blueplasticsoulman wrote:

Bit of a basic tablet but not the worse. You would be able to do far greater things with root access and a custom rom. Depends how confident you are messing about although it's not difficult. Rooting will enable you to get rid of all the bloatware as they are installed as system apps. Gain root access and then get a system app uninstaller from the playstore. With root, you can put apk's where you like with a bit of fiddling. Not sure if your tablet has an sdcard slot, but if it does, you can gain more RAM by creating a swap file.

All info here

I accept that it's basic or it wouldn't have been given away as a freebie! Rooting sounds like something randy animals do so I've no idea how it relates to a tablet..... Yes, it does have an SD card slot and I've put a 32Gb card in there. Some apps installed to that, the odd one has been moved to there but others flatly refuse to move (or say they are moving but never do) even though it tells me there's 25Gb free. The info you linked to may as well be written in Chinese for all the sense it makes to me I'm afraid.

I did a complete re-install on the tablet and found that even though I'd set the SD card as the default location for downloads, it still put some into the internal memory. I was able to install an app and then move it but not if I installed a number of them so the internal memory was getting full. If I tried that the Move to SD card button was enabled but once poked it became greyed out with Moving shown. No matter how long I left it, it still didn't move. There's loads of bloatware loaded but it won't let me uninstall them, only stuff I've downloaded myself. You are right about the updates, with a clean install it has a decent amount of the 4Gb remaining after Android has loaded but once it has updated everything then that is down to about 400Mb. Should there be any way to turn updates off?

Brian, there's no menu button at top right on the languages screen, just a magnifying glass to allow me to search (although quite why I would want to search for a language when they are listed on the screen in alphabetical order). Probably something that was improved in later versions of Android.

You wouldn't think a starter would be such a critical component, after all, you only need it for a couple of seconds, but with a dead one you can have a car that is perfect in every other way. But as you can't bump start an auto and they stopped fitting starting handles many years ago, if the starter is dead, you are completely stuffed. I used to carry a spare in the boot when I went on my European trips for just that reason. I had visions of stopping for fuel in the middle of nowhere and being stuck there if the starter died. It did eventually but at home so I just crawled underneath and bunged the spare on. Really must get that one rebuilt so I have a spare again. My car clocked over 350,000 on my way back home on Monday (and nearly up to 351,000 now)......

Sound deadening, but it fell off mine years ago (or someone took it off and didn't put it back as it's never had one since I've owned it). For the top bolt you can either use a very long extension and go in from the front but I found that a 3/8 drive universal joint wrapped in insulation tape so it is almost rigid and a 2" extension means you can get the ratchet in immediately behind the starter. If you don't want to disconnect the battery, carefully slacken the nut holding the cable so you don't earth it against anything, then when the cable is off, shove a lump of heater hose over then end of it to insulate it while you take the starter off.

BrianH wrote:

Do you actually need the French language on the tablet? I've not got an Android 5 device handy, but going into settings/Language & Keyboard/Language shows the installed ones, you should be able to remove French (if its installed, though would expect it to be if your finding it changing to French) and that might stop it.

That would explain why it didn't change when I was driving through Poland, Lithuania and into Latvia, it doesn't have Polish, Lithuanian or Latvian installed. It does have French and quite a few others I have absolutely no need for but how do I remove them?

Yup. You can set the default under the optional configurations tab but you will also need to set the in and out of idle upper and lower steps all to zero or it'll still adjust to default + upper limit.

Certainly sounds that way. Top bolt is a bit awkward to get to but not a difficult job at all..

Top and bottom pins are 1 & 2 but you'll need to check which one has the 12V on it to be sure which is which. 3 & 5 are the two on each side but 3 will also have 12V on it so you can jumper the two outer ones and that should cause the starter to spin.

blueplasticsoulman wrote:

When i turn the key, the only thing that happens is the radio restarts and the leds on the gear shift go out and come back on.

That's as the relay in the BeCM drops out to disconnect them so the keyswitch is working and telling the BeCM that you are turning the key. As long as it is in Park or Neutral, the BeCM then sends an earth from pin 2 of C1282 (a White/Red wire) which goes to one side of relay 16 with the other side having power on it from fuse 40. That should operate the relay and send 12V to the starter solenoid. Putting a jumper between pins 1 and 5 of the relay socket should cause the starter to spin. If it doesn't, it's the starter (or the connections to it).

That's what I was thinking but as this was a freebie and a decent spec 4G/Wifi tablet isn't cheap, I think I've just got to live with it's shortcomings. It runs BBC iPlayer (through Hola VPN so it thinks I'm in the UK) and Mobdro so lets me watch TV on it when I'm out of the country and the battery life seems pretty good too (probably because it is such low spec). The language thing is really annoying though. My phone changes to local time when I'm abroad but not the language too. Oddly, it seems to be a French thing as I don't remember it changing to Latvian when I was there over new year.

It'll only flash in the ignition if passive immobilisation is enabled, if you've had it disabled then it won't. Does sound like a starter motor problem to me. You could try giving it a whack with something heavy in case it is brushes down to the limit, a bit of percussive maintenance can shift them just enough. Do you get absolutely nothing or can you hear the starter relay click in? Don't confuse this with the click from the relay in the BeCM that drops out during cranking.

