Incontinence - T-piece / Y-piece - rear susp return on estate

[DLM]

I have a BX estate, referred to at times as the red shed - not a thing of beauty but has been stopping, starting, going forward/back/up/down for more than 18months now.

It's currently with a garage man who knows BXs from fixing them at a main dealer when new and not-so-new.

The dreaded return pipe junction that sits on top of the fuel tank has disintegrated, and 2 x attempts so far at replacement options still result in messy green blow-off as LHM returns in excessive quantity. My man says it's chiefly coming from the rhs rear suspension cylinder. More lhm than usual in the cylinder boot for a while now.

Any thoughts as to how to proceed welcome - I'm running out of options. Aware that the estate rear cylinders themselves are unobtanium, and that Xantia ones - if they can be found - may fit with some surgery. Also aware that air-hose press-fitting junctions have been (literally )pressed into service as a replacement - though I don't have the t-piece diameters to hand for the pipes.

[Jaba]

I think that replacement Tees are available from Chevronics and the EU parts guys. It seems unlikely that much pressure is building up in the line from the leakage enough to blow the joint apart as the bellows must act as a pressure regulator by simply expanding itself. So it must be that the flow rate is somehow separating your repair, a partial blockage perhaps.
When mine failed I used a small plastic Tee obtained from a hydraulics company for a few pence and joined this to the pipes with some rubber tubing of appropriate size. Despite the Tee having a smaller internal diameter it remains capable of handling the return flows on my car at any rate.
It is always possible to run a separate return pipe to the reservoir.

[DLM]

Thank you - I'm not totally understanding why there seems to be so much of a return flow.

Thought I'd been here before and npw see it was in 2007 viewtopic.php?t=7633. In this case I was the one working on the car up on stands from underneath - now someone else is and he's running out of patience when he can get it onto a (busy) lift. Has caught me at a rather inconvenient time for doing such a thing - both weatherwise and workwise. Ho hum.

[DLM]

Update: the only return side problem now after help from Tom of this parish is this - a leaky gaiter on the rear strut.

HOWEVER, there now proves to be a high-pressure-side problem.

It looks like the exhaust silencer has chafed either the adjacent brake curly pipe or the Strut supply pipe. A fine but thick mist of LHM is the result - particularly pronounced on a raise to highest suspension position where it really pees out. Very strangely, on going to normal ride height, the leak is much, much reduced, to the point where it's barely there..

[RobC]

If it’s only apparent on high setting that would indicate it’s the brake line, as the rear brakes are only under full pressure when there is heavy weight in the rear of the car: the full height setting mimics maximum weight (and is why it’s always best to bleed rear brakes in the highest setting)