hydraflush and very bumpy ride

[stuart_hedges]

...I'd be inclined to remove the front struts, dip the end in LHM/Hydraflush and cycle them a number of times to flush out the yuck... coffee filter paper...

[DavidRutherford]

Whats the best stuff to filter murcky lhm? I used an old work shirt as the filter media....

I even posted a picture of what I consider to be the best way to filter fluids. An old shirt won't be nearly fine enough.

[citroen7]

where was this beast roger?

[DLM]

Whats the best stuff to filter murcky lhm? i recently did a strut & must have used about 1.5 litres of nice new lhm & its gone like mud, i did manage to filter some of it back to new, but the rest is proving quite a bit more difficult.

If it's that bad then I'd be inclined to clean the tank filters and disc(watching out for the vicious edge on the tank), and then put in the hydraflush. Cheaper than LHM to buy a 5-litre container at GSF, though I'd baulk at putting it in long-term (see previous threads).

If it was a secondhand strut replacement, then perhaps the best strategy is to pump the strut though with lhm/hydraflush repeatedly before fitting, immersing the strut returns in a large container of your lhm or hdraflush that won't knock over easily.

Personally, I'd only consider recycling lhm if it had just gone in and was coming straight back out again through a return pipe I was fixing. Filtering lhm may get rid of some crud, but the molecular structure gets thoroughly knackered over time, as I understand it.

[tom]

Max, the ride was transformed by the Hydrorincage, right?
So it was not good before. Now it has very stiff front struts, a bumpy ride and sits high to your eye.
This sounds to me very much like a jammed front height corrector or linkage and I would be out with the axle stands under the body and a big tin of WD40. Spray the thing to death and wipe it down, then with the car on the lowest setting, engine off and a friend working the lever, get a hand up underneath it and feel for movement at the correctior linkage. The frozen linkage is cutting off the supply to the struts and preventing the suspension from moving through its full travel, I suspect. How does the back end behave if you set the car to mid position and sit in the boot with the engine ticking over. It should sink fast and then pump up slowly.
If it isn't falling at night, it may be stuck in high and you'll need to be a mad hero to drive it at all (and anything over walking pace could ruin the spheres.)

[maxgreenwood]

the ride was transformed for our test drive after putting hydraflush in, but became bumpy after 30 - 50 miles or so. When i do a good few aerobics the ride comes back but only for 5 minutes or so. it certainly feels like front struts are not lubed up correctly.

i've wiped grease around all what i think are the linkages and what i think is the pivoting arm up at the front under the engine.- the front height corrector linkage? is that what you mean will be the frozen linkage? or do you mean the one half way down the car?

It rises and lowers ok between settings - it can't be stuck in high? . when put into low, front end drops first. when put into high back end goes up first.

the back end behaves ok i think, i've been carrying loads and it takes it down and corrects back up.

one thing i saw under the car the other day was the notched adjuster setting thing to do with the ride height setting(?) at the front under the engine - i saw a pic of it in the haynes manual. Pretty hard to even get a good look at it, but it looked like something may have been out there? like it was in-between two of the notches.

Over night the back end sinks slowly, the front will go if i give it a nudge a few hours after switching off or in the morning, although struts are sticky but not too noisy or anything.

i really hope i havn't damaged the spheres

i'll try the wd40 and moving lever.

[tom]

Ok, that rules out the rear spheres (you have travel) and the height corrector (you have correction.) from what you say, the struts are binding at the top of their travel. Read about lubricating the inside of the struts in the forum and let us know ehat your tick time is.

[Kitch]

If the struts were dried to the point that they severly affected the ride then surely they'd be awful when raising and lowering the car?

Could it be the accm sphere? I don't know if it's possible, but if it had broken down and perished internally, the nitrogen could be passing round the system in lumps perhaps? Although perhaps that would only get as far as the resevoir thinking about it. Tick time could tell you that as tom says, but in my experience tick times can be hugely deceptive....an everso slightly weeping seal can throw the tick time way out. I ignore mine now, unless it's every 2 seconds If there are no puddles on the floor after I park it up, then I'll pay attention to it!

[tom]

I suspect that one of the front spheres has ruptured but I would like more information before I drew that conclusion.

