Martyuk wrote:

Once I get there I have to move one of my other P38's out of the workshop

Ooh, Ooh, Ooh, can I tow it out?

Sorry about the address, I wasn't sure if just the postcode would be enough.

Just off outside to sit the SE on a pair of axle stands and a couple of lumps of railway sleeper.......

Marlborough, SN8 2NJ. A sat nav will take you the long way round but keep you on proper roads although there is a shorter route to get to it that involves a bit of off roading......

That looks good. I'm impressed you got the front bumper off, I changed mine with it still on by using a 3/8 drive socket though the vents to get at the bottom bolts. Not laziness (well, not entirely) but the one time I tried a socket on the bumper bolts there was this feel of a twisting bolt rather than one that was coming loose so rather than shear them off when the time comes to replace it, I'll just chop the bumper off and use the angle grinder on the bolts.

It's on spring clips so should just pull out with a good pull. There's a steel pin on the underside at each rear corner and clips on the bodywork so you shouldn't break anything.

Small Tupperware and a couple of old towels to catch/soak up the coolant that will dribble out and a pot of coarse grinding paste in case the screw is tight. You actually lose very little coolant, just the contents of the pipes. TPS will need the adaptives resetting after it's been fitted but my Nanocom will do that.

Bring them with you and if we've got time I don't see why not, although I think you are only there on Saturday?

Who is going anyway? Anyone else in the Premier Inn on Saturday night?

Pleasant as in they don't involve grovelling on the ground heaving on a breaker bar......

Both, I suspect people will arrive mid morning on Saturday and go home when everyone's car is in perfect working condition on Sunday.

I've got a spare TPS I can bung in the post for you so you'll be able to get there and if you bring the O rings that will make a pleasant change from doing radius arms.

In that case, the SE has had a later one fitted at some time in the past, so it looks like they do fit. Unless the one on there has already had new flexi sections fitted at sometime in the past.

I've just compared the PAS pipes on my SE (VIN VA368263) which should be the same early one as yours with that on my ex-plod (VIN WA381091) which should be the later QEP104660 hose and I can't see any difference. They follow the same run (down the side of the PAS pump, then a flexi section to a solid pipe along under the radiator, then a further flexi section before a solid pipe to the steering box) and look to be identical. Still not cheap though. Depending on the state of the metal sections, maybe it's worth having a chat with your local Pirtek (and RR beat me to it......).

I suspect Marty's 20 tonne press will soon wipe the outer coating off.....

Are you planning on dropping in? The workshop is somewhere in the middle of nowhere near Swindon.

Not sure how it will affect the AC but mainly it means your fans won't come on. Normal operation is on a cold morning with the system set to Auto, the fans don't start up until there is heat in the matrix so it doesn't blast you with cold air when you really want hot air. After a cold start you should hear the fans ramp up in speed as the temperature increases.

Looks fine, you've got the right sort of clips on the hose too.

StrangeRover wrote:

Do you think it will really take off in the coming years?

Bloody well hope not, they'll start upping the duty on it then. Seriously, an awful lot of more modern cars either can't be or are very expensive to convert as they use direct injection so that will restrict take up. There's far more out there than official figures suggest. DVLA records show somewhere in the region of 150,000 LPG cars on the road yet I've owned a Saab, a Range Rover Classic and 3 p38s, all on LPG but only one had it shown on the V5, all the others just showed petrol. So in reality, there's probably in excess of 500,000 of us running on it. As long as we keep buying it, then filling stations will keep selling it. There's one filling station near me that is supplied by Flogas. I can go to the Flogas depot and pay 54p per litre yet if I go to the garage down the road, it'll cost me 64.9p a litre. Now you aren't going to tell me that Flogas charge a garage that is buying thousands of litres a time the same 54p a litre as they charge me to fill my tank with 60 odd litres. So that garage is making over 10p for every litre they sell, far more than they make on petrol. So why shouldn't they continue selling it?

Yeah, by a long way. The Saab only had 253,000 on it when I sold it. I learnt a lot from that as it was my first LPG car. Considering I only paid £160 on eBay for it, and then ran it for 3 years (including driving it to Russia and back twice) it didn't do bad.

None. Pull the pipes, fit the U union and top up the dribble that you lost.

It's entirely possible but as mentioned the tank must be at least a certain distance (I think it is 5m) from buildings and the property boundary. Not that much of a problem if you live out in the sticks and I see tanks in people's gardens quite regularly in places like Norfolk where mains gas isn't available. Gas for home use such as heating and cooking, requires vapour so comes off an outlet on the top of the tank but to run your car you need liquid so you need a tank with a bottom take off too and then a pump to get it into your tank. You buy the bulk gas from your preferred supplier (although a lot won't fill a tank that they didn't supply or you don't hire from them) and use a meter to accurately inform HMRC how much you are using in your car so they can send you a bill for the Road Fuel Duty. If you can get it at the right price, it's worth doing but it isn't cheap to get set up in the first place, you're looking at around £2k for a suitable pump to start with. I came across a rural taxi company a few years ago that had 5 cars all running on LPG so the owner had his own tank and filling point for convenience. Due to the amount he was using he was getting a good deal on his gas too.

Blimey, you've got the lesser spotted battery cover (and a bolt missing from the RH bonnet latch.....).

The silicon hose is the same outside diameter as the original bits of rubber hose on each end of the brittle plastic pipe. I can't remember what year your car is but on the pre 99 GEMS, it is too fat to follow exactly the same route as the original where it goes under the alternator so I've routed mine behind it instead. It also has the advantage that it doesn't set rock hard like the original. I have never been able to pull the short hose off the top of the inlet manifold as it seems to weld itself on but the silicon stays nice and flexible.