Citroen XM Forum

I'll make sure to get the proper flare fittings for connections, then. Standard mineral oil for hydraulics will indeed be cheaper, I'll see if I can get some of that.

Are the wheels meant to stay up, when jacking up the car? As in,they stayed "on the (upper) bumpstops", not on the ground untill full suspension droop like "normal" cars. Would this be a quirk of hydractive suspension, or just caused by lack of fluid?

Re: Insurance: Irish insurance is backwards. The older (and hence cheaper) the car is, the higher the cost of insurance is. The insurer's "excuse" is that people would buy cheap scrapboxes and commit insurance fraud with them, and apparently to them, a collectible car and a half-rusted out old Micra are the same. Unless you get very lucky with a specialist broker, a "normal" insurer will refuse/quote a "go away price" for cars older than 15 years (some are now refusing to insure cars over 10 years!), while the "classic car" insurers demand the driver be at least 25. I'll probably "gift" the car to a parent and get myself as a named driver on a policy in their name, or get a policy on a "new" car and transfer it to the XM. Excuse the long paragraph, Irish insurance is a very vexing topic for me.

Also, I'll probably end up getting a ZV plate for the car after importing, would look better imo than the default "92 - D - 12345" it would get., the ZV plates are usually in the format of ZV 1xxxx, which can be put as ZV1 xxxx, which would look better, especially on plain (no blue stripe) background. The year-county-number plates are too crowded.

gwolfski wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 04, 2023 8:30 am

Are the wheels meant to stay up, when jacking up the car? As in,they stayed "on the (upper) bumpstops", not on the ground untill full suspension droop like "normal" cars. Would this be a quirk of hydractive suspension, or just caused by lack of fluid?

Lack of fluid.
In an admittedly lengthy post on Page 1 of this thread there is a link to Citroen training videos and further information regarding Hydro-pneumatic and Hydractive suspension.

The effect you are seeing at present is covered by the comment:
"Hydraulic oil in this context is uncompressible, Nitrogen gas is very compressible, so makes a perfect spring. The greater the gas volume and/or pressure, the softer the spring.

1: Wheel rams transfer suspension arm motion into hydraulic oil motion.
2: Hydraulic oil transfers the ram piston movement to the spheres.
3: Nitrogen gas spheres absorb the movement of the wheel ram thus provide spring function."

You have wheel motion and you have gas springs (maybe flat), but no hydraulic oil to connect the two.
The wheel assemblies are connected across the axle by the anti-roll bar: A strong torsion bar which resists body roll by attempting to keep the body level with the wheels on each side.
Normally, with a metal sprung car, the wheel that has been raised is pushing down against the anti-roll bar, as well as the whole car body lifting due to being jacked up.
As you have no hydraulic oil the car is on the lower bump stops, you raise one side of the car but the opposite wheel is still being pushed up into the body as there is no spring, due to no oil.
The anti-roll bar is lifting the raised wheel to keep it level across the car, with the one still on the ground and bearing vehicle weight.

You would have the same effect on a metal sprung car if you removed both road springs across the axle.

This is the trick exploited by hydraulic Citroen owners so they can change a wheel without using a jack: Raise the car to full height, jam something under the car near the wheel to be changed to prop the body up , lower the car, which subsequently lifts the wheel off the ground.
Experiencing a flat tyre on the side of the road is hassle enough, but you don't want to be crouched down, getting hot and sweaty trying to jack a car up using a feeble jack.
Raise the car, wind the jack to make it a prop, hook it into the jacking point, lower the car. Let the engine horses do all the hard work.


Link to the Citroen training videos and further information. Worth reviewing to gain an understanding of how the system functions. It makes understanding any issues much easier.
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=10291

So a bit of an update: the xm managed to not get crushed during the storm this morning, which is nice. I, however, now have no daylight time to do the suspension leak, so I'm probably gonna get it towed away on a flatbed to a mechanic that has an actual garage and lift.

Is there a way to keep the suspension raised with no hydraulic pressure? I recall reading a thread where blocks of wood were wedged under the suspension once it was initially raised, but can't find that thread now. Option 2 is to just bring the hydraulic fluid jug and top it off before loading and unloading from the flatbed.

Also, the factory jacking points are in great shape. Looked underneath and it looks like they have reinforcements/fresh panels welded in. Better than the factory jacking points in my '10 mazda (those are crunchy already)

Theres two ways to hold the back end up...

A. jack up the rear and place.blocks of wood on top of the rear arms.. to stop them from returning

B. Place blocks of wood inside the hollow tube frame at the rear just forward if the rear wheels as the rear arm bump stop arms are on the tube . You will see the bump stops inside.

At the front. Again Jack the car up under the SUBFRAME do not use the jacking plates as this age they aren't as strong as they were 20 years ago..

You can place a length of wood between the top of the drip link upper mount on the side if the strut and under the strut top plate under the wing. This will keep height however will limit steering movement due to its placement

Bit of a progress update: Got the customs paperwork sorted, and a registration appointment (on the last day of no-fee deadline, to boot). Might have a Christmas gift of a road-legal XM.

Another update, mostly for myself so this doesn't join the "forgotten about" section of my motivation:

The car has developed electrical gremlins. It has locked itself, which wouldn't be too bad except for the door locks being busted. It has also developed a sunroof leak, which wasn't there before. It is currently (since Christmas) waiting for it's booking for rust repair, which is still months away unfortunately. It has also developed a diesel leak, although it seems to be the return pipes from the injectors.

Engine starts up perfectly though. Sitting three months, fired up on the first compression stroke.

Also, is the pump v belt for the 2.1 the same as the V6?

Nope the v6 hydraulic pump is at the back of the rear V .. and sits directly above a pully and is about 1088mm long. Where the 2.1td pump sits above the altinator and its belt is about 1300mm long. The 2.1td hydraulic pump is the.same pump as pre 1997 2.0 tct cars ie pre anti sink.

Good to know. The belt has started screaming, no wonder, it is worn about 2mm from full width.

The self locking is likely to be water in the remote receiver, due to the inevitable sunroof leak.

Injector leak-off pipes are a common issue on diesels.

Dropped the XM off at a Citroen dealer called Sur Le Pont. Going to be put on a lift for the first time in 8 years and we'll find out how much rot it is hiding (hopefully little).

Front left tire let go quite suddenly while taking it off the trailer, which was "fun"