Thinking about the operation, i think the flashing LED on startup is indicating the ECU wants to raise some corner, but cant. Which i'm also guessing is because the air tank is empty. Thus you have to wait a few minutes for it to charge up the tank, at which point it then manages to inflate the bags?

That indicates potentially two leaks, one at an airbag itself, and the other between the receiver and the valve block (or maybe even inside the valve block) thats allowing the tank to drain down.

Pulling the relay will potentially show which bag is leaking, but wont show if the air receiver is bleeding down.

Well finally taxed the rangey today and took her out for a spin, only 6 miles over to a nearby cafe then home again, but enough to make sure everything worked.

Theres still an arm-length list of niggles and no doubt some other things will pop up as it starts being used. Some notable things from today:

The steering feels a little wandery, i know these are steering box cars and they arent as direct as racks, but not sure if its normal or showing signs of wear. MOT tester didnt mention any play anywhere in the suspension. Steering also makes a strange groaning noise when manoevering at the extremes of travel, i half suspect the damper for that, but unsure.
Doesnt feel hugely powerful. I guess its a heavy car, but i'd expect a bit more from 220hp. I didnt thrash it, infact only applied full throttle once for a short time, but less urgent than i'd have thought. My old Diesel Trooper i think went just as well and it reportedly only had about 120hp... :/
Theres a whine from the transmission. Again, maybe normal, sounds exactly like a public service bus gearbox. I topped up the oil before i went out, as there was nothing showing on the stick when it was idling, put maybe 1.5L down the dipstick hole, but was really struggling to tell what the level was. Maybe it got quieter after that. I plan to replace the sump strainer anyway and give it some fresh new oil, so maybe that will help.

Anyway the thing that stuck me as "i should really fix that" was the air compressor. It was replaced not long before i bought the car, as the old broken one was in the boot. I've noticed it acting oddly after its been parked up, and i'll do my best to describe what it does. When you start the car after its been sitting a while (despite it having been parked in "normal" mode) the Access mode light is on, and the normal mode is flashing. It sits like this for ages, several minutes, before eventually the light goes solid normal. As i was planning to drain the trans oil, i then put it in high mode, and it raised up just fine without any delay. It started lashing down, so instead of draining it i decided to simply top it up. Left the engine running and went under the bonnet to pour oil in the dipstick hole. Noticed that the compressor seemed to run for the whole time i was under there, though no clicking of valves, and obviously got quite hot.

I figured it might just be due to me jacking it up from high, so went out for a drive and decided to keep an eye on it. When we got home, the compressor was properly toasty-hot. I'm not convinced its a leaking bag. I've parked it with the EAS relay removed for a week, and it didnt really seem to "deflate" itself. though its parked on a bit of wonky gravel so maybe one of the rears was deflating.

Any words of wisdom?

Cheers
Kev

not sure about the other two, but pretty sure they arent holes into the manifold.

Well i ignored this for most of the winter. Couldnt be arsed. Finally got a mate round for the weekend and we decided to pull it apart and sort the inlet manifold.

Stripped it down this weekend, removed inlet manifold, replaced the valley gasket, put it back together, fired it up.

Exactly the fecking same. Spraying brake cleaner on/around the injectors on the passenger side caused revs to shoot up. Wont idle at all with the MAF connected. Will only idle with the MAF disconnected once its warmed up a bit and the lambdas come online.

Pulled the thing apart again, stripped the injectors out again, checked everything again and reassembled. No change.

I have a inlet pressure tester i use on my other turbocharged cars, It connects to the intake, and lets you pressurise all the boost pipework etc to test for leaks, so in desperation nailed that on the thottle body and tried to find the leak (why i didnt do this before stripping the manifold off i've no fecking idea!), which discovered air pissing out from underside of the throttle body....

Pulled the plenum off, and stared with disbelief at the cause. My mate called me a knob, i called myself a knob, and stared some more.

Pic:

I removed the heater plate off the bottom of the plenum when i removed it the first time. Completely pointless modification, but the pipes annoyed me and it doesnt really do anything anyway. Unfortunately, i completely missed the fact that three of those four holes are drilled straight thru into the plenum. So theres 3 fecking huge holes in the underside of the manifold.

Total fanny.

I'd also thrown the plate and bolts in the bin, and they're some nonsense imperial thread, so ended up having to drill them out and tap to M8, before threadlocking in some short bolts.

It was late, but put it back together and turned the key. Fired up and dropped straight down to a perfect idle. Not taken it out for a drive yet though, but fingers crossed its sorted.

i suspect, the wobble is something loose, and your new damper has simply masked the issue.

The loose things still there, its just no longer able to setup a resonance and start wobbling.

Given all the heater faults, have you checked the heater supply is actually live and working?

