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The only place for a coil spring is up Zebedee's arse
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Roight chaps..

I have an issue with my LPG as known by almost all in the pub I suspect..

Originally it worked OK however one day an idiot "me" ran it out of gas, and that was the end!!

I noticed the audible "click" that would emanate from the LPG tank wasn't anymore,

And the LPG gauge/button would/is just flashing..

I pulled the cover off the tank..

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had a gander inside and found this fairly innocent looking, relay????

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i'm assuming it has ceased to do its intended job, whatever that was.. lol

The Tank itself if an 84ltr unit and seems to have been fitted to the titanic before being thrown into my old girl!

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Absolutely covered in surface rot, and no water doesn't get in through the seals.

It has an OMVL vaporiser

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OMVL DREAM INJECTORS

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The switch.

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cheers Gents.

She has a full tank of Gas and she has been running LPG since 2002 from what i can gather, which would explain how well it runs and how clean it is inside lol

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The 'relay' is the solenoid coil that operates the shut off valve on the tank. Check the resistance it should be around 11 Ohms and look for any cracks in the plastic body. If you put 12V onto it, you should hear the solenoid make a very audible clack as it opens. If you remove the small bolt in the centre of it, the coil just lifts off laving the valve body behind so no gas will leak out, but you'll be able to test and inspect it much better. Just behind it is a knurled knob which is a manual shut off valve. If you screw that in fully clockwise, that will stop the contents of the tank leaking out when you do the next step. At the base of the brass spindle that the coil sits on is a hex, usually 17 or 19mm. With a deep socket, slacken that off, some gas will escape (the gas in the pipe between the tank and the front shut off solenoid) so let it bleed out slowly. Once it stops, unscrew the spindle and take it out. There's a spring loaded plunger inside it that can get gummed up, clean it and put it back together.

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Many thanks Richard

top notch as always!!

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If that solenoid is OK, do the same with the front one. If they both test OK, is the system actually trying to change over? Common problem is the wire breaks off the temperature sensor on the reducer so the system thinks it isn't hot enough to change over. If it attempts to change over then immediately changes back, that is likely to be a stuck solenoid (no gas pressure being detected), if it doesn't attempt to change over then I'd be looking at the temperature sensor.

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Richard compliments on the flawless description of the system and how to address faults!

There is also another place upfront in the engine where to look for trouble, that would be (if the system has one, that is) the MAP sensor or whatever your system has to 'sense' engine running and allow for change over.

The surface rust you see on the tank is .... nothing! I've seen much worse! In any case is thick metal, don't worry.
I do not know laws in the UK, but in most EU countries you are required to replace the tank every 10 years, if you have been running on LPG since a while, might be worth checking that.

If your reducer has been around, you might have a fault in there as well. My last LPG failure on the daily runner was failure to change over to LPG with great smell in the engine bay -> it was the membrane inside the reducer that failed and it was spewing LPG everywhere, so it was going towards the MAP sensor and failing to provide pressure data.
Being a Turkish piece of junk it was, I got a Polish replacement for little more that 45 euro.

The Romano in my HSE has already had the reducer rebuilt at 5 years and around 80K km, but after another 30K km I am not happy with its performance and will replace it with a new one.

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It's a Dream XXI-S system so the engine running is detected by ignition pulses, the MAP sensor does what it says on the tin, it's a Manifold Absolute Pressure sensor so gas pressure is relative to manifold pressure so will vary to keep it the same with respect to manifold pressure (or vacuum). MAP sensor fault won't cause no changeover but it will cause poor running.

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You can short out the temperature sensor on the vaporiser/reducer to eliminate it - ended up doing that to mine as it was intermittent and would randomly not change over unless given a wiggle. Solenoids wouldn't open if it thought it was too cold.

Not ideal as it means it will change over on a cold engine - but if you don't hoon it until it warms up a bit, which shouldn't take long, it'll be okay. Anecdotal but I never had a problem remembering this - your mileage may literally vary.

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It's an OMVL Dream reducer and OMVL Superlight injectors but judging by the switch the LPG ECU won't be AEB/OMVL, it will likely be something like an early(ish) AC Stag ECU.

If the switch beeps (as though you've run out of gas) it's trying to switch to gas but detecting low gas pressure so switching back to petrol as though you've run out of gas... Usually a solenoid problem.

If there are no clicks from solenoids and no beeps from the switch it won't be trying to switch to LPG, begging the question why it isn't trying to switch. The usual reason is a low temperature reading from the reducer (either the reducer really isn't getting warmed by flow of hot water or the reducer temp sensor is broken), lack of RPM signal, or if the manifold pressure sensor reads no vacuum (some system's won't switch if it seems the engine is running full load with no manifold vacuum... although Stag usually will switch even at full engine load with no manifold vacuum).

