I worked at Citroën at the time of the Activa and remember a nice story I heard from the after sales department. They had a customer complaining that his car would be slightly tilted on level ground. When he brought it to the workshop, they wouldn’t find anything wrong with the Activa system, but they could confirm that the car was effectively tilted. The cause was only discovered when an expert visited the customer at home. He lived on the top of a hill that was shaped like a cone, and the road to his house went up the hill in a spiral. So when the man drove away in the morning, he would drive the first minute always in a curve to the same direction. The Activa system uses the first minute of a drive to calibrate itself, on the assumption that the vehicle will occasionally lean left and right, and stay level most of the time. You can imagine the rest….
You're joking?! I looked for them! I PROMISE they weren't there when I looked (this was about a month and a half ago). I think they were only on "add to wishlist"
@@UPnDOWN I think I've seen that too. My comment seems to have got lost, but the bushings are still readily available as well at Mecaplace. €42 for two pairs, enough for one car. Slightly harder material than the original ones, so they might last a bit longer. Greasing them is still a very good idea though!
When you were deciding how to repair the rod I was like Weld it Weld it Weld it.. and you did, if it works its not a bodge... Well done for sorting it, very tidy looking car, and yes thats a great colour
Well done Richard, a good temp fix. Activa Club rods and new clamps can come later if the owner wants...... Clamps can be 3D printed, files are available
That is exactly how I repaired the worn rear anti-roll bar on my 97 Mondeo. It had worn away inside where the rubber bush held it. Some welding and grinding solved the issue of it being loose inside the bushes. (it was all fine until I took it all apart to de-rust and paint it, that's when i realised it was the rust that was keeping the bush nice and tight. So simply replaced rust with new metal from the hot metal gun and all was good once more). That was a few years back now, all still good.
I believe that with all the salt on the roads in winter over there, all parts beneath the car become rusty. I noticed the bottom of front arch, drivers side is becoming rusty. Lovely practical car
All I could think when I saw the rear wheel leave the ground was: "Positive rate of climb. Gear up." It's a clever system though. I came close to buying a Xantia. I ended up with a Rover 620. My first car was a Citroën XM.
@@UPnDOWN Yes. Certainly the first car with my name on the V5. I drove a lot of Rovers during that time. My late father worked at Longbridge for 38 years. There was a car scheme where he could have a new Rover every 9 months. When he retired and I nearly wrote off a Rover 200, he sold it to a dealer. He gave me £500 to buy a car. I looked at a mark 1 Metro Vanden Plas in Cadbury Purple with matching chocolate brown rust. Next I saw a Ford Sierra Saloon Automatic where the clearcoat was lifting off the bonnet. The last car was a G reg Citroën XM 2.0 manual in grey metallic with a leather interior. It had done 130k but had a new engine fitted by the owner at 80k. It was a very interesting car to drive. Especially with the the handbrake being a foot pedal to the left of the clutch. Thanks to my Father I'm a proper car enthusiast. I drive Jags now. If you would like to meet up and chat with me about cars over a pint, let me know.
I’d love another hydropneumatic Citroen. Really do fancy an XM. My last one was a 1976 GS Pallas. Maybe when “Sybil the Six” is finished I’ll look for an estate version of one of them 🤔🤔
It is a shame this tech was not taken & developed further like other tech on cars has been over the years. With modern tech you could make an even better system.
Great video, so good to see an Activa dance, Great description and explanation, hard to see a better way to fix the worn arm and keep the angle the same
So good to see a Xantia again. I’ve owned 2 in the past and absolutely loved them….. Even with the alien juice leaks and the strut smashing through the bonnet
Brill video on the Activa, its a beauty to. My Dad had a mk1 activa Xantia and for some reason it handled towing much better than my non-activa S2 xantia which felt annoying pulling a four wheeled car trailer, Im not sure if youve mention it in one of your videos but the Xantias had a knack of the front end rising and falling if you were parked up with the steering on full lock and the engine running, ive always wondered why that should be.
