Xantia Suspension

Palindrome ( snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Plastic clip on the rear height corrector has come disconnected, probably broken. Costs pennies.

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT JUST GO UNDER THERE TO FIT IT. PEOPLE HAVE DIED LIKE THAT. MAKE SURE THE CAR IS PROPERLY RAISED AND SUPPORTED. If you ignore that, and move the height corrector lever the wrong way (as you'll need to do to fit the clip), you WILL drop the car on your head.

I recall a pre-Darwin Awards potential winner - tried to cut the brake pipes on his wifes boyfriends Austin Princess.

He cut the Hydrolastic pipes instead... they know that's what he did because they found him underneath it still with the pliers in his hand.

PC Paul ( snipped-for-privacy@bitrot.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

A mate borrowed my CX whilst I was on holiday. He was woken in the middle of the night by a godawful shrieking from the car parked outside his house.

Odd, he thinks, didn't mention an alarm.

So out he goes, and unlocks the car. The noise continues. He starts the car... As it rose, a cat *rocketed* out from underneath...

PMSL, that's made my day :-)

Adrian wrote in news:Xns9989BE7A2DF48adrianachapmanfreeis@204.153.245.131:

ROFL !!!

Thanks, Adrian. I passed on the info.

I'm lending him my car to use for the week and will take his car to the local garage on Monday. Thanks to you, I am now prepared for the sucked teeth that I usually get when taking a car to a garage.. :)

I assume that it isn't safe to drive very far like that..but the local garage is only a mile or so away.

Palindrome ( snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

It isn't. If it's flat, there is NO suspension, just the rubber bumpstops. You may well drag and damage the underside of the car on the road, and you will have no rear brakes, since they take their operating pressure from the rear suspension pressure.

Carefully... You should be OK.

Take it slowly and it should be fine. IIRC the manual says something like under 15mph. Be prepared for a VERY bumpy ride.

It's either 3 minutes work & a £5 for the height corrector or the valve assembly will have suck/shearedthe rivet & that's £130(or more than you hoped for) and about 1/2 an hours work. The 3 minutes includes driving it onto the ramp & diagnosing the fault.

In Reading, about 1990, as I recall.

Ian

Some further information - if it helps:

We jacked the whole back of the car up this morning. No, just peeked underneath from well clear of the back!

The long rod going forwards to the height adjust hand control is in place and the lever on the valve assembly does move to and fro as the hand control is moved.

Is this long rod going forward the height corrector, discussed? I couldn't see a plastic clip.

We started the engine with the car jacked up and moved the hand control

- the front went up and down but the wheels at the back didn't lift.

However, on removing the jack, with the hand control in the maximum ground clearance position - the car stayed level - with full ground clearance, front and back and with the engine running or not.

Moving the lever to the normal height (engine running) simply bottomed the back suspension, with the front going to normal height.

So I think that the fault is with the valve that the long rod goes to.. Is that the most likely? Or is the height corrector clip not the one on the rod going to the front of the car?

Something else very noticeable: he has sheared the exhaust pipe, just forward of where it goes into the back box. Is that going to be very expensive - the pipe looks to be continuous to the front manifold,all the way through what I assume is the cat.

So, at the moment, I am expecting the garage to say that it needs a replacement valve assembly and a replacement exhaust pipe and cat. I don't suppose there will be much change from £500 - what do you think?

The last height corrector I got was from ECP (last week) and it cost £92 + Vat it is held on by 3 Torx screws and 4 pipes it takes less than an hour to change. a bit fiddly but a fairly easy job. I had bought it for a Xantia exclusive a couple of weeks ago which had the same problem but a good dose of wd40 and a wiggle with a pair of molesgrips cured it (for the moment!!!)

Des

Nope, there's a little, ~2" long white dogbone that falls off, if that's missing that's your problem.

Thanks. I can't see anything like that from lying on the ground just behind the car, with the car jacked up high enough so both rear wheels clear of the ground.

Can you (anyone?) give me an idea of where I should be able to see this from or where exactly it is?

The panic is a little bit over, as the owner has driven off in mine. I'll phone the garage in the morning to see when he can look at it..Is August a particularly busy time for rural garages?

Palindrome ( snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

That's the height corrector.

£90+vat from GSF, or probably a big chunk less as a rebuilt from Pleiades but their online store seems to be broken.

However when they fail they normally jam & the dogbone falls off. So a new dogbones always worth a try.

Sounds reasonable to me! Only problem is, I don't know where to look to see if there is one there or not..Looking for something that isn't there is a tad difficult what you shouldn't be expecting to see..

Incidently, many thanks to those that helped - I do hate going near garages without having a fair idea of what's wrong and how much it should (roughly) cost to put right.. It is great that people here will help.

palidrome send me your email addy i`ll send you a jpeg of the height corrector regards Tim

Brilliant! many thanks. My return address is valid, without the "invalid" on the end.

So "me" at "palindrome" (but use a zero instead of an o) dot "plus" dot "com" works.

Thanks again

Sue