brake cylinder bleed nipples

I whipped into the shed before and had a quick look. if I insert the ball and the lower cap in there .... its 100% slop free... which is to be expected.

1665974906517.png


in the diagram it looks like the base plate bolts upto shims 426201, 426203 and 426667 to set the free play in the joint.
 
oh, my phone is working again. I think I got water in it the day we had all that rain.

fubar1.jpg


fubar2.jpg


This is what I mean by almost impossible to get apart if they have a needle between the star and seat. They will break through the cap ... or press unevenly. I found if you drive one sides cap all the way through, you can pry it out of the triax enough to get a 1mm cutting disc across the back of the cup, then chisel in apart. This will allow you to get the joint apart only sacraficing the one cup (but not the star).

twear2.jpg


twear1.jpg


I'm not sure why this should all be replaced. I would have thought its fine as all the hardening all looks intact with little wear.

The only issue I currently have is a couple of the cap rotate within the yoke. So will quickly wear it. For now its good enough. I'm sure I'll be revisiting this at same point (lets say 2035 .... :rolleyes: ).

twear3.jpg


Finding this on the floor is what caused the going in circles forever measuring and checking needles caper. What fun!
 
I should have mentioned that whilst it is all apart the sealing disc for the splines (usually hidden behind the cross and usually covered in grease) can be braved in to seal off the spline area. Keeps the car so much cleaner if the grease cannot fling all over the place while the drive shaft is rotating. A little breather hole can be drilled in the centre of the disc if you wish. I find that it is not really necessary as the grease can get along the splines easily enough.
Sometimes the disc is missing altogether. No problem, just make a new one!
 
Thanks Gerry ... amazing information as always!

index.php


Now this is really interesting. And I don't quite understand it. Its only taken me a decade to come to the realisation .... but I need to check **EVERYTHING** on this car and not assume it was assembled correctly (no not from my father putting it together .... from whoever did back in the 70's/80's ).

bottom_balljoints.jpg



Now the passenger side ..... Its missing the spacer than seperates the two halves of the cups..... So how on earth was it sloppy ?

top_balljoints.jpg


Top ball joints. Drivers side is missing spring and seperating shim. No wonder I couldn't make any sense of people saying "I need to adjust the shim"..... the thing isn't there on the balljoints I have been looking at.

In theory if I assemble the joint missing the spacer, shouldn't they just adjust down tight? They are the to sloppy ones. weird.
 
If you are renewing the gaiters in leather I have 3 spares you could copy one as a template and make new ones, or you could purchase new nitrile ones for OS. In either case, omit the springs. They get caught and actually can tear your new seals. I may have a spare spacer for the upper and lower cups!
 
gerrypro said:
If you are renewing the gaiters in leather I have 3 spares you could copy one as a template and make new ones, or you could purchase new nitrile ones for OS. In either case, omit the springs. They get caught and actually can tear your new seals. I may have a spare spacer for the upper and lower cups!
Click to expand...

I think leather is the go :) I really don't trust anything made of rubber I've bought in recent years. Its seems to disintegrate in the packaging, even if you need actually fit it :clown:

If I can get these ball joints slop free, without binding..... I'll worry about the spacer then. Otherwise I'll chase up replacement joints.
 
Am I the only person that just cannot make progress..... It feels like I just never get anywhere. So i just went out to start putting it back together this morning.

lockring1.jpg


The very, very first thing I did was slide this on ...... Then look at it ... scratch my head ..... and thought ... "Well how the hell does that lock the nut, the entire lot will spin .... " ..... Again, I can't make sense of something that should be simple ....

lockring3.jpg


The other one .... Well that doesn't help either ... How on earth does this not just spin. The has to be "something" somewhere to hold this lockign ring.

lockring2.jpg


So I went off in search of the hub and driveshaft for "something" to contain the locking ring. Its supposed to lock into that groove that looks like a keyway right ?? I'm going to have to weld a "tag" onto the lockrings by the look of this :confused:

I wonder if its me that's be munching everyhting up and trashing it on diss-assembly .... or was all this stuff already like this .... and I didn't know or realise what it was supposed to look like as I was pulling it apart .... sigh ....
 
actually its way more obvious in this photo than it is to look at the ring when your holding it.

lockring4.jpg


there is where the locking tag was.
 
hack1.jpg


When I hammered one of them flat .... you can see the tag is still present.... it fell off as soon as I touched it though :rolleyes:

hack2.jpg



I cut some sections of small washer (similar thickness 0.9mm) and welded on.

hack3.jpg


ugly, but until I order in newies, it should be better than nothing. some work with a flap disc and file ... and they lock in quite well into the driveshaft. One of them is quite distorted and out of round.
 