Fantastically detailed video and description of this amazing suspension system, many thanks! As a previous owner of an early Xantia 1,8i 16V (which burnt oil !) my dream car is a Xantia V6 Activa, almost impossible to find these days, even in Europe!
Another fantastic and informative video Rich, really enjoyable. Was that Crewe where the APT Clip came from, we were there last year on holiday and had a good look around the APT.
Did you know ... I've got two of these dancing Activae on my drive in various states of disrepair and non runnerness (?). Oh, and a V6 which was going to be melded with whichever was the best car of the two to make a RHD V6 Activa which never saw these shores. Needless to say the complexity was and still is beyond me so these two crumbling beauties are destined to never see the road again. Ho hum ...
I'm assuming the Brands hatch dissers of the BX were fans of hilarious Northern comic actor and car expert Paddy McGuiness ? I reckon part of the erosion of the control rod was partly down to water collecting in the bush and rotting the metal away, like happens to brake lines under the floorpan where they are clipped in place ? Lots of grease / Wayoyl may help....
Too soft I'd have thought. There also needs to be a small contact point in them to allow the rod to articulate with the suspension. If it was a soft mount like rubber or poly, it'd be wrecked in no time.
Just a thought about an alternative: is it possible to relocate the plastic mount either forwards or rearward a couple of cm on the subframe to move it to a part of the rod that isn't worn?
Getting those bushings 3D modelled would probably save some hassle later down the line, could just take the file with the 3D model to any place that prints stuff, or one of those 3D Print Cafes and print it yourself, then again i dont know which type of plastic would do the best. I am a kind of a 3D modelling hobbyist but i do more creative/artsy stuff rather than stuff from an engineering aspect that have clearances and tight measurements. Went to a 3D modelling/printing school, or line at a school but since i wasn't interested in printing and the line was pretty much 80% printing i gave up on it, but some basic information i've managed to retain.
We had a Mondeo, and as nice as it was the Activa is a lot more interesting if you're a techy car nerd. For majority of people the Mondeo would suffice, so you can see why the Activa never really sold. It wasn't exactly cheap, either!
@@UPnDOWNit completely passed me by at the time to be honest... Growing up in the 80s if something was on fire at the side of the road it always seemed to be a Citroen. Cardboard heated pipes on 2CVs probably....
To be fair, I would guess BMW, Porsche and probably Mercedes have sold more cars with active anti roll bars optioned on to them individually than Activas were ever made, so its not like the technology went away went the Activa did. But to also be fair, The Active certainly was the first in any reasonable capcity and scope, and certainly isnt in the same market segment as the cars from the brands listed above....
Sutch a shame Citroën does not suport their older cars... honestly their accountants are in my opinion not doing a good job. What revenue would company with so mutch classic car caache earn if thy actualy provide suport for their used cars? Missed oportunity in my opinion. Cant they see the old cars are their best marketing tool? And that keeping them on the road is a big part of the new car sales they will be able to make in the future?
@@ricardosilva-xz1yt Maybe they want them off the road; Who would see a classic Citroen and then get a new one? They don’t want their history to show them up.
@@C.I... you are probably right... i always tried my best to make my parents proud... that is like saying they want their parents dead as soon as possible to colect the inheritance...
Because the bottom line is profit, and there's obviously not enough profit in supporting the older cars. Plus Citroen don't get to do what they want, they've had to answer to Peugeot for the last couple of decades, and now they're in an even bigger corporate shit sandwich. I can't see it ever improving, but you never know. In France, the Citroen-specific in the company would do it all, but they just don't have the backing.
Third option on the retention figures for xantia vids, viewers have nodded off while watching and the vid plays through. Not me, obviously, but maybe someone.
13:10 to 13:20 You need to set your camera/phone to fixed exposure to alleviate the constant distracting (sorry) light and dark random changing of the video.
