I found myself visiting family in Devon this week – another 400 miles for the XM – and on the way home, decided it was about time I visited Tony Weston’s Citroen garage in Gloucestershire. Perhaps he could free the stuck rear centre sphere. It’s a place I’ve always wanted to visit anyway – and rightly so! Check out the works van.

Cripes! A Citroen GSA Service van! Exceedingly rare.

The XM was lifted on the ramp and special tools were deployed. This seems to consist of a centre punch to try and break any corrosion on the threads (I presume) and a massive pair of pliers – the sort that look like you’d use them for removing teeth from a T-Rex. And? Success! They got a firm grip and sure enough, with a bit of effort from Andrew Weston, the sphere moved. Then he could depressurise the system to enable full removal. Good job I’d brought the replacement sphere with me. Oh. I hadn’t. I’d actually brought the old outer rear spheres that I’d replaced already! Idiot.

XM gets its spheres fettled. Almost.

However, I now know that I’ll be able to remove that iffy sphere – we did confirm it was very dead. I’m just waiting for dry weather before I crawl under the XM again. I’m looking forward to seeing what difference it makes to the ride.

I’m a bit frustrated at my own stupidity, but hey, I should be used to it by now. Here’s a video of my day.