Another thing to check is compare the heater resistance with the original lambdas.

I recently bought a new bosch lambda sensor for my track car. Installed it and up popped the heater fault code. Was a bit pissed off, thinking the new sensor was fake or faulty, even though it all looked right. Measured the heater resistance, and the new one was something like 9ohms and the orignal one was 4ohms, thus the new heater was drawing less power than the ECU expected and created the fault code.

Do it once, do it right...

Given the work involved in changing them on a P38, i couldnt face fitting used ones.

The one that powers the heater matrix blend door went wonky on my Audi A4, however on that, its accessible just by removing a bit of the centre console and contorting yourself in the footwell for an eternity. Audi wanted about 200quid for one, so i took a punt on a used one, and touch wood, its been fine. However even the used one for the Audi was 20odd quid, and given you can buy all three, new, for £160 i think i'd be just doing the lot!

I've got a pair of nearly-new Britpart front shocks from my P38.

When i bought it, i thought the front shocks were blown, so ordered some new ones. When i went to install them i realised the bottom mounting for one of them had come undone, and there wasnt anything wrong with the shocks, they just werent attached.

I fitted my new ones anyway, and when i removed them realised the shocks were almost new looking.

They're cheapy britpart ones, but i figured they'd do someone to get thru an MOT or whatever. I've had them on ebay for 99p and they didnt sell, twice. So before i chuck them in the bin, does anyone want them? Just cover the postage and they're yours.

This is something i need to investigate for mine.

Anyone fancy posting some pics of "tidy" installs?

Ferryman: Sure, makes sense. A lot of the hoses on this engine are a bit knackered though, and a loose fitting/perished hose on a gas injector would potentially cause a vacuum leak. I've been running it solely on petrol, as the LPG system needs attention but i want it working right on petrol before adding the additional variations of the gas system.

Gordon: ah right, yes those are definitely connected up. I had to fit a new bit of hose to the FPR and the evap one has some sort of quick-disconnect fitting. The two breathers i've also replaced as the hoses were split.

hmm passing thought, i should probably check the gas lines are snug and not leaking before ripping the manifold off.

for the gas injectors? or for something else?

The gas injectors are all still connected up.

ive viewed the voltage and airflow with nanocom, and it seemed "sane".

At 2500rpm it gives the 60g/sec specified in the manual, What happens if i try to back the revs off though is peculiar. I can get it down to about 2000rpm. Once there, a tiny reduction in throttle will cause the RPM to fall, but then keep falling. I presume it gets too lean, which causes the engine to slow down, which causes it to get leaner, and it goes into a spiral that if left unchecked would result in a stall. To catch it you add a tiny bit more throttle, and it revs right back up to 2500rpm again.

So i THINK the MAF is fine. When it idled properly, before i started messing with the injectors, i'm sure it sat around 20g/sec at idle

From listening to the engine, it seems that the vacuum leak gets larger as the engine slows down, so i guess this makes sense, as more air will be coming in via the leak rather than via the MAF.

Oddly it still does this trait with the maf unplugged as well, but its easier to control and you can with very fine throttle control get it down to idle and it will then sit there.

yeh i guess your right enough. I just know theres very likely cylinder head or piston ring issues lurking as well, i just want to get it to a stage where it actually runs properly before i start down to road of properly diagnosing that.

I'll need to see whats involved in doing the valley gasket, i guess i'll need to drain all the coolant as well :/

As per the other thread, i've various running issues that i'm trying to resolve. If i'm going to replace parts, i tend to buy new, as then i know i can rule it out. However the MAF's are ludicrous money, so i've got a used one.

So i'm wondering if i can send my MAF to someone on here with a GEMS car that actually works, and swap it in and see if the MAF is actually working properly. That way i can rule it out as a possible issue!

Cheers.

The new injectors came with new o-rings, so ofcourse i used those, but they were 14.5mm, as obviously thats the standard size of orings used for the past 30 odd years. As usual rover decided it would be fun to do something different for no reason.

So, just took it all apart again, swapped the 15mm gems o-rings onto the new injectors, reassembled. Guess what? Exactly the fucking same.

Paying closer attention to my spraying, i think it might actually be the inlet manifold gasket thats leaking... spraying the joint between the manifold and head seems to make the engine rev up. But thats just insane, why on earth would that start leaking!?

I can see now why people warned me off these cars. I'm several weekends and probably a grand down, and i have a car thats more broken than when i bought it, and the more bits i fix, the more seems to go wrong.

Mine has no filter at all between the vaporiser and injectors. I dont know if theres one before the vaporiser, certainly nothing in the engine bay.

Right, spent some more time this morning banging my head off a wall. Tried it on LPG, didnt work, no better at all, so maybe its not a fuel pressure issue, or maybe the LPG is just broken as well.

