God that looks rough. Chassis may be good but I hate to imagine what the top of the bulkhead and body mounts are like. Although it isn't far from me if you want me to give it the once over. Having owned one, I know exactly where a Classic rusts.......

Certainly is worth checking although my 98 will sync even with passive immobilisation turned off, I think it was only on the later (99 onwards) cars that don't. Easy way to check if it is on or off is to unlock the car, open a door but wait for over a minute before trying to start it. If, when you try to start it, it won't turn over but comes up on the dash with Press Remote or Enter Code, it is on, if it starts normally, it is off. Later ones with it on will cause the LED on the fob to flash as soon as you put the key in the ignition so doing it for you. I lived with it on for over 5 years and just got into the habit of pressing unlock on the fob before trying to start the car and only turned it off when I bought the Nano. I still sometimes press unlock out of habit.

Sounds like you have the same quirk as I found on the Ascot (HSE, silver one, whatever). That is also using an OMVL Millennium with R90E and taking it's lambda reading from one of the 5-0V sensors. Got it all set up and running fine but then left it idling for a long time and got too rich and too lean errors. At idle the sensor stops giving an output but the GEMS petrol system runs open loop at idle so it doesn't matter. However, the Millennium sees a lean output so starts to move the Default to compensate until it reaches 255 and can't go any further. That flags the lambda too lean error. Then when you drive it, it's running rich so flags a too rich error. What I did was adjust the R90E to get the default the same at idle and out of idle then used the default lock to hold it there. Set the actuator limits to +-40 out of idle and +10, -30 at idle so it will keep the emissions down at MoT time. I also turned off the too rich and too lean diagnostics but left the lambda fail dagnostic enabled. I suspect this is why some people have said that they don't work too well using the original 5-0V sensors and why mine has a separate 0-1V sensor fitted in one downpipe solely to drive the LPG system.

If the LED on the fob works then that is fine but if you have the newer receiver they may have better selectivity but they aren't as reliable as the earlier versions and do fail. I've come across one on a car that I maintain for the owner and Marty has had a few in for repair. If you can get hold of another receiver, any type will do, and that works then that proves the receiver. On the one I maintain everything seemed to be working fine but it would simply not sync. Took the earlier receiver out of my car and put that in and it synced immediately (although I did have to turn passive immobilisation back on in the BeCM before it would sync). Took my receiver out and put the orignal one back in and nothing. A couple of weeks later (when I was next there), I put an earlier receiver in and didn't even have to sync again, it just worked.

Has the fob ever worked? If not, you don't know if it is even the correct one for the car. Although it should sync in the ignition, most of the older ones don't. I've currently got a 96, a 97 and a 98 and none of them do. Does the LED on the fob flash? It should flash slowly when you press the button and, if you keep the button pressed, flash faster after a couple of seconds. To sync in the lock you put the key in the door lock, turn to lock and hold it there, while holding it there, press the lock button on the fob until the LED flashes faster, release the fob button and return the key to the centre position. Then repeat but in the unlock position and using the unlock button on the fob.

As OB says, if the blue wire on the receiver has been disconnected it may be that the signal from the fob isn't strong enough for the receiver to pick up the signal when the fob is in the door lock or it may simply be that the receiver has been completely disconnected or has died.

There's no baffles in an LPG tank, just a pickup that should go down to the bottom (which is why the pickup should be towards the back of the tank so you've still get liquid when you need it most under acceleration). But if the multivalve is intended for a shallower tank, it doesn't reach the bottom.

Yup, it can't work on pressure as that will be the same whether full or nearly empty and will also vary with temperature. It's all done by the float so if you've got the wrong multivalve, as it appears you have, the float arm will be too short so the range over which it will work will be restricted. It isn't only the float arm that will be wrong but also the pickup tube. So it may well shut at 80% or thereabouts full but not only will the float arm be too short, so will the pickup tube so you'll never fully empty.

That's why it won't fill fully then, it's set for a 220mm tank not a 270mm one.

Orangebean wrote:

Does it start better with a whiff of Right Guard (very poor man's Easy Start) into the intake?

Or brake cleaner works well too.

I'd go for glow plugs too. Black smoke is too much fuel so if it's squirting it in and not firing, the extra will burn off as soon as it does fire.

I've taken an import in that had never had underseal on it from day 1 so it had been undersealed. That had an advisory similar to the one you mentioned. The Ascot has had an advisory for the last 3 or 4 tests for engine oil leak. Since when has that been a reason for failure? There's nothing in the MoT testers manual that says a car will fail if the puddle of oil under it is greater than 6 inches diameter after 10 minutes at idle. It can be peeing it out like the Torrey Canyon and they still can't fail it.

So, she's had it for 4 days now and has done 140 miles in it. I know she's done 140 miles because she rang me in a panic as the LPG level light had gone from one green led to a red one so she was expecting it to die on her at any moment. Called round tonight, checked the gauge on the tank which showed about a third left, took it down the road and filled it and it took 48 litres. Considering most of it has been to work and back so mostly in traffic, that's about what I would expect.

She did mention one slightly weird experience. Sitting in a queue to get into the work car park with her foot on the brake pedal and the dash beeped and came up with abs fault, the abs light came on but went out as soon as she started moving just as it should. Odd.......

Software needs to be told you've got 0-1v lambda sensors. Then you can check to see if the