I'm completely new to Android and tablets but I have recently acquired (free gift) an Alcatel Onetouch Pixi 3 (8) tablet running Android 5.1.1. I know it isn't the best or fastest and have had to delete and re-install stuff on it twice now as by the time Android is running there is only 4Gb of storage left for apps. I set it to save these to the SD card but it still insists on putting some of them in main memory. But, I figured it would do for my two main uses for it, running a radio station app (PlanetRock) so I can connect the headphone socket to my car stereo line in and keeping track of my expenses when driving through Europe.

The language is set for English (UK) but as soon as I get into France and am connected to a French network, the default language changes to French. This doesn't affect the radio station app but I also use Excel for the expenses and that also changes to French. If I change the language back to English (UK) in Settings, Excel remains in French. At one point it was in French but when I went in to the language settings, it told me that Langue was Anglais (UK)???? How can I lock the language so it doesn't change when I move to a different country?

Second problem is that I can have Excel open and enter my data as I need to but as I also have the radio station app open, I need to show that. When I want to enter data in Excel, I touch the bottom right square to show open apps, touch Excel and it opens but it doesn't open as I last left it, it seems to re-open from scratch with data previously entered missing. I've now been told that I am opening recently used, and not open, apps and as it only has 1Gb of RAM, it has booted Excel out of memory. Is there any way around this?

Is it possible to have two 'live' apps running at once so I can switch between the two or do I just revert to my previous method of writing expenses on a scrap of paper and updating the Excel spreadsheet later?

http://new.lrcat.com/#!/1234/88880/89117/7021/89136 although it does appear in the body electrics section rather than bodywork which is where I initially looked for it

Bearmach and Allmakes are the two that I've used bits from and never had a problem. A lot of the stuff they sell is OEM anyway.

From the way that filter/solenoid is mounted, I doubt if anyone has ever cleaned or changed the filter element. You never know, it could be clogged solid.....

No problem with LPG on ferries as long as there is a shut off valve at the tank is what their rules say. I defy anyone to find an LPG system that doesn't have a shut off at the tank (unless someone has removed the guts from the solenoid valve at the tank of course) so not a problem. The same rule applies to underground car parks in a lot of European countries too.

Eurotunnel were asked a few years ago why they will allow people to fill their trains with stinky diesel fumes but those of us running on something far cleaner (and superior) weren't allowed on. The answer from them was that at the time the tunnel was built, LPG powered cars were so rare no risk assessment was ever done to deal with the consequences. So as they have no risk assessment, they have simply banned them. Not that we should be particularly bothered, Eurotunnel is boring (no restaurant or shop to wander around in), never runs on time and bloody expensive.

Orangebean wrote:

This kind of stuff is Gilbertd's area of expertise. Maybe he'll have some ideas, when he stops to take a breather on his latest road trip.

No time for a breather but I'm here now. Blimey, we are talking geriatric old crap that should have been to the nearest WEEE recycler years ago here. What's wrong with Bluetoothing to the stereo? As said, a car kit with built in transmitter next to a receiver with a barn door wide front end and the selectivity of an Essex girl after a night on the town, is asking for trouble. If you insist on using it, mount it as far away from the fob receiver as possible (inside the left front inner wing would be good)......

Too right, there's an awful lot of bad conversions out there, particularly ones done by the done in a day merchants. Mostly it's underspecced systems, reducers and vaporisers that aren't man enough for the job. In a lot of cases the MIL is always on and an owner will have got into the habit of switching to petrol to overtake (if the system doesn't do it for him). He'll accept this as his installer has told him it's normal on a converted car and as the bulk of his mileage is still done on less than half price fuel he's happy. That's when the old wives tales start and everyone assumes it's normal.

But, even then, with a bit of fiddling and maybe a set of injectors and a reducer at worst, it can be sorted for not a lot if you know what you are doing (or just take it to Simon.....).

I wouldn't consider putting £2800 into a car, not in one lump anyway although mine stands me at around £5000 over 7 years (although that does include a V8Developments top hatted and fully refurbed block). As for mileage, I'm setting off on another 2,000 miles in 4 days trip tomorrow having only recently done my 3,700 miles trip for new year. That's about 30 tanks of LPG at between 40 and 65p per litre in 3 weeks. Doing that kind of mileage on petrol isn't something I would even contemplate. Once set up right, as long as the components aren't worn out, the gas system will just work. In 7 years I've spent no more than £200 on it and that includes replacing the vaporiser last night (£80) as the old one was starting to show signs of needing a diaphragm so rather than mucking around, I just bunged a new one on. I'll plug the computer into it if I have reason to think it isn't 100% but other than that it's probably the most reliable bit of the whole car. No tinkering needed (although I do sometimes because I think I should and have run out of other things to tinker with).

Buying something that already has a kit on it, no matter how poorly installed and running, is still going to be cheaper than converting from scratch. You've already got the tank and pipework installed and even if you have to replace the whole front end it's still a lot less work. £3-400 at worst rather than over a grand. Of the 4 converted cars I've bought I've not been happy with the installation so have effectively removed and re-installed it anyway. In fact, 3 of those 4 were bought with a system installed which the seller said didn't work. All were running on gas within a couple of days.