Just for putting my mind at peace

[Junkman]

This must be a rather dumb question for all you hydro-pneumatic high-priests, but I just want to make sure whether the suspension of my car is working correctly.

- If I start the car when it has completely sunken down, it takes about 10-15 seconds for the red 'stop' lamp to go off, the car starts rising first front, then rear, and reaches normal ride level within ca. 5 seconds after the light went off.

- If I park the car, it starts sinking in the back only, and it takes about an hour for it to completely sink in the back. At this time, the front hasn't yet gone down at all. It takes about 3-4 hours for the front to sink.

[MULLEY]

How often does the accumulator hiss? If its low on pressure then the suspension takes longer to rise as the hydraulic pump has to work harder, not a good thing. The more it hisses the worse it is, if there are nice longish gaps between the hisses then its working fine. I can't remember the exact number of hisses are considered normal, someone remind me please?

The rear dropping 1st sounds like the doseur valve, is it worth repairing? probably not as long as the cars brakes work fine, then you can put up with the spaceship launch position until the fronts drop down.

The lhm might be old, so worth doing a full change if you've never done it in your ownership, hydraflush is also worth using as well, but not everyone uses it. Have you checked your hydraulic pump belt is very tightly fitted? If not some slipping might cause a delay in the suspension rising.

[Dollywobbler]

Yeah, that doesn't sound too bad. A really healthy hydraulic system should start lifting the car within a few seconds, so fresh LHM and a filter clean-out might be in order. My TXD behaves pretty much as yours does.

The sinking sounds pretty normal. Some drop very quickly at the back but they all take longer for the front to drop.

Accumulator hiss/clatter should be at least every 10 secs, up to 30 secs for a really healthy one. However, The Green Tiger was hissing every 5-8 seconds and still rises quickly.

[Junkman]

So far, I haven't really heard the accumulator hiss or clatter at all, so it must be in such long intervals that I ran out of patience and slammed the bonnet shut before the next hiss/clatter.

Seriously, is this a distinctive sound? I had a GS and two CXes and they made a very distinctive 'tick'. I cannot hear anything like it from the BX.

[Dollywobbler]

Does depend on the pump but it can generally be heard quite easily. Would be unusual for it to take longer than 30 seconds to run. Identifying it over the diesel clatter is harder, but it should still be audible. The revs may drop slightly as it kicks in.

[citsncycles]

My 14 used to take over 20 seconds between runs. Timex is up to 8 or 9, and does seem to pressure up quicker than it used to, but I still have a couple of things to try to improve this. Both drop quicker at the back - in fact the 14 was so quick that it would have started dropping before I even got out of the car! I gather in severe cases the back will drop when the brakes are applied, but I've not experienced this myself yet.

Pump is certainly a different sound to the GS one - it's a totally different design after all. Depending on the model, the CX could have either type pump fitted, although it was usually the multi piston set up similar to the BX.