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.

The transit will have been a County conversion. They are a factory-affiliated conversion company that have been doing conversions on transits for years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Transit#County_4x4

Lots of them were built for the likes of Scottish Power, who use them as utility vehicles to access infrastructure in more inaccessible areas up north.

yeh quite possible. On GEMS, the four holes that hold the plate on are imperial and drilled right thru into the inside of the plenum. Needless to say, when i figured out what i'd done, i didnt have the four bolts or the plate any more, having launched them straight in the bin. I had to remove the manifold, drill and tap the holes out to the next metric size, and fit some short metric bolts with loctite.

i removed the throttle heater altogether, and blanked the pipe at the manifold and reservoir with a spare bolt. I dont see why you'd need to goto the effort of bodging up a line, just blank it.

Be warned though, if you do remove it, leave the plate in-place, or you'll have four nice holes into your manifold that will cause all manner of running issues and you'll spend weeks chasing your arse before you figure out what you've done.... ;)

Lots of comments since i last looked and i dont have time to read it all in detail.

I had a similar issue with my boss at work, He was concerned that people might start bitching about how i was getting "free fuel" and they werent allowed free petrol. But being a decent place they said "we'll simply install a meter, and you pay for what you use". The reality is the amount of energy the car draws is trivial. It costs about 30p an hour while charging (16A single phase) and its usually re-filled what i use by lunch time. So its about £1.20. And sure, it adds up, but its inconsequential compared with the other operational costs of the building. Theres also a BIK issue, which is alleviated by installing the meter.

Up here in scotland the councils have free charging points all over the country. No limits on use, no cost to charge. Wont last forever ofcourse, but its a nice perk for now.

The regenerative braking does make a difference, especially in stop start type traffic, as you can recapture a lot of the energy you'd otherwise be throwing away. Theres a maximum charge limit though, so you cant capture it all unless you alter your driving style to suit. Some people can perfect 1 pedal driving, using no brakes at all (well most of the time anyway).

you can be, they usually have a viewing area, and depending what i've got going on i sometimes do that and sometimes i'll just drop it in first thing and collect it later.

Depends on the place wether you can chat with the guy, some of the bigger chains want you properly out the way, others are more friendly.

A leaking rocker cover wouldnt fail here. :P I put mine in with what turned out to be a ruined seal on the oil pressure switch, with oil literally dripping of the bottom of the engine, and i got an advisory saying "Oil Leak"... The guy did tell me the leak was fairly significant though.

its one thing finding a bulb on a test, and fixing it, and another entirely if you bring it in and ask them to "fix the bulb" (or tyres) then MOT it...

I would be somewhat pissed off if i took a car in, specifically asked them to fit two new tyres then MOT it, and found afterwards they'd failed it on the tyres...

I suspect as mentioned its just to make their figures look better, as VOSA will expect a percentage of fails.

Am i the only one that finds the nanocom a bit flakey? Or maybe mine just has issues!

Mine will semi-regularly lock up, and require me to exit out of a particular ECU and go back in again to get it to start reading data again.

Its also really quite slow, switching between screens takes eons, and the touchscreen is pretty poor...

I find using VCDS for my Audi much nicer, despite the inconvenience of it needing a laptop.

i tend to drive in Sport all the time, it just seems too sluggish in normal mode, upshifts far too early and the engine sounds kinda horrible as its always sitting around 2000rpm where the converter stalls, you dont get the nice sound of it working up thru the revs, just this sorta annoying drone.

The only time i switch it off is when on the motorway, as it can sometimes be a bit too eager to downshift when you reach a hill or something.