Xref - Block Layers

[Alex C]

I'm working on a single family home project, that has a structural engineer doing his own drafting. I am trying to avoid redrawing his content in my own plans so I am using Xrefs to link in the engineers .dwgs and selectively using ayers to show posts and other structural members.

However I am running into and issue. The CAD drafter is using blocks for each post type, the block itself is on a layer S-POST-UP or S-POST-DN, but the actual lines in the block are S-WOOD-POST. I need to only show only the S-POST-UP layer on my architectural drawings, but when I link in the Xref the blocks are all exploded so all that line work goes S-WOOD-POST. I can only get the actual layer the blocks are on to be retained if I have them set to be converted into library objects when I open the .dwg, but the opening settings do not seem to effect .dwg linking.

Is there anyway to have the .dwg linked and keep the layers the blocks are on? I keep trying to make Xrefs work but they seem to be more effort than they are worth. I have also tried placing the .dwg as an external drawing but the same issue happens where I don't get the layers that the blocks are hosted on.

Operating system used: Mac Apple Silicon macOS Monterey