Building a sphere tester
Posted: 14 May 2014
About a year ago I visited a friend and saw his home made sphere tester. A year of collecting parts and I've decided its about time i knock one up myself, partly to learn some new skills and partly to aid my forth coming project(s).
This is where i'm up to;
I've not found any good guide to building your own, but having seen one in the flesh and read up on both the French Car Forum and the XM Forum (mostly about rigs made by DieselMan and CitroJim) I reckon I can manage to make up my own!
First you need some parts, these are the main ones.
A 6.35mm pump pipe. In this case its a random genuine Citroen one i bought of eBay for a couple of quid, i think its from a 1.4 TU engined BX, which i will likely never use. I suggest it might be better to buy a cupronikel one from Pleides, that way you can specify the length and get something that bit more flexible. It will probably cost under £20 delivered.
A pressure regulator. There are at least two different types. I'll come back to the types and which one you need (and why) later.
A hydraulic pump. In this case its for a BX, i think a 1.6. Generally you want a single output pump from an older car (ie not a twin output Xantia one)
And a pressure gauge. For a sphere tester you need a 0 to 100 PSI gauge, most BX spheres are around the 65 PSI mark. If you want to check system pressure on the car as well, then you'll need up to 200PSI.
This one is a fancy liquid (glycerine) filled one which will damp out any pressure pulses. Unlikely to happen in a sphere tester, but it was only £11 delivered from Southern Temperature Sensors so I went for the plush one.
At some point I'm going to have to adapt from the 4mm Citroen flare to the 1/4" 19BSPT thread on the gauge so I also have a length of 3/4" mild steel hex bar.
And thats the pile of parts! I'll add to this a length of 4mm flared hydraulic pipe, some leak back hoses and a reservoir not to mention a frame for it all to sit on!
For reference threads on Citroen hydraulic unions are as follows;
3.5 = M8 X 1.25
4.5 = M9 X 1.25
Old 6.35 style M12 X 1.25
New 6mm (xantia pump) M12 X 1
This is where i'm up to;
I've not found any good guide to building your own, but having seen one in the flesh and read up on both the French Car Forum and the XM Forum (mostly about rigs made by DieselMan and CitroJim) I reckon I can manage to make up my own!
First you need some parts, these are the main ones.
A 6.35mm pump pipe. In this case its a random genuine Citroen one i bought of eBay for a couple of quid, i think its from a 1.4 TU engined BX, which i will likely never use. I suggest it might be better to buy a cupronikel one from Pleides, that way you can specify the length and get something that bit more flexible. It will probably cost under £20 delivered.
A pressure regulator. There are at least two different types. I'll come back to the types and which one you need (and why) later.
A hydraulic pump. In this case its for a BX, i think a 1.6. Generally you want a single output pump from an older car (ie not a twin output Xantia one)
And a pressure gauge. For a sphere tester you need a 0 to 100 PSI gauge, most BX spheres are around the 65 PSI mark. If you want to check system pressure on the car as well, then you'll need up to 200PSI.
This one is a fancy liquid (glycerine) filled one which will damp out any pressure pulses. Unlikely to happen in a sphere tester, but it was only £11 delivered from Southern Temperature Sensors so I went for the plush one.
At some point I'm going to have to adapt from the 4mm Citroen flare to the 1/4" 19BSPT thread on the gauge so I also have a length of 3/4" mild steel hex bar.
And thats the pile of parts! I'll add to this a length of 4mm flared hydraulic pipe, some leak back hoses and a reservoir not to mention a frame for it all to sit on!
For reference threads on Citroen hydraulic unions are as follows;
3.5 = M8 X 1.25
4.5 = M9 X 1.25
Old 6.35 style M12 X 1.25
New 6mm (xantia pump) M12 X 1