Citroen XM Forum

OK I've been reading about strut tops again (as you do when you own an XM or Xant) and a strange thought came to me, I guess someone MUST have thought/tried this before but how different are C5 strut tops? Surely if there was any chance of them fitting/being made to fit someone would have done it already, but I don't know what they even look like compared to XM items.

Sooo, any chance that everyone has somehow missed a trick or have I just run over some old ground that's been tried and failed because it's impossible?

No way without major re-engineering.
C5 strut heads are about 40mm taller. and 3 bolt fixing.
So that needs a converter plate projecting down into the wheel arch.
Clearance would need checking for top of tyre on bounce.
All Citroen strut heads are uni-directional, rigid laterally soft fore and aft.
C5 sphere points forward, XM towards the back of the engine.
So to keep the steering as designed the C5 head would need a green sphere pointing forward.
That requires big holes in the main chassis rails for clearance or sphere separate on the end of a flexible pipe.
Then there is the strut rod taper problem.
XM uses two different sizes and C5 yet another.
The struts are not interchangable either.

So not impossible but you will have your work cut out.

All documented on here as are the two refurbishing suppliers.
Plus lots of comments about how acceptable the results are.

Have you seen the photo on here of the C6 with the failed strut head.
Its only the C5 that I have never seen one failed on.

The key item is the price, XM heads have always been about 3 times the price of Xantia ones.
They would not fit in an XM either but who would want to as they are by far the worst Citroen ever produced.
So much so I would not want to own, drive or ride in an Xantia.

John

Pipe to strut head is also very different too... they do not use a rubber seal pipe end instead a completely different arrangement..

Ahh so technically possible with major re-engineering but so major as to make it practically impossible :/ I haven't seen any other threads relating to this in a search, will have to modify what I'm searching for, nor have I seen the speared C6 that IS a surprise, I would have thought they'd got their game sorted by now, having only had 27+ years to get the strut heads right!

On the C6 it's not the strut top that fails, the circlip on the strut comes off.