[maxgreenwood]

tick time when hydraflush replaced was great - about 20-30secs.

when ride deteiorated it dropped to 5-10 secs. although that is with stuff in the car.

i wd40'd the corrector this morning, moves freely, also undid and tightened HP screw a few times in low. This brought back the citroen ride for about 5-10 mins. Ride then stiffened up increasingly today. the suspension seems to respond when corners of car pushed down, although not as soft as it was when i replaced the front spheres in november. rears changed in oct. the car travels well over speed bumps - its the little undulations in the road that shake all the internal plastics and seats around. it does seems as if the whole car stiffens up too - the rears somewhat as well as the front but i think if just the fronts are suspect then it would affect the whole car. how can i rule out the spheres having problems? it feels like something to do with the fluid to me.

incidently i'm on LHM now - i tried to filter the hydraflush through coffee filter, but was taking so long and i had to use the car i had to replace it with LHM. Still looking fresh and green.

acc sphere was changed in nov too.

the resevior is over full - but i don't think that would make a difference?

???????? !!!!!

[AndersDK]

If the struts were dried to the point that they severly affected the ride then surely they'd be awful when raising and lowering the car?

Not necessarely - the best proof is to try lube them up, which often re-gains the silksmooth ride you remember from the car was new.
Please dont use the LHM in-the-hole trick as then there are large riscs you wet your brakes with LHM
Instead use any multipurpose grease for bearings or CV-joints.

Could it be the accm sphere? I don't know if it's possible, but if it had broken down and perished internally, the nitrogen could be passing round the system in lumps perhaps? Although perhaps that would only get as far as the resevoir thinking about it. Tick time could tell you that as tom says, but in my experience tick times can be hugely deceptive....an everso slightly weeping seal can throw the tick time way out. I ignore mine now, unless it's every 2 seconds If there are no puddles on the floor after I park it up, then I'll pay attention to it!

Tick times are not badly affecetd by weeping seals. Failing seals however is a common problem - like the wellknown front strut seals worn out giving a large discharge flow back to the reservoir.

[tom]

The sudden loss of tick time down to 5 seconds might mean that the accumulator is not being fully recharged. I would try reseating the pressure regulator bolt and ensuring that it is tight and Anders and
I (Nice to see you Anders, BTW) will try to puzzle this one out. I would ask whether you replaced the accumulator sphere because if it is flat, then there is no reservoir of available pressure to compensate for any leakage,for example in the brake doseur valve. Right now, if I was stumped, I would clean the top of the LHM reservoir very thoroughly and start taking pipes off to see what return flows were occurring. The external links on this club site will take you to some useful diagnostic information that will help clarify what is going on with these pipes.
Briefly, if a strut has failed, there will be a lot of LHM coming back and if the reservoir to pump pipe is leaking, there will be a milky foam of bubbles in the LHM.

[mnde]

On mine, the back end was so floaty it was silly - bottoming out easily on speed bumps, or if I sat in the boot. The handling was awful, like a boat, prompting speculation whether I had the correct rear spheres.

Tick time was about 5 seconds. Back end also sunk down completely within a couple of hours of switching off.

After David replaced the accumulator sphere, the rear of the car stayed up all night!.. but this effect didn't last more than a few days, after which it was back to sinking like it was before. Tick time was initially stellar, but didn't last, but is still a fair bit better.

But - the real, permanent, change is that the rear suspension damping is significantly firmer. Not sure how relevant this is to this case, just relating my experience that a "stiffer" ride isn't necessarily a bad thing.

With the GSA I've often felt that the suspension is passive, not active enough. Not reacting quickly enough to the sudden bumps and rough patches (crashing into them), but performing well over long undulations. I used to try purging the suspension (open pressure reg screw, front safety valve, and manually operate rear HC through the boot access panel - you can't select low position in a G!) and this would give miraculous improvements, but didn't last very long.

When I had the rear height corrector changed on the GSA, the rear of the car became far softer, and would fairly jump up into the air if I selected "high" position. But with time this effect has disappeared. Saying that, I suspect the LHM is now on the old side and I plan to do a fluid swap and filter clean soon. The whole of the car sinks quite quickly after turning off. Even in high position, the front of the car is on the deck within a couple of hours, whereas the rear is still fully up!

I hope you get your car sorted soon Max.

Mark.