Omg I’m laughing quite hard now that you complain about 29c. That’s a warm spring day in Victoria Australia where I’m from. I run a shop in Melbourne & would be very comfortable doing welding at 29c try doing it at 37c-38c then you’re in real trouble.
You dont get it; to a brit, 19c is hot, 29c is an inferno. They have (mentally) adapted to 16c and constant rain or they wouldnt survive the typical weather conditions without getting terribly depressed. Its swings and roundabouts.
@@GoldenCroc I do understand that the heat is different in the UK because the infrastructure is not designed to cope with higher temperatures. It is just as an Australian I’m laughing that they complain about something that is just another day for us because I’m so used to it.
We're not designed for it. Most buildings don't have A/C, and it's usually very humid. And then it's a personal thing - I deal with cold temps pretty well, but I slow right down in hot temps.
@@UPnDOWN I’m the opposite I like the warmer weather. I cannot stand being in a cold workshop. I much prefer to be in warm to hot workshop. Also I’m not a huge fan of A/C and don’t bother using it unless it’s above 30c or so. I can’t work in the cold as I slow down & seize up.
The repaired Activa seemed to get Jack @Number27 's approval: th-cam.com/video/lZXaexvA7p0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=2yiOl_1gYEoceBx3
I worked at Citroën at the time of the Activa and remember a nice story I heard from the after sales department. They had a customer complaining that his car would be slightly tilted on level ground. When he brought it to the workshop, they wouldn’t find anything wrong with the Activa system, but they could confirm that the car was effectively tilted.
The cause was only discovered when an expert visited the customer at home. He lived on the top of a hill that was shaped like a cone, and the road to his house went up the hill in a spiral. So when the man drove away in the morning, he would drive the first minute always in a curve to the same direction.
The Activa system uses the first minute of a drive to calibrate itself, on the assumption that the vehicle will occasionally lean left and right, and stay level most of the time. You can imagine the rest….
I love this type of video, techy and unusual.
The difference between watching a mechanic over a fitter
The french Activa club site claims that control rods are in stock.
There is also a 3D print files for the plastic blocks available on t'internet.
This is correct! I couldn't find the rods at first either, but they're available under "ADHÉSION" rather than "PIECES"
Print the bushings in flexible TPU
You're joking?! I looked for them! I PROMISE they weren't there when I looked (this was about a month and a half ago). I think they were only on "add to wishlist"
@@UPnDOWN I think I've seen that too. My comment seems to have got lost, but the bushings are still readily available as well at Mecaplace. €42 for two pairs, enough for one car. Slightly harder material than the original ones, so they might last a bit longer. Greasing them is still a very good idea though!
When you were deciding how to repair the rod I was like Weld it Weld it Weld it.. and you did, if it works its not a bodge... Well done for sorting it, very tidy looking car, and yes thats a great colour
The inserted clip of the GSD nearly made me spit my beer out!
Heard from a friend (in Australia): He looked like a dog that's just been shown a card trick.
Had to google 'GSD'!
I really like Xantiae, especially the Activa. Great cars.
Well done Richard, a good temp fix.
Activa Club rods and new clamps can come later if the owner wants...... Clamps can be 3D printed, files are available
Brilliant cars.
That is exactly how I repaired the worn rear anti-roll bar on my 97 Mondeo. It had worn away inside where the rubber bush held it. Some welding and grinding solved the issue of it being loose inside the bushes. (it was all fine until I took it all apart to de-rust and paint it, that's when i realised it was the rust that was keeping the bush nice and tight. So simply replaced rust with new metal from the hot metal gun and all was good once more). That was a few years back now, all still good.
Used to read about these, but never really knew how exactly it worked. Now I know, thank you :D
Xantias are great sheds.
Two words: brilliant video. Thank you!
so nice to show us the activa roll working ;)
I believe that with all the salt on the roads in winter over there, all parts beneath the car become rusty. I noticed the bottom of front arch, drivers side is becoming rusty. Lovely practical car
All I could think when I saw the rear wheel leave the ground was: "Positive rate of climb. Gear up."
