Squeek Squeek

[old_zx]

Hi everbody - here's a question for the forum!

My zx aura estate has started squeeking from somewhere in the rear suspension. It's quite loud, especially when you get in or out of the car - it goes sqweeek. More annoying than anything elese, but I would like to find out what it is. I've been under the car and 'waxoyled' all the moving parts I can see, but to no avail. In fact absolutely no difference at all!

Help

[Shemer]

My zx aura estate has started squeeking from somewhere in the rear suspension.

 

Morning,

 

The squeeky rear suspension is well know problem in PSA old cars, such as PUG 106,309,205, and CIT saxo,ZX, Xsara etc.

 

The suspension configuration is trailing arms, where instead of springs you have torsion bars instead of springs. They are put in a tube and use the flexibility of the still rod to act as spring by twisting it. those rods are attached to the arms who, in turn, carry the wheel.

 

Between the rod and the tube there are bearings (two per rod, total of 4), which are sppoused to be protected by large amount of grease.

 

Point is, that usually Mr. Jean-Pier arrived to the factory at monday morning, after drinking few bottles of Merlot, or pinot noir, or whatever was under his hand - so, if you're lucky, he put a small smear of grease there (else he did not put anything at all :blink: ). Put any bearing without lubrication for a while, and it will die, sooner or later.

 

Problem is that usualy this bearing starts ""eating" the arms, then you're fucked. replacement of the arms and bearings costs usualy more than replace the whole axle.

 

Anyway, if you fill like messing around with it, see the following links explain how to dismantle the axle (it also refers to "how to play with the height of your rear part of the car", but it's the very same job, just take care of measuring the distance between center of the wheel and rear wing, as decribed. This is very important, else you'll end with very unstable, even dangerous for driving car.

 

Check this:

Lowering rear axle

And here you have excellent guide, with photos (It's PUG 306, very same):

306 GTI-6 guide.

 

IMHO, it would be much cheaper if you can find a complete axle from a wrecked car, and take it to the garage in order to replace it completly (don't forget to ask them to renew bearings and seals, and put LOT of grease in).

 

Make sure you buy same configuration of the axle (I think your AURA has drum brakes. other models (such as CIT ZX VOLCANE, PUG306 XSI/S16/GTI6 and XSARA VTS) have rear disk brakes (and also thicker torsion bars, which will make the car rear suspension become stiffer and change the height of the car !) , so If you intend to change brakes, you'll have to replace the master brake pump, and hand brake cables (which, in turn, requires taking out the rear spare wheel cradle, exhaust and heat sheild - means big headacke) - not worth it for your car.

 

If you have more questions, raise them, I'll try to answer. expect no cheap solution, unless you're lucky (probably not :( ), and you'll only need to change bearings and put some greasr in.

 

A temporary solution (won't last for long, but will make the squeeking dissapear (not solve the problem, just delay the solution) is to install greasing nipples in the "tube" that holds the torsion bars, and fill it with grease. This will make the noise dissapear.