Unplugged the maf, and got it running. Seems to act odd when first started without the MAF, you need to give it lots of throttle and really work hard to keep it alive, and after maybe 5-10 seconds it sorts itself out and starts running. I eventually got it to idle, by super-gently letting the throttle out. Initially it was surging up and down but eventually it settled to a rather unsteady idle. With it idling and me able to actually get out of the cab it became immediately obvious there was a vacuum leak. The hissing was so loud i could hear it from my garage 20 meters away clear as a whistle.

Grabbed a tin of brake cleaner and sprayed it over the number 1 injector as that seemed to be where the noise was coming from and the engine RPM's shot right up then the engine stalled. HMM!

So decided to pull the fuel rail out again (for what feels like about the 17th time) to try to see what was going on.

Discovered this:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eqiuxgtvn62r6ij/2016-10-09%2011.41.46.jpg?dl=0

If you note the upper circlip groove position, you'll see that the Audi injectors (middle) have the groove a lot further down, and the new injectors at the bottom had both grooves. The lower groove means the injector sits further up into the fuel rail, and thus doesnt full engage with the manifold. When i fitted the new ones, i used the bottom groove, and thus those were also fitted incorrectly. So i swapped the injectors over to use the upper groove and reinstalled them. They fit much better in the manifold now, but having put it all back together and tried it, its still no better, and spraying the injectors with brake cleaner still causes the RPM's to shoot up. The hissing is quieter, but still there.

Its really stressing me out now.

Like i said, it ran fine before with the maf unplugged. The old one would crap out when it got hot. Unplugging it allowed the engine to run fine. It idled fine, drove fine, and (unintentionally) completed an MOT emissions test like that, albeit failing because it was rich. I only realised it was unplugged when i got home from the test!

I'm going to reconnect the missing LPG hoses in a bit, and see if it runs properly on LPG. If it does then it would seem to narrow the issue down to fuel delivery. However when trying LPG previously, when it did actually work(ish) on petrol, seemed to show one bank full rich and one bank full lean, which probably indicates an issue with the LPG system or injectors. I've noticed there appears to be no filter at all on the vapour side of the LPG. Might be one on the liquid side, but i cant see anything, so it wouldnt surprise me if the injectors are clogged up.

I reinstalled the plenum and trumpet thingy with silicone, but thats twice i've had the inlet of and reassembled, so it would be pretty bad going to have managed to screw up the sealant twice.

Theres two takeoffs on the manifold for the gas system, but the hose was melted so i've blanked them off for now. I Might try and hose the inlet manifold with WD40 tomorrow with the engine running and see if that makes any odds.

And again, if it was a vacuum leak, you'd expect it to run fine with the MAF unplugged, right? As the vac leak causes the MAF to read incorrectly, and if the MAF isnt there reporting the incorrect data, the engine will run normally.

Marty: The original maf was broken, it crapped out when it got hot. i've replaced it with a used one from ebay. I also tried unplugging it. When the old MAF was broken, the engine ran fine with the MAF unplugged. Infact it ran BETTER with the MAF unplugged. With the new MAF on, it ran fine, until i did the above work and reset the adaptions. Now, it wont even run properly with the MAF unplugged, as i tried that earlier. The MAF values reported by nanocom seem feasible, so i'm struggling to see it as a MAF issue.

The IAT values are odd, showing -3 i think on nanocom, but even with that, a low IAT should be enriching, and i'm pretty certain this is lean.

Gilbertd: when its running in proper closed loop, you can see the STFT's cycling up and down by a few % and the voltage swinging up and down. Lambdas act a bit like a switch, So the ECU slowly enriches the mixture until the lambda switches rich, and then slowly leans off until it switches lean. If its stuck at 38.75, it means its run out of adjustment and still hasnt managed to get the lambdas to switch. My lambda voltage stays low when the trims are stuck at 38.75. When i rev the engine up to 3200ish and it starts switching, it starts cycling between 1 and 5ish and the STFT's drop down into the high 20's. So whatever is going on, its running out of adjustment at lower enginespeeds, and cant compensate by enough to keep it running.

Your saying you get 5v and a rich smell. but your reporting +38.75? I'm getting a low voltage (it fluctuates a bit, usually 0.5-1ish) and no rich smell and +38.75. They cant both be true? I would expect -38.75 if it was rich?

Current thoughts are fuel pressure. Ordered a test guage. Really clutching at straws though. I've fitted new lambdas, so i can trust the readings, and they are both doing the same thing, which suggests whatever the fault is, its something global, rather than per-bank. I was considering pulling the wideband lambda out of my track car and grafting it in, but i really cant face trying to fit an sensor bung into a pipe under the car.