It's a clever system though. I came close to buying a Xantia. I ended up with a Rover 620. My first car was a Citroën XM.
FIRST car was an XM? That's impressive!
@@UPnDOWN Yes. Certainly the first car with my name on the V5. I drove a lot of Rovers during that time. My late father worked at Longbridge for 38 years. There was a car scheme where he could have a new Rover every 9 months. When he retired and I nearly wrote off a Rover 200, he sold it to a dealer. He gave me £500 to buy a car.
I looked at a mark 1 Metro Vanden Plas in Cadbury Purple with matching chocolate brown rust. Next I saw a Ford Sierra Saloon Automatic where the clearcoat was lifting off the bonnet. The last car was a G reg Citroën XM 2.0 manual in grey metallic with a leather interior. It had done 130k but had a new engine fitted by the owner at 80k. It was a very interesting car to drive. Especially with the the handbrake being a foot pedal to the left of the clutch.
Thanks to my Father I'm a proper car enthusiast. I drive Jags now. If you would like to meet up and chat with me about cars over a pint, let me know.
I’d love another hydropneumatic Citroen. Really do fancy an XM.
My last one was a 1976 GS Pallas. Maybe when “Sybil the Six” is finished I’ll look for an estate version of one of them 🤔🤔
It is a shame this tech was not taken & developed further like other tech on cars has been over the years. With modern tech you could make an even better system.
Great video. You're very good at this "particular" type of educational tech Richard. Found it "particularly" interesting.
My opinion only but the videos are really, really good
I can confirm that the car is now driving very well indeed, cheers Rich!👍
Would be pretty coom if activa stuff could be transplanted into the SM. Since that is more of a performance car than most citroens.
21:35 I was thinking that too - the same colour as my first E34 BMW too. I do like Xantias.
Great video, so good to see an Activa dance,
Great description and explanation, hard to see a better way to fix the worn arm and keep the angle the same
So good to see a Xantia again. I’ve owned 2 in the past and absolutely loved them…..
Even with the alien juice leaks and the strut smashing through the bonnet
Great to see komrad Akimov in that inserted brief clip
Brill video on the Activa, its a beauty to.
My Dad had a mk1 activa Xantia and for some reason it handled towing much better than my non-activa S2 xantia which felt annoying pulling a four wheeled car trailer, Im not sure if youve mention it in one of your videos but the Xantias had a knack of the front end rising and falling if you were parked up with the steering on full lock and the engine running, ive always wondered why that should be.
That was an interesting video and you have a great solution for it. You have provided a new solution to that problem. Well done!
Bloody brilliant video, thank you 👍👍
Thanks 👍
Fantastically detailed video and description of this amazing suspension system, many thanks! As a previous owner of an early Xantia 1,8i 16V (which burnt oil !) my dream car is a Xantia V6 Activa, almost impossible to find these days, even in Europe!
Great Video, explanation and humor. Love the Activa.
I want one
Fantastically informative video. Loved the practical demonstrations. Thanks
On balance a broken control rod in a xantia is probably a better option than a broken rod at Chernobyl 😂 never heard of the activa either, pretty cool
Both are both, but one is less bad.
Thanks Rich. That was surprisingly interesting!
Love the APT !
"OK Brian, hit it !"
Only in Britain in the 70s !
I loved the "OK Brian, hit it!"
@@UPnDOWN You just know the chap's name was Derek...
Another fantastic and informative video Rich, really enjoyable. Was that Crewe where the APT Clip came from, we were there last year on holiday and had a good look around the APT.
I believe it was Crewe, yeah. Wasn't my clip (hence the credit!)
Ultimate bodge, rap the shrunken part of the bar with PTFE tape it is very slippy and it would take up the play with the bushes as well.
