Merry Christmas from Citroen - massive LHM leak!

[Mickey taker]

Either join rac,as or green flag and get them to recover you to your chosen garage or see if one of your relatives had membership ad in some cases its the person that is covered rather than a particular car so maybe you could get it recovered using there membership

[Way2go]

This pipe looks accessible, better than the hole being on top of the subframe.

Is the pipe just holed on one side and not cracked through? If so, you could make up two rectangular flat steel plates with a hole for a nut & bolt on each corner to go around the pipe. Place two bits of firm rubber against the hole and back of pipe and screw up together firmly.

You should now be able to not only raise the car but hopefully it would be sufficient to drive it home to enable convenient proper repair

[bravo-x-ray]

Hi and Happy new year, though I know a sick cit doesnt exactly instill happiness, so I thought I might try and ameliorate your situation by talking you through the job....

Since you have the car on stands, and the spare wheel carrier removed, you should have fairly easy access to the offending pipe... Thus it should be fairly easy to remove the pipe at the end from the height corrector / t - piece (been so long since I done any real hydraulic work my memory is a little vague) that end comes out fairly easy, the one that is a bu**er to get out in my experiecne is the end of the pipe that goes into the suspension cylinder.

When buying the parts I would recommend using Pleaides pipes rathe than citroen parts as the citroen pipes are steel and still have stupid little frail nuts on them where the Pleiades ones are made of an alloy of copper nickel and iron known as CuNiFer and come with much more robust nuts on them. I would also like to point out that we need to keep specialists like lockwood and pleiades in business as we will eventually be marooned for parts by citroen as they inevitably phase out support of the BX.

In my experience of citroen pipework, it is easiest to cut the rotten pipe off near the end of the pipe nut with a good quality pair of wire cutters, then go onto the pipe with a single hex deep socket. The correct size is 8mm, however I often found that the nut would distort rather than undo, so you were best hammering on a 7mm socket have an extension bar onto the end of the socket so you can keep your fingers clear.

Now with a 7mm single hex deep socket on an extension bar, on the pipe nut, put a little blow lamp, the smaller and more focused and hotter the flame the better, onto the component that the pipe goes into, while keeping a reasonable amount of torque on the socket on the nut you should be able to keep heating the component. Eventually, if the pipe nut hasnt started moving before this point, the LHM will start to boil in the pipe, and ooze out of the pipe end, at this point put a bit more force on the ratchet connected to the extension & socket this should start to get the pipe nut coming out. In doing this you will almost certainly have melted the rubber seal on the end of the pipe, which will strangely be helping to lubricate the pipe now rather than binding it in place, however it will mean you will have to get new seals (about £0.30 each). Both ends of the pipe out, its time to remove the clamps, iirc they are secured by 8mm head M5 bolts, these as often as not sheer rather than seperate, but can easily be replaced by bolts from B&Q or similar.

Now to reassembly, pop new rubber seals onto both pipe ends, insert appropriate ends into the ports on the components, 8mm spanner open ender in the pipe nuts if using new genuine citroen parts, 10mm spanner if using pleiades replacement pipe, tighten nuts, fit clamps, lower motor to its wheels, top up LHM, perform citroen aerobics, ie raising and lowering car through complete range of suspension travel and topping up LHM tank a necessary.

As a matter of good practice when its warmer and you have a bit more time you should lower the car fully remove and empty and wash the LHM tank, refill it with hydraurincage / hydraflush for a bit to help clean out any contamination from the scorched LHM mentioned earlier, then replace it in say June with new LHM after lowering the car fully and emptying and washing the LHM tank again, but it isnt imperitive that this is done immediately, say do it easter bank holiday for the first part and one warm afternoon in June / July to put it back to LHM.

Best of luck.

PS I have an associate in Anglesey who could probably do the job for you, he like me, is an offshore hydraulics technician on the oil rigs, but he should be able to do the job for something like £150 + Parts PM me some contact details if you want me to put him in touch with you.

[Wooscary]

Thank you all for the advice and tips, and bravo-x-ray for the write up.

It's been a strange few days but essentially this is the short of it.

Holly and I ended up buying a 1993 Polo breadvan as we were in desperate need of a car over
new year. It's great!

The BX is getting recovered on Monday (the guys at the Citroen Repair Centre in Reddish are
heroes). Pipe replacement and a new section of exhaust will ensue.

[bravo-x-ray]

You are more than welcome for the write up - I hope the repair goes well and I am glad to hear the car is being "saved"....

Might I suggest that you have the guys at the citroen center have a look at the other pipes as essentially they are al the same age and will be subject to similar amounts of corrosion, and as a matter of course I'd replace the two rear suspension pipes rather than just the one that failed, as well as the rear brake ones (if funds permitted) - sure it might be another £60-120 in parts / labour but it might save you another £250 in recovery charges....

[Wooscary]

Very good idea. I was thinking of that. As they're doing the exhaust at the same time too it would be foolish not
to consider the other pipes.

Roll on Monday to see what transpires.

Just hope the front hasn't sunk too much...

[Mickey taker]

pics of the breadvan are required Martin, they are a great little car

[Wooscary]

Absolutely, that's my plan for tomorrow. It doesn't even need cleaning before photographs!

[Wooscary]

BX was collected today. No drama.


63654_10152163881658475_680768229_n by Wooscary, on Flickr


781_10152163882353475_1988315125_n by Wooscary, on Flickr


72800_10152163882973475_804256041_n by Wooscary, on Flickr

That's Chris loading it up, throughly decent chap. He custom built that tow truck to be just right for hydro Citroens! Apparently he'd already picked up a 16v this morning which had had a mishap in the middle of a busy road. Whoops. Anyone on here?

Photos of Breadvan will appear on my blog thread.