Moving along I've just spent 15 frustrating minutes trying to get the nut to screw onto the passenger front driveshaft..... I ended up with one of other parts driveshafts trying to fit the nut to find it wouldn't screw on ..... Yes, yes .... I know, your all yelling in unison "shane you idiot, you have the nut with the wrong thread" ... sigh.

This means I've got the driveshafts fitted backwards to before (as I've kept all the parts together on the side of the car they were removed from). To verify with you guys, the front passenger ... Ie: left had side of the car should have the left hand thread ( left had with you sitting inside the car). Trucks and old cars have the left side of the car with left hand thread, so surely that is where the left hand thread should go ? ..... Or did Citroen do there usual "backward to everyone else" trick :clown:

EDIT: Actually, you think of the driveshaft trying to spin in the taper ..... You would want the left hand thead on the drivers side, that way it will be trying to tighten itself, rather than loosen itself ... why are trucks the other way around ?
 
1666400626309.png


1666400660549.png


Ok, I have them backwards.... oh well, better working that out now, than once its all back togther. THis is fun right ?
 
Shane you are on a steep learning curve, go with it !! A lot of old style correct engineering in those old Citroens :approve:

There are several different reasons for having a LH thread and a RH thread on the other side. If the resistance would loosen the nut then it should be the other hand. But wheel nuts are LH on the left side and RH on the right side because the way the wheel moves on the hub as it rotates causes the nuts to tighten that way and loosen the other way. They found that out 100++ years ago. The same may not apply to say an axle nut depending on how the parts fit together and the drive forces.
Jaahn
 
Its gets better ...... I'm really fortunate I put the driveshaft in backwards. Not only did I find two of the nuts weren't tight enough .... a 3rd was pretty much loose :eek: ... the crush washer was crushed but there was no tightness there at all.

The reason this concerns me so much is I have had driveshaft come loose before (way back when I owned renaults I think it was). Anyway, I double checked very carefully those driveshaft nuts when I fitted those (going around them all twice to double check).

I think what must happen is the spanner touches the Triaxe in places, and your not actually tightening the nut, your pushing against the triaxe.

Lesson learnt, this time I've just tighten it, and once the car is on its wheels, I'll drive it up and down the street a few times, then carefully check all the nuts again (that way your not juggling trying to hold the driveshaft from spinning at the same time as well.
 
Tractions were famous for loose nuts on the drive shafts (and behind the wheel?)
Re the big bottom swivel ball joint, there was an adaption ( still available I think) that had a bolt screw adjuster rather than the shims and the cover plate.
 
Moving along .... I got back out to the shed for a couple of hours.

First, lets get the wheel bearing together now the driveshafts are on the right side .... It should all just go together easily now .... be done in an hour or two right ??

too1.jpg


tool2.jpg


tool3.jpg


I have no idea who made this or where it came from. I'd thrown it aside as a joke. But I don't have all Gerrys wonderous tools here. So I figured I've give it a go. Its actually brilliant.... and works amazingly well. The bolts out the outside, they are a precision ground fit to the housing, and the slot perfectly on the inside. Someone must have spent hours ..... just hours with a file making this.

Ok, outer bearing ..... it won't go on ..... For crying out load, the damn things a press fit. try gently tapping it around the base of the bearing ...... Nope ..... Seriously?? Another special bloody tool. So I measure the size and wander around the yard measuring everything round that I could find to make a press/drift tool. I finally found a trailer jockey wheel had the right size...... I didn't need that jockey wheel right ?? :clown: Ok, add jockey wheel to the axle Uclamps, master cylinder and paint the trailer needs ...

mess.jpg



Look at that ... hours of work ... and it looks no further together than it was 2weeks ago.
 