Did you know ... I've got two of these dancing Activae on my drive in various states of disrepair and non runnerness (?). Oh, and a V6 which was going to be melded with whichever was the best car of the two to make a RHD V6 Activa which never saw these shores. Needless to say the complexity was and still is beyond me so these two crumbling beauties are destined to never see the road again. Ho hum ...
Great!!! Thanks Kitch!
I'm assuming the Brands hatch dissers of the BX were fans of hilarious Northern comic actor and car expert Paddy McGuiness ?
I reckon part of the erosion of the control rod was partly down to water collecting in the bush and rotting the metal away, like happens to brake lines under the floorpan where they are clipped in place ? Lots of grease / Wayoyl may help....
Possibly, who knows!
i reaaaaallllyyy enjoyed this video. maybe becouse i own a xantia and i want to own activa.
Always wanted one of those.
By the end of video I realised you came up with the same idea 😂😂😂
I thought the weld bodge was a top job! Creative mechanics...
Thanks mate. I have all this to come. My dances like theres a white handbag on the floor.
😆
How much does an Activa go for these days in the UK? Am on the lookout for one. Possibly.
@KarlHamilton got mine for 350, but it's rough , and it was pouring fluid out.
A bucket case, but I had to have it.
Maybe you can fill the bushes with urethan (car glass glue), since they do the poly uretan bushes in aftermarket, might work?
Too soft I'd have thought. There also needs to be a small contact point in them to allow the rod to articulate with the suspension. If it was a soft mount like rubber or poly, it'd be wrecked in no time.
11:00... don't thin the bar.. it's torsional stiffness has been tuned to the rest of the system....
Fair point
An excellent video, well done!
I would have reached for the gaffer tape 😊
Just a thought about an alternative: is it possible to relocate the plastic mount either forwards or rearward a couple of cm on the subframe to move it to a part of the rod that isn't worn?
Not without changing the arc it moves through, plus you wouldn't be able to move the bush far enough to have an effect.
Getting those bushings 3D modelled would probably save some hassle later down the line, could just take the file with the 3D model to any place that prints stuff, or one of those 3D Print Cafes and print it yourself, then again i dont know which type of plastic would do the best. I am a kind of a 3D modelling hobbyist but i do more creative/artsy stuff rather than stuff from an engineering aspect that have clearances and tight measurements. Went to a 3D modelling/printing school, or line at a school but since i wasn't interested in printing and the line was pretty much 80% printing i gave up on it, but some basic information i've managed to retain.
Cheers, snorted out my drink with the control rods edit 😂
I love French engineering and British repairing of French engineering. 😊
I'm glad I had Mondeos, and stopped driving 90s cars in the 90s. It's oddly interesting though.
We had a Mondeo, and as nice as it was the Activa is a lot more interesting if you're a techy car nerd. For majority of people the Mondeo would suffice, so you can see why the Activa never really sold. It wasn't exactly cheap, either!
@@UPnDOWNit completely passed me by at the time to be honest... Growing up in the 80s if something was on fire at the side of the road it always seemed to be a Citroen. Cardboard heated pipes on 2CVs probably....
Love these
Channel name checks out. Good work!
LEFTnRIGHT?
To be fair, I would guess BMW, Porsche and probably Mercedes have sold more cars with active anti roll bars optioned on to them individually than Activas were ever made, so its not like the technology went away went the Activa did.
But to also be fair, The Active certainly was the first in any reasonable capcity and scope, and certainly isnt in the same market segment as the cars from the brands listed above....
I'd also be willing to bet it's deeper integrated in the Activa than most of the cars mentioned above! Works in conjunction with the suspension.
A particularly interesting video. Where did that SM come from? ain't not seen that afore.
Well, you wouldn't have done. Snuck in the back door...
Brilliant video and Activa walk through, will there be a Part2
Sutch a shame Citroën does not suport their older cars... honestly their accountants are in my opinion not doing a good job. What revenue would company with so mutch classic car caache earn if thy actualy provide suport for their used cars? Missed oportunity in my opinion. Cant they see the old cars are their best marketing tool? And that keeping them on the road is a big part of the new car sales they will be able to make in the future?
