I was trying to figure out how they worked as the rearmost pipe didnt seem to have anywhere to go. Then after doing the rad i'd disturbed the front most pipe and popped it out one of its clips. Tried to push it back in and the clip exploded leaving a plastic stump, which is presumable what happened to the other side at some point in the past!

They're only a couple quid so i'll just get some new ones ordered. I need a rear caliper too so i'll get that at the same time.

Did 80miles in it today and it all seems fine on the radiator front. Just need to reinstall the viscous fan and top cowling now :)

New new radiator in yesterday afternoon, filled up with coolant and gave it a short drive and it seems ok. Need to give it a longer run at the weekend to be 100% sure its all healthy, but its no longer pissing out coolant :) The level seemed to keep creeping down a small amount after it had been sitting, so it might need some extra topping up, its taken a good 9 Litres of coolant though, plus whatever was left in the block/pipes, so it cant be far away.

One thing i did notice that i'd like to fix, is the two PAS lines that run along the bottom of the radiator are sort of dangling loose as the plastic clips that support them have snapped. The lines themselves are quite rusty too, but i suspect those will be very expensive, so at the very least i'd like new plastic clips.

Oh its not the expansion tank, its the actual end tank on the new radiator thats cracked!!

Its obviously been a return or something. Box was all bashed up, and the radiator itself had been spraypainted black?!

Another new one arrived today, fingers crossed this time!

Pics!

If you dont use it off road, then theres no point buying AT's IMO.

Mines on Goodyear Eagle F1's. A Rated wet grip. I wouldnt personally go any lower than B.

Well, fitted the new radiator today (from the above link).

And the fkn thing is leaking from a crack in the lower end tank.

The world is clearly out to get me!

what did it fail the MOT on?

I should add, i recently bought an A6 V8 for a project, with the same idea as you. use the engine, and break the rest to over the costs. Instead of just trailering it home, did exactly what i suggested above. Cost me a months tax, it was already MOT'd, and i insured it and cancelled the policy after 14days for minimal charge.

I then drove it 300miles home, which let me test out everything, and also highlighted an overheating issue which i now need to investigate before fitting the engine to the new car. And also showed up a gearbox issue which means i wont now end up selling the gearbox to someone and ending up with a case against me when they realise it doesnt work!

In my case the engines have a known issue with the water pump impeller cracking and falling off the shaft, so the first step is going to be to get the pump off and inspect it. If its busted i've found the issue and i'm happy. If its not broken i need to do more investigations.

my 2p.

People dont tend to spend a pile of money on a car and then just park it up and let it rot.

I would imagine, given the cooling system related replacement parts, that the engine does infact have a cooling issue. You might be lucky ofcourse, but that has to be given serious consideration if your buying it for the engine.

I know you said it was fine when idling etc, but it may be a dodgy headgasket and it only overheats when being driven, or it might be a block issue etc etc.

Given your plan, is it possible to get the new car MOT'd and run it for a month, or even a few weeks just to put the engine thru its paces in normal everyday use?

yeh i'm guessing, i didnt get near it this weekend, but i'm thinking it shuts off the two power feeds in the grey plug when the alternator isnt running.

So exactly like a split charge relay, to ensure the caravan doesnt drain the car battery when connected but not running.

yeh it does have the two caravan sockets

I guess i can try pulling the fuse and see if the power to the socket goes away.

I presume the voltage sensitive switch ensures it only powers the caravan when the alternator is charging?

Swapping the battery with a good spare one at the weekend and was looking at the proper mess of wiring going to the battery. The new battery (which is near brand new and came in a car i was breaking for parts) annoyingly had the terminals the other way round, so i had lots of fiddling to do. I still need to properly re-make the ground wire and tidy up the live.

Cleaned up some old crimps from a spotlight kit that had been cut off at some point. Was left with the power and ground for the LPG kit and a small harness with two fuses.

While there i found two relay modules clipped to the side of the inner wing. One looks like your typical automotive relay. the other is bright yellow and says LANDROVER Voltage Sensitive switch. Its connected to a small harness which goes to the battery + and has two fuses, a 20A and a 15A. The output from the relay disappears off into the foam behind the ABS pump.

Any idea what it could be? I might try to get a small fuse box and mount it on the side rather than the mess thats there just now. But that relay makes the whole area really untidy.

Thanks, i'll see what i can do at the weekend.

I thaught i had the map saved on the PC, but the software isnt showing anything when i goto "load configuration" So i'll need to sync it back off the ECU again.

The problem i envisage when tuning without a wideband is once beyond a certain throttle position (and certainly at wide open) the ECU is likely to go open loop and the AFR will drop down into the 12/13 range. At that point, fuel trims are locked out and the lambda readings will just show "rich", whereas the proper wideband will let you see exactly whats happening and tune accordingly. But maybe you can get enough data from the lower load sites to dial in the full throttle stuff.

It doesnt switch totally back to petrol when flooring it. You just get a huge miss as though the fuels cut off, and then it judders back into life, still on LPG. The light might flash and it occasionally beeps, i guess i'm not always staring at the switch though when i'm flooring it down the road :P Maybe its running out of duty cycle like you suggest, strange that its random though and doesnt always happen?

When the gas has run out, it switches over pretty cleanly to petrol (maybe a very small miss) and the switch starts beeping constantly until you press the button.

