Early this morning we set out on our voyage to Portsmouth to look at an early Maxi where the suspension had collapsed on one side. We attached the pump and it was soon sitting at normal height, we then needed to find out what had gone wrong. We always start by examining the Hydrolastic units as early Maxis have the Hydrolastic system, a good flexing of the hoses didn’t reveal anything and there were no leaks that we could see, we then turned our attention to the front to rear suspension pipe which had visible corrosion along its entire length but this was heavier towards the rear. A light scraping of the pipe in this area soon produced a torrent of fluid spraying out near the bend in the rear floor area. As the pipe had corrosion elsewhere we decided to make a complete new front to rear pipe right up to near the fill valve, we soon had this formed, flared and fitted. On pumping up everything was fine and the car was now sitting as it should. We then travelled to Gosport where we looked at an Ambassador where we had previously recharged the units some time ago and also replaced the front to rear suspension pipe, a failed front Hydragas unit was the culprit, we soon had a replacement recharged unit fitted and the suspension was soon as it should be again. We’re now at our hotel looking forward to the fitment of a set of Hydragas units to a Princess tomorrow