@@ricardosilva-xz1yt Maybe they want them off the road; Who would see a classic Citroen and then get a new one? They don’t want their history to show them up.
@@C.I... you are probably right... i always tried my best to make my parents proud... that is like saying they want their parents dead as soon as possible to colect the inheritance...
Because the bottom line is profit, and there's obviously not enough profit in supporting the older cars. Plus Citroen don't get to do what they want, they've had to answer to Peugeot for the last couple of decades, and now they're in an even bigger corporate shit sandwich. I can't see it ever improving, but you never know.
In France, the Citroen-specific in the company would do it all, but they just don't have the backing.
It can be bilt up with weld and machined on lathe.
You'd have a job putting that on a lathe with the shape of it.
@@UPnDOWN I taught clamping close to the damaged area but I guess you are right 👍
You forgot the option that more people fall asleep during activa videos than other videos. I dont think thaths the case but who knows.🤣
The super tourer video must have great retention stats just from me watching it right through 3 times, I wasn't sleeping, just resting my eyes...
Lovely cars these! Also I have noticed a lot of R HKV Citroens about, I can think of 6 off the top of my head
Registered at PSA head office in Coventry I suspect. There are a few Xantias registered in a batch with reg numbers similar to this one.
@@UPnDOWN I have also seen an XM on that batch, R208 HKV
Do the Xantia.... 😂
42.00 onwards if you jump through the video the cars is moving :P (while off)
Yeah, they do them sometimes. There's enough pressure left in the system to play silly buggers.
Interesting do they have an higher mot failure rate with all those linkages and. Joints??
Could one find the parts from another Activa that has been scrapped🤔
Don’t roast me for the suggestion… but would a bit of jb weld be much easier to work with and model it?
Third option on the retention figures for xantia vids, viewers have nodded off while watching and the vid plays through. Not me, obviously, but maybe someone.
Either way, quids in!
13:10 to 13:20
You need to set your camera/phone to fixed exposure to alleviate the constant distracting (sorry) light and dark random changing of the video.
It's the selfie cam, it does it by default. It's only a cheap phone I'm afraid.
@@UPnDOWNI will send you my old phone. It's an old flagship. DM me your address.
Couldn’t you rob the Tractiva of these parts? Or will those be just as bad?
Probably just as bad, plus getting underneath it would be a faff!
"unique to" rather than "specific to" if that is the case.
Quite possibly
Omg I’m laughing quite hard now that you complain about 29c. That’s a warm spring day in Victoria Australia where I’m from.
I run a shop in Melbourne & would be very comfortable doing welding at 29c try doing it at 37c-38c then you’re in real trouble.
You dont get it; to a brit, 19c is hot, 29c is an inferno. They have (mentally) adapted to 16c and constant rain or they wouldnt survive the typical weather conditions without getting terribly depressed. Its swings and roundabouts.
@@GoldenCroc I do understand that the heat is different in the UK because the infrastructure is not designed to cope with higher temperatures. It is just as an Australian I’m laughing that they complain about something that is just another day for us because I’m so used to it.
We're not designed for it. Most buildings don't have A/C, and it's usually very humid. And then it's a personal thing - I deal with cold temps pretty well, but I slow right down in hot temps.
@@UPnDOWN I’m the opposite I like the warmer weather. I cannot stand being in a cold workshop. I much prefer to be in warm to hot workshop. Also I’m not a huge fan of A/C and don’t bother using it unless it’s above 30c or so. I can’t work in the cold as I slow down & seize up.
Citroen missed an opportunity by not calling it the funny bone.
Just put some rubber pipe on that rod and the clamp, then put it back on. That is how those African roadside Mechanics would probably do it..! 🤔🤔
It'd last about 5 miles!
Send me a drawing and I will 3 d print some pairs for free