The original Bigas injectors were 3.0mm. I drilled the new Valteks out to i think 2.5 as recommended by you. You did say i might need to increase the pressure, but it seemed to work without it. The ECU was pretty much completely reset as the original settings were all over the shop, then it was warmed up and the autocalibration run.

The petrol addition stuff is turned off.

Autocalibration seems easy enough, but surely if your going to start doing a full calibration your needing a proper understanding of how it all works, and probably wideband kit and maybe even a dyno to be able to hold the engine in various load sites.

I guess it could probably benefit from a proper calibration from someone who knows what they're doing, unfortunately i suspect i'm miles away from you, and while i could find someone local, i always have a bit of a fear spending money with mechanics who are unknown to me, as theres so many cowboys around.

Not sure buying another old car would please the wife much :P

She put almost 4L of water into it at lunch time. Took 2L to fill the expansion tank back up, then as soon as she started it the water vanished, and it took another 2L to fill it up properly.

So i imagine the leak has got a lot worse if its lost 4L of coolant in 15miles.

She also said the level seemed to have dropped a bit between lunchtime and home time, so its maybe even leaking while just parked.

Coolant gauge stayed in the middle on the drive home, but she did say she drove a bit slower on the way home just incase (60 rather than 70).

I'll go check the level after once its cooled down and see how much its lost driving home.

Its a Bigas SGIS system and the ECU seems to be somewhat restricted with what it can operate. I think the original Bigas injectors were extremely expensive or difficult to get, Simon/LPGC on here suggested the Valteks as they were a close match to the original Injectors used in terms of flow rate and characteristics.

I'll need to look over the fuel trims again, but from what i remember they were fairly sensible.

Sortof, the Merc works but has a range of about 65miles in this weather. A4 is broken until i can get the rack reconditioned. And now the rangerover is trying to boil itself.

yeh i checked a few places, seemed to be 94-98 fitment so should be good :)

i was looking at used ones for £40ish, but that nissens link is perfect and dirt cheap, cheers for that, ordered :)

And yeh fingers crossed, but my current vehicular luck seems to be ensuring its the block or something.

In the last month, my A4 has had a siezed front caliper (yet unresolved, i cleaned it up and it started working again), a dodgy handbrake mechanism on a rear caliper (again unresolved), the alternator failed, and that highlighted that that battery was also completely knackered as it barely drove 10miles with everything turned off after the alternator died. Fixed the alternator and battery and next trip out the PAS rack sprung a leak. Oh an an ABS sensor has failed as well in amongst all of that. The P38 has its coolant leak and also has a slightly sticky rear caliper so i need to fix that as well!

I've mostly ignored the LPG system since i managed to get it working, but i'd like to try and fix some small issues it has.

When i bought the rangey, it would barely run. A new MAF and some new petrol injectors (Rover K-Series 1.4 are a good match and much more modern!) had it running a LOT better and finally got it thru an MOT, and so i set about trying to get the LPG working. It ran, but hopelessly badly. There was no filter present, and the injector rails were quite old and after posting on here it was suggested i replace them, so they got swapped with a pair of Valtek type 30's and i fitted a filter at the same time. Eventually figured out the "autocalibration" menu in the software, ran the calibration and it all started working. Great!

It drives acceptably well, perhaps a little less perky on gas than it is on petrol, but theres no hesitations or missfiring or whatever, it just works.

So the first problem. When running on LPG, if you floor it, maybe half the time or a bit less, and you keep your foot planted to say accellerate from 20 to 70mph (so quite a while), it will stutter really badly after some period of time at full throttle. It'll only usually stutter the once, and most of the time it clears and keeps accellerating with the accellerator still floored. Very occasionally the gauge/switch thing will beep or flash its lights when this happens. Gas level doesnt seem to effect it. I've had it do it with a completely full tank, though it tends to be a bit easier to cause if the gas is on the lower end. Its different symptoms to actually running out, where it switches to petrol and beeps at me. It stays on gas when this happens.

The second issue, i'm not sure if it is an issue or not, but theres a definate performance difference between LPG and petrol, however this seems most noticeable at the lower end of the tank. Recently i was driving it on LPG and i knew it was close to running out, i was heading towards a filling station thru a sequence of roundabouts when it finally cut over to petrol. I immediately noticed it was a LOT more responsive once it switched to petrol accellerating out of the next roundabout. Seemed to need less throttle pressure to make it accellerate and it just felt better. With a full tank of gas the difference doesnt seem as large, but surely the LPG system should be compensating for gas pressure to ensure the systems always injecting the same amount of fuel?!

Missus called this morning to say the P38 was overheating on the dual carriageway, said the gauge was round at "H", but cooled down once she got into town. Her commute is only 5 miles.

The radiator has been a bit weepy since i've had it, but it seems to have started leaking a bit more and i'd noticed a small puddle at the shops one day last week when it wasnt parked on gravel, last few outings i've had to top it up, and unfortunately i didnt check the coolant level this morning before she left, so wishful thinking is that the level has just gone a bit low. Or its all signs of the usual dreaded gasket/block issues. Or worse, it WAS just a leaking radiator, and now shes smoked the head gaskets! :(

Shes going to see how much water it takes at lunch time.