Xantia rear suspension cylinders

rmattila · Post by **rmattila** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 8:50 pm

I salvaged a pair of rear arms from a 1995 Xantia that's going to the scrappers (the rear arms from saloon Xantiae are identical to BX ones) . Grabbed the suspension cylinders too, don't like good material being wasted. However, I've no idea whether the Xantia rear suspension cylinders can be modified to fit BX with reasonable effort or not.

Does anybody happen to know if that can be done, or would it be better to just give them away to some lucky Xantia owner? Or should I just take the measurement tools and go find out myself..?

Post by **mat_fenwick** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 11:16 pm

Yes they can - never done it but from memory (a thread on here) it's just the hydraulic inlet that needs either reducing in diameter or shortening.

rmattila · Post by **rmattila** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 6:28 am

Thanks - that's the difference I noted, and I'm glad to hear there are no other hidden peculiarities. It should be rather straightforward to fix the cylinder on a lathe carriage and take the extra aluminium off with a boring head fixed to the spindle.

At least I'll give it a try.

NeilGP · Post by **NeilGP** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:13 pm

Hi,

I've used the Xantia rear struts on my BX with no modification so you should be OK.

Regards
Neil

MULLEY · Post by **MULLEY** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:43 pm

Mk1's must be different as there's no way that the xantia port on a mk2 will fit, reason i know this is that i recently had a rear strut changed & took up the xantia one to see what the issue was & it wont fit until its had the excess port trimmed back to make the circumferance smaller.

rmattila · Post by **rmattila** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:49 pm

I guess it depends on the size of the relevant gap in the rear subframe. The ones I've seen have been rather narrow, but I've heard some people have the habit to expand them in case the hydraulic pipe won't come out of the cylinder and they must be removed together..

However, I got the job done: http://www.rmattila.com/images/remontit ... _cylinder/

I couldn't quite get the cylinder mounted to the carriage in such a way as to be able to line it with the lathe spindle, so I had to use the milling attachment. It is not quite rigid enough for the boring head, so the result is not very accurate - but for this particular job it doesn't have to be either.