Rivers of LHM

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H Reg Pete
Confirmed BX'er
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:01 pm
Location: South West Scotland

Rivers of LHM

Post by H Reg Pete »

Hi guys,
Well the leak on the drivers side rear accumulator finally became terminal yesterday, its been dripping for a couple of months now.
Warning light came on so topped up and drove to the only garage that sells LHM around here only to find they had closed half an hour early, drove the 7 miles home again with almost no power steering. Managed to get a lift back to the garage today purchased 2 bottles at £7.90 each, arrived home put both bottles in started the car and watched the green liquid gold run past my feet and into the gutter. So the cars not going anywhere until I visit the scrap yard on Saturday, only a around trip of about 70 miles. Before I moved to this part of the Scottish wilderness I was told it was God's own country Well God obviously never owned a BX.
^^ ^^
H Reg BX TZD Turbo
AlanS
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Location: Queensland, Australia

Post by AlanS »

Pete,

If ever you get caught like that again, can I suggest you look at getting hold of some reasonably light grade engine oil as a substitute, something like say a cheao SAE30 or even a 20W50 at a pinch as a 'get you home' alternative.
Get the leak sorted and then flush the system through via the brake bleeders using either a flusher or dieseline at a pinch.
This incidentally is Citroens recommended solution in an emergency. Both are mineral based and as a result it will cause no damage to your system (and is cheaper than LHM if it has a bad leak.)


Alan S :wink:
By the time you're old enough to know it all, you can't remember why you were learning.
Stewart (oily!)
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Location: North Wales

Post by Stewart (oily!) »

If you are lucky it might be a pipe, the suspension ones back there are short and cost around a fiver from citroen, it could also be the side blown out of a ram, cavmad might be your best bet then, I get LHM from GSF for under £3 per litre, living up there you might as well stock up and suffer the postage, good luck with the fix and keep the forum informed.
stewart
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mnde
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Post by mnde »

This happened to me with the GSA. I was topping up regularly for a while because of a leak from the rear - the LHM was always clean... :?

Until one day I topped up one morning (with engine oil actually), set off, then after about 10 minutes driving the STOP light came on *again*...

... got caught in traffic heading through Guildford, and started to get that sinking feeling... #-o

Pulled into a local ARE motorfactor... bought bottles of LHM, poured them in, started up, then watched a huge puddle well out from underneath.

Turns out the rear n/s cylinder had failed - the rubber part had split and LHM was gushing out past the piston. What I *didn't* know at that point was if I'd put the car into intermediate position it would have held most if not all of its fluid. It was the flexing of the rear suspension in normal height that was pushing the fluid out... at the higher height (as I found later), the piston operated in an intact portion of the cylinder). The car would sit quite happily in high position losing no fluid whatsoever...

So, not knowing this, I ordered a flat-bed truck and the poor G had to be dragged onto it sitting on its bumpstops..., using wooden ramps in order to prevent the exhaust hitting the ground on the way up onto the truck.

After it had languished on my drive for months with a roasting tin underneath to catch the fluid (I started it up every so often and put it into high - but fluid was inevitably lost as it eventually sunk down) , I was able to drive it all the way from Woking to Chevronic Centre in Bedfordshire in intermediate height without getting into difficulty!!

Good luck with your BX!

Mark.
Gareth Wales
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Location: Snowdonia

Post by Gareth Wales »

Mark: What happened then?
Did Cevronic replace the perished boot - I'm interested because I had much the same problem - but mine was caused by putting the jack on the apparently haandy bar which crosses the rear suspension; the little bar was bent upwards and fouled the rubber boot. Result: one complete unit
Gareth
H Reg Pete
Confirmed BX'er
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:01 pm
Location: South West Scotland

Post by H Reg Pete »

Hi Guys, well that's me into my third week without a car. The Cylinder has gone and its been an uphill battle to find a replacement, but my local spanner man rang today to say he's located one at a srapyard near here, should be here by Wednesday so who knows it could be back on the road by the weekend.
H Reg BX TZD Turbo
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