BX16V.com Forum

Hey Guys

Need to do the rear arm bearings on the BX. There is a Xantia (possibly V6) at the local scrapper. I was wondering if the rear arms would fit? I have heard they widen the track.

Plan is to get arms and have any wear machined out and bushes put in so they are nice and fresh and ready to go. Will then whack old ones out and new ones in so I'm not potentially waiting for several days without a car while my arms are machined and bushed.

I'm running 195/55/15's, not sure what off-set my wheels are but they don't have an issue fitting under the 16v rear arches (an I'm not opposed to cutting the insides to allow a wider track).

I don't *believe* the Xantia arms are a direct replacement but if they do widen the track i'd be surprised if you'd get your current wheels back on.

Machining of the arms is seldolm needed....

I believe the early Xantia arms (ie fitted to L/M reg cars) are identical to the BX ones. I think these are usually fitted to cars with the BX sytle hydraulic setup (single output pump, FDV etc) and pretty rare these days. I offered a BX arm up to one of these Xantia arms in a scrappy many moons ago and they certainly looked identical.

It's worth noting the Xantia ABS sensors have different connectors to the BX one's but i'm told you can graft one onto the other. It might be possible to buy the Xantia 'male' connector new and fully convert the BX loom.

Thanks guys, so not going to be a straight swap in any case?

Jay, my BX has nearly 290,000km on it It's more a case of I would rather pay the money to have it done and have arms that I know will be tip-top. Rather than pull the old ones out only to discover that they do need machining. That would leave me unable to get to work until I had arms machined and the car back together.

never machined a set of arms ever! worst case the outer seal area might be a bit mullered in which case you have 2 choices, use some chemical metal on the back of the seal to fill any gap -as it doesn't do anything.
Or just fill it all with grease! arm bearings all last the same length of time regardless of how theyre done. the key is lots of grease and lots of movement - i.e driving it!
some people have fitted grease nipples and thats about the only way you'll keep them going for ever, just remember that the nipple will have to go through into the centarl area inside the plastic tube spacer, otherwise you'll just be filling the casting!

Ollie

It is no problem fitting xantia arms, I hv done it on my valver, saves on brake pads, arm brgs and even wheel brgs as I hv a few sets available..
Only a bit different where the bump stops rest otherwise identical.

^Cool.

When you say it saves on pads/wheel bearings etc. Do you mean Xantia ones are cheaper? Shouldn't the pads be the same if I'm not changing calipers (or do you have to do that too?)

Also, when you say where the bump stop rests. Do you mean it sits at a different hight on bumps? Higher or lower?

Ta

whether they fit or not is largely irrelevant as they use the same bearings anyway and its exactly the same job to change bearings or an arm pads for a bx are dirt dirt cheap as well and rarely wear out so unless youre doing 20k a year for 5 years with a boot full of tools it is also irrelevant! how many pence different they are in price1

Ya, for you chaps the parts are cheap so no problem in that area, but here its expensive plus what I do is I buy a complete xantia rear axle mainly for the spheres, These used parts are imported from Japan where cars are like new are scrapped very low mileage, so I hv quite a few rear arms in stock.

I guess were just spoilt for parts supply here , i can have virtually anything service withinn the hour here, inc rear pads around a atenner or arm kits for less than the carriage alone on the arms!

But then if its rare then I would prob go to the same lengths to get the bits that you do, i know I drove a 200 mile round trip just for rare transit gearbox and spent the best part of a day in a very grubby yard to get it!

Worth it though as it means I can fit a 24v scorpio cosworth engine to my Mk1 transit.......

a lot of the time it comes down to what's available here too.

I'll order up a bearing kit.

Cheers guys.