Exploded sphere

[boyse7en]

Popped into my localish Citroen specialists (used to be a dealer, but no longer...) to try and get a couple of parts (no luck, but they were incredibly helpful, even printing out the parts lists from the Cit computer for me to search elsewhere)

The parts guy showed me a suspension sphere from a customer's Xantia, still connected to the accumulator. It had gone south in a big way. The metal was peeled back like an orange skin, and considering it is about 5mm thick it must have gone with a hell of a bang. The customer had no idea why his car wouldn't rise up, so he managed to miss the explosion, and the large puddle of LHM under the car.

[Ciaran]

Christ, wonder how that happened, faulty regulator?

Ciarán

[CitroJim]

Yep, that's exactly waht it was. The cut-out valve got stuck and pressure built and buillt until Kaboommmm...

It's not too uncommon either. I iknow of a pressure regulator now in use as a sphere tester that refused to cut-out (i.e. it never ticked).

What is amazing that the sphere gives out before the pump or the pipe betweeen

[Peter.N.]

I was going to say, it says something for the pump!

Peter

[Ken Newbold]

You'd have to wonder if someone had weakened it in past by trying to unscrew it with a hammer and chisel.