wagon, but the struts are fine.

XM was never sold in Canada, hence part source is always difficult.
I plan to get a few sets of the struts as well as the Strut tops as a spare, I would like to design a completely different Mcferson strut top mount, whereby there will not be any rubber on the mount, like the OEM, but it will have a similar bearing to a regular strut top mount as without the high pressure hydraulics.

In reality the XM Strut top mount rubber doesn't need to bend so much, especially if a strut top bearing was used.
I think that this bending and twisting of the rubber on the strut top mount is stressing out the rubber prematurely, cause of the strut throughs, other than the rust on the mounting plate.


I may even go to a machine shop and get a completely redesigned new heads, whereby the sphere will be fitted straight on top, as opposed to the side ways.

I have some ideas, might need to borrow a CNC design and or a 3-D printer to make some prototypes to begin with.

Also, I will need to see in action, what available bearing will do the job.