Temp sensors are a common failure on Dream reducers, especially if wires to them are tightly tie-wrapped to hoses connected to the reducer (moving the hoses pulls on the wires to the temp sensor)...If the reducer is getting hot to touch try checking the resistance across the temp sensor, should be a couple of K Ohms (it's an NTC sensor so open circuit reads extremely cold, short circuit extremely hot). They're usually corroded in on Dream reducers (dissimilar metals the temp sensor is brass), to replace it's best to cut the wires off and use a hex socket (usually 12mm). The temp sensor is shallow and easily rounded off so if the hex socket opens up at the end it's best to grind the socket so the socket's hex gets full purchase on the hex of the sensor.

Stag ECUs had the option of detecting RPM from injection pulses (instead of from a coil or rpm feed) earlier than AEB ECUs, still early Stag ECU's needed an rpm connection.

Some systems refuse to switch to LPG if they read no manifold vacuum (to prevent switching fuels during full engine load), though Stag don't usually do this. Still, since it's easy to check the vacuum connection from manifold to vacuum sensor it's a check worth doing early on. Don't forget that the map sensor vac line is usually T'd to the reducer, if the vac pipe is broken/disconnected at any point it could see the map sensor reading no vacuum.

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Many thanks all..

I checked the resistance of the coil and it is....

enter image description here

The plastic body has no cracks..

When i bought the car the switch would beep "it still does" when you turned the ignition on and after it got up to temp the lights would go solid and she'd run quite well on LPG..

However after running it into the red, i put £30 in the tank and it refused to change over, it doesn't beep when driving or if you poke the button on/off it just behaves like it would when the engine wasn't up to temp IE it just flashes instead of flashing and then going "solid" when she got up to temp.

It had a conversion "single point" in around 2004 this was on the car until 2013 when the PO had running issues with it backfiring. an AC Stag "system" was fitted in 2013 for £ 1,834.89 by Profess Autogas

A year later it had a "service" for £704 which included.

"LPG service" £60
"spark plugs" £86
"ignition Lead set" £45
"sonda sensor" £66
"LPG injectors" £288
"Labour" £126

Sounds like quite a major service and it hadn't even been on the car 12 months!!

Hmm.

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Done some more probing

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this thing is showing 13.3 OHM's

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Profess......

HaHaHaHaHa, it's never worked properly then.......

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Resistances sound about right. Try putting 12V on them and see if they go clack.

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Bear in mind a broken wire feeding either coil will cause the same issue as a broken coil. Given it doesn't try to switch (rather than switch and throw an error) I'd suggest you look for the temp sensor mentioned before and test that. Or consider getting a lead and connect up a laptop if that's possible, that will show you what's going on with the various sensors etc and should make the fault obvious.

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"LPG injectors £288".... 1 Year after installation - so much for Profess' supposed lifetime warranty! Those injectors will only have cost about £70 at the time.

If there were a broken coil it would still try to switch so would beep back to petrol with no gas pressure.

Yes, try the resistance of the reducer temp sensor. Move the temp sensor wires around where they connect to the sensor during the test.

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I'm assuning the sensor i found on the top of the Reducer was a pressure sensor?

I'm asuming the temp sensor will be on the reducer somewhere?

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What sensor on top of the reducer? Can't see one in the pictures, only the inlet solenoid and filter housing. Temp sensor may be screwed into one of the bolt holes holding the two parts together, small, brass with a couple of thin, usually orange, wires coming from it.

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Yes the usual position for the temp sensor on a Dream reducer is on top of the reducer, it would he hidden under the pipes in your pic... Unless someone has fitted a sensor designed to fit another type of reducer in place of one of the reducer bolts as Gilbert said.

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I've found the temp sensor thanks all, it is a nice shade of green..

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I'm assuning it is a splice in job for a new sensor it doesn't have a connector..

Oh and i froze my spanner.

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I turned the thumb screw on the end, assuming it was the thing Richard was referring to, the thing i had to clean, and it turned out the whole thing was finger tight and a load of Gas pissed out in my face..

a small hiccup.. lol

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No, the knurled thumbscrew is the bit you screw in to close off the gas outlet, the bit you remove is the bit sticking out facing towards you where the solenoid coil was. You tried removing the manual valve so would have emptied the tank if you'd left it long enough. Bear in mind that 1 litre of liquid becomes 270 litres of vapour so you would have filled your farm.....

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Right...................................

Thanks Again..

When it started pishing out i tightened it back up lol...