Last edited:
Moving along ....

The lower balljoint I'll start there, the keyway inserts quite easily ..... and it is instantly obvious why we have a keyway here, without it, the balljoint oil hole will not line up with the grease point. So without the key lined up you can't grease the balljoints.

nut1.jpg


Anyway, can't get the lower balljoint nut on ..... Look at that ??? mangled! I'll clean it up with a file later, steal the other sides nut for now. Then immediately get frustrated with myself. Guess who forgot to buy a 29mm socket (seriously, 29mm ?? ) .... sigh ..... I found it almost impossible to shim/seat the lower balljoint without the top one inserted. So moved to the top.

Once again the key way was quite simple to install lining up the grease holes in the ball. I didn't insert the shim between the two halves of the cups .... as I wanted to see if it would tighten up and not bind ...... To find it just tightened down and become impossible to turn any further ... infact I had to use a chisel on it to get it to loosen again. I counted the turns, it'll only screw in 1.5 turns... The threads look fine both sides ... hmmm... Remove the top cup, it'll screw in now right ??? Exactly 1.5 turns again.... Ok...

Grab the ball joint nut/adjuster for the other side, it also screws in 1.5 turns exactly. For a change, lets look and see what is going on rather than using brute force in frustration.

tbadj.jpg


After cleaning out the grease .... look a witness mark.

tbadj1.jpg


tbadj2.jpg


Infact, look at that, someone has beaten the absolute merde out of the tops of these nuts and buckled the cover down to the point where its touching the ball joint nut. I'm going to have to have to beat these back the other way to clearance them. I hope the top doesn't break out of the nut! No wonder we could never adjust the stop out of the top joints.

I'm guessing these should be crowned outwards rather than hammered/buckled inwards ?
 
I have fitted Stahlbus brake bleeders to my DS5 as the agreement I had with my wife for pressing the brake pedal expired. Turns out it is only good for about five years after marriage! I use a vacuum bleeder and the Stahlbus bleeders avoid the problem of air being sucked down through the threads of the bleeder valve. However, when I looked on the web site for the fittings available for Citroen they didn't go back as far as the Traction Avant I'm afraid. And no mention of a 0.9mm thread!.
 
gwest said:
I have fitted Stahlbus brake bleeders to my DS5 as the agreement I had with my wife for pressing the brake pedal expired. Turns out it is only good for about five years after marriage! I use a vacuum bleeder and the Stahlbus bleeders avoid the problem of air being sucked down through the threads of the bleeder valve. However, when I looked on the web site for the fittings available for Citroen they didn't go back as far as the Traction Avant I'm afraid. And no mention of a 0.9mm thread!.
Click to expand...
You just prompted me to go back and read the first pages of this thread. I quote "The left hand thread driveshaft must go on the right side" along with an explanation why ..... by Gerry ..... Why don't I ever listen to people :cry: 😭
 
tight.jpg


Well a couple of taps with the hammer and that cover plate dropped completely out. Brilliant, I can actually see what the ball joint is doing now. It wasn't even screwing in far enough to touch the back of the top cup. Its really tight to screw in. I've adjusted it down so there is about 1/2mm of slop with the ball centered('ish).


I don't really want to go tighter than this.

Now by putting a jack under it so the top arm supports the weight, we can lower the bottom arm down until the lower ball sits in its top seat. The lower balljoint cup easily slipped in. I immediately realised it has to many shims to assemble it, so I removed a few of the thinner ones. I need to drop it apart and remove some more shims, as there is no slop there at all. I'd like to be able to feel some slop there so it won't bind when the suspension drops or compresses.


Interestingly there is now quite noticable slop in the top arms rear most bush. You couldn't pick that before as the lower balljoint was incredibly sloppy (as it millimeters up and down of slop). I still don't understand how, but it was certainly because the ball wasn't seated down onto the taper correctly (as it was compressing the key that wasn't in the keyway). This is also why the lower balljoint tool didn't have the adjustment to remove the ball.

less_shims.jpg


I still need to remove some shims from that lower joint. so they aren't fully seating and its slop free already. I have already removed the two smallest shims.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top