After all the work done during winter 2012-2013, I knew that it won’t be perfect and that putting the car back on the road would show-up new problems. I started by doing very short test drives, less than two weeks before the long trip to Saratoga Springs for the Citroen meeting in the middle of June.
Later during the summer, the hydraulic system gave me a very bad surprise. As I was lifting the rear of the car to remove the wheels, I heard a strange noise, like an air leak. I went to the front of the car, to notice that the hydraulic tank was literally shooting up liquid! As the hood was opened, the hydraulic liquid was going up to the garage ceiling and was also covering the front half of the car body.

If the hydraulic liquid was still the red-type, it would have been catastrophic, as the paint would be dead. However, I didn’t took the time to take any picture, I lowered the rear of the car and noticed that the leak stopped. I then quickly wiped all traces of liquid and cleaned the body to avoid any permanent damage.

I understood that the membrane of one of the rear spheres died and the Nitrogen gas inside it reached the hydraulic tank to then go out by the air vent located on the cap. It happened inside my garage, fortunately, I didn’t get stuck somewhere with that, but I planned a trip two days after so I had to repair quickly.