CRASHED! Nearside saloon ABS trailing arm totally KNACKERED!

[onthecut]

Hi Andy.

Bad luck --- I can well imagine how you are feeling. Don't know if it will be any good for you, but I am about to break an early S2 hatch (6584), so will be having an arm available. I've acquired it for the pump and any other 2.5 stuff plus the wheels and tyres. Going to Ebay the interior. After that if you wanted to come and trailer away the rest (Brum) you are welcome. Should be available within the next couple of weeks all being well.

Mike.

[andmcit]

As sod's law would have it, the nearside rear broken trailing arm looks like it's going to come off the car with little
resistance although that's sadly not the case with the arm I have on a subframe lined up as replacement which
appears fused into one blob that will never disassemble!!

Don't suppose anyone here has a spare nearside rear saloon ABS arm available for sale - preferably with a sensor that
works still attached - these little bas*ards appear welded onto the arm...

Anyone?

BTW, the leaning nearside front suspension that had a fair whack too was leaning in at the base of the hub and had
too much toe in; needed a replacement lower wishbone to straighten things out there. I'm not happy with play in the
trackrod too and will need to renew that and of course I damaged the lower balljoint boot so the domino effect of
maladies continues...

Andrew

[Peter.N.]

Hi Andrew

Sorry to hear of your mishap but if its of any consolation my wife took the front o/s corner off the green one (see photo) but it looks far worse than it is. Although not economically repairable and probably worth more for spares anyway. When she hit the island it took the front suspension and wheel right back to the bulkhead, which was why she couldn't steer and ended up in the bus shelter. Although the car looks a write off, there appears to be no damage to the chassis, its just taken the inner and outer wing and everything fixed to it. Anyway, hope you get it sorted.

Peter

[Ken Newbold]

Just out of interest, are the saloon ones different from the estates?

[Dean]

They look identical as do the subframes, ive swapped estate hubs into hatch arms no trouble, everything looks the same.............i may have an arm left, i dont think Peter had them both but there would be no sensor in it, i took that off.

D

[xmexclusive]

Hi All

The one difference in the trailing arms might be the spacing of the bolt fixing points for the calipers.
The estate pads and calipers are larger than car ones. Will see if I can check this out.

John

[citroenmad]

Nooo not KYAK! Bad luck Andrew, so easy to be caught out like that.

Looks quite bad too, im sure you will have it back together soon, although i hope you have spare wheels as they will be quite a rare find these days.

Did you recover it yourself Andrew?

Ive found the back of the Xm quite easy to get out of line on slippery roundabouts, last winter i had a good 4 wheel drift going on one roundabout as i went for the second turning, or straight on at the roundabout. Certainly gave me a supprise as i didnt even think i was going that fast. Now i have the better tyres on the rear and ive not had that problem since then.

[andmcit]

Thanks for all your comments fellas - the self inflicted disaster may be abating!

Well, today I've managed to claw myself back out of the deep hole I've managed to plant myself in with KYAC
and remove the arm I have on the spare subframe. Surprisingly, it took me hours to get my head around the whole
rear arm removal on the car and 10 minutes to remove the arm off the subframe! Must say I didn't see this being
possible yesterday but unbelievably the spring clip that holds the arm onto the ram, on both the car and the spare
subframe undid easily! Yay! May have to thank someone in the past with their magic powers of copperslip!!

I've found, that the rear ram can stay in situ if the bellows boot is undone off it - didn't see that one either!!

So nice complete arm all freshened up with a brisk wirebrush against the slightly distressed truncated original:



I must say it came up well:



I didn't get a chance to take a piccy of the arm now attached onto the car as it was staring to get dark.
New pads also need fitting on the opposite wheel too - remarkably the brake discs appear to be the same
thickness on both rear arms too. I now need to get a big pair of stilsons pipe wrench etc on the inner rack
swivel on the track rod end to finish removing play from the accident damage added to the swapped front
lower wishbone. Need to fix the bottom balljoint gaiter too...

So the deficit after all this are two 24v wheels that should've been on the actual 24v but more unhappily
a blown out dent on the rear wing where the wheel made it's bid to escape off the car - seems I'll need to
save up a few quid for a nice man to magic the dent out of it and the footprint crater in the silver car to put
that right. Life is NEVER straightforward even when you manage to make positive inroads - my 24v v6 Xantia
has bizarrely decided to flatten it's battery now and despite all efforts doesn't want to fire up again.

Seems the first job for KYAC is to get off the trailer and tow it to the 24v Xantia to take that to the local
Citroen agent for some Lexia chitter chatter. That may be harder than it sounds as the only car with a tow bar
is also out of action at home here and the others are all parked behind the trailer on the entrance ramp...

you just couldn't make this up - I should write a sitcom based on my life and make some £ out of it!!

More updates tomorrow as there may be more tales to tell as KYAC has moved slightly sideways with jacking
it up to fix the front and back nearside suspension and now appears about ready to fall off the trailer. So if you
never hear from me again tomorrow...

Andrew

[citroenmad]

Can you not swap a battery to your v6 Xantia and see if it goes that way?

Sounds like your quickly progressing

[rowanmoor]

Ive found the back of the Xm quite easy to get out of line on slippery roundabouts, last winter i had a good 4 wheel drift going on one roundabout as i went for the second turning, or straight on at the roundabout. Certainly gave me a supprise as i didnt even think i was going that fast. Now i have the better tyres on the rear and ive not had that problem since then.

I've never had a problem with the grip on the rear. The rear wheel steer takes a little getting used to and I have had rear passengers think it was drifting when the back end is steering nicely round the roundabout, but I have only had the back end start to break away once.

That was a rather extreme manoeuvre though. I was going straight on on a roundabout at about 40 because there was nothing on the road except the car approaching the road on my left, and obviously I had right of way and I was on dual carriageway and he was on a little country road and there was perfect visibility and clear lines of sight right round the roundabout. However, they didn't seem to agree with the highway code and decided they too were going to carry on straight across the roundabout at probably 30 or so, just as I was right next to them The sudden braking and change in direction from heading straight across to turning right to then turning left as they realised I was there and slammed their brakes on once they were in front of me did cause it to drift a bit. Controllable though, and I was back on the road I had intended to be on to start with.

I have always had decent tyres on the back though. That is until now when I have one of the dreadful Energies on the back and have been a bit careful about it since it went on there.