They are absolutely brilliant for towing and as for long journeys, the longest I've done in one hit was 1,350 miles from Calais to my partners parent's house in Latvia. Two drivers, only stopping to refuel the car and ourselves. That wasn't with a trailer though but I regularly do Calais to Nice with a loaded car transporter on the back. Doing the Belgium/Luxembourg border area this weekend but that's only a couple of hundred miles from getting off the ferry but towing an Ifor Williams BV126G box trailer (5m long, 2m wide and 2.5m high) to Nice in a couple of weeks time which is the closest I get to a caravan. Considering mine's now up to 355,000 miles, the old girl isn't doing too bad.

+1 on the idle control valve. That's what controls the idle speed so if it is a bit sticky it doesn't open fast enough to get the revs up. Simple enough to pull it out and give it a good clean with carb cleaner.

I've since checked the testers manual as from 20th and the emissions checks for spark ignition haven't changed. There's still the same flowchart that says if the fuel is LPG then they should do the basic test. Some vehicles are exempt though, hybrids and hydrogen vehicles being amongst them.

Gordon installed a Captcha a while ago to stop the automated spam but it seems that the latest ones aren't sent by bots but actual people. Whenever I delete one I send Gordon a PM with the username, title and time so he can dig into the details and see if he can identify the source and prevent any future occurrences. As you say, we've got a lot of registered users that have never posted anything but some are legit but simply lurkers while others haven't been able to log back in since the Captcha was installed.

Interestingly, I took a P38 in for MoT this morning. Belongs to a mate and is a 4.6 GEMS fitted with a Prins LPG system. My usual tester was fully booked with dodgy diesels hoping to get a pass before the 20th so I decided to give a fairly new place at the other end of my village a try. Had heard lots of good things about them and I was pretty sure there wasn't a lot wrong with the car anyway. Told the tester it was running on LPG and he replied that in that case, it doesn't need an emissions test doing. Not at all. Knew what he was doing, knew about the ABS light only going out once it was rollingand knew that he had to test the brake with the deccelerometer too. Passed with nothing more than advisories for slightly worn rear discs. I'll be going back there for sure.

Not sure if the emissions was his interpretation of the rules or that is another of the changes but it's good news either way.

I noticed that, any visible smoke is a fail. About time too......

Thanks to Dave for posting that the CPS is similar to that used on a Mini. For the last few weeks I've been helping a mate who's wife has a P reg Mini as a weekend toy. It hasn't been running right for a while but it was mainly a hesitation when you opened the throttle and it seemed to get worse as it got hot. It's one of the later ones with MEMS single point fuel injection and everyone was blaming that. It had been running OK until there was a leak from the throttle body heater so that was bypassed but as it also houses the coolant temperature sensor for the injection the thermostat housing was drilled and tapped and the sensor moved to there. As it got worse when hot, we concluded this was the problem and it wasn't detecting that it was hot. Testing the sender resistance hot and cold showed that was OK, as was the wiring to the ECU. There's naff all information on the injected Mini about but I found a forum thread where vacuum leaks were being blamed for rough running. Checked those and found one had melted into two on the exhaust and others had split ends. Ordered a complete set, fitted them and while the idle was nice and smooth and with a meter on the lambda sensor we could see it responding correctly as soon as the throttle was opened, lambda went fully rich and it still ran like a dog. The more we touched it the worse it seemed to get, even taking the air filter off and putting it back on made it even worse. This was starting to make no sense at all.

Then Dave posted about using a Mini CPS and I started to think. This thing was showing the exact same symptoms as a P38 does when it is failing but it hadn't even occurred to me that it would have one. Checked and found it hides underneath the starter motor so phoned my mate last night. An hour later he sent me a picture of a CPS with a bent tip and a liberal coating of metal filings. Looks like we've found the problem. having had everything from the inlet manifold outwards off, stripped, cleaned, made sure there's no air leaks, new vacuum pipes, new fuel filter, checked the fuel rail pressure and even tried a new ignition coil, it was nothing to do with any of them. Once MiniSpares deliver a new CPS it should go like the clappers! As long as the reluctor ring hasn't been damaged that is.

It does come on with errors but only if they are serious ones likely to cause damage, minor ones don't bring it on. Unlike the US spec ones that come on if someone farts within 100m and it detects the unburnt methane.

Even a Range Rover Classic going back to 1988 has an EML (Engine Management Light), CEL (Check Engine Light) or MIL (Malfunction Indicator Light) depending on what you want to call it, so that isn't a problem. The only time it doesn't light is when the BeCM and EMC have lost sync and it isn't going to start then so it couldn't be tested anyway.

As it is one of the few things that can stop a car dead in it's tracks, I replaced mine when the rebuilt engine went in about 60,000 miles ago. The old one was still working fine and I keep it in the boot just in case. The one I got was a Lucas too but from Island 4x4. However, there are 3 different ones, up to '97 (early GEMS), '98 (later GEMS) and from '99 onwards (Thor). The early one and the Thor one both have a flying lead with a plug on the end whereas the later GEMS just has a socket on the sensor itself. No idea which option the BL Mini, Metro, etc uses.

Blue was recommended for GEMS but OAT for Thor. I don't think anything changed just that OAT wasn't available when the GEMS came out. I don't think the type of anti freeze in use has any real affect, the plastic pipe just goes brittle with age and multiple hot/cold cycles. Replacing the whole run with silicon hose is the best solution. Don't do as many have done and use fuel hose. It may be readily available in the right size but goes almost solid very quickly as it isn't intended to have hot water flowing through it.

hugh wrote:

Decided not to flog my Freelander TD4 just yet, so have had it sorned - ya' never know what's round the corner

With a P38 you certainly don't. I kept my Classic for nearly 3 years after I got the P38. For the first 6 months or so I didn't trust it as far as I could throw it. It never actually left me stranded but I chickened out of using it for two European trips taking the Classic instead. But, the more you use it, the more confidence you'll get in it.

+1 on crank sensor. Try dumping cold water on it when it starts playing up and see if that makes any difference. When they are failing, dying when hot is the first sign.

That's odd. Normally if the MAF is dead or disconnected they are a bitch to start and run really rough.

If it's the same with the MAF unplugged, then that could point to the MAF. Are you sure you haven't got an iffy connection? Although my MAF plug hasn't suffered, a couple of the others had wires that had broken where they go into the plug. I carved the plastic away and soldered the ends of the wires directly to the back of the terminal. That could explain the apparent appetite for MAF sensors if there's a dodgy connection and it works for a while after you've disturbed it.

Throttle position sensor......

It'll go into a default open loop mixture when it detects problems with a lambda sensor which will be richer than it should be. No idea how much richer though although I would expect something in the region of 10-20%. As the LPG system slaves off the petrol system, a rich mixture on petrol will give a correspondingly rich mixture on LPG.

Yup, he's right. Click on Portal and it says you need a plug in to configure. Looks like something has been left half done when the last update was done.

Dunno, as long as it didn't have a roof. Sort of P38 sports car really......

There used to be a guy around here with a Defender pickup with a V8 that sounded far from standard and looked pretty good (painted in sliver with a chrome roll bar behind the cab and a 110 litre LPG cylinder in the back). I've thought that a 110 pickup body on a P38 chassis could be fun. I'd keep the EAS and as much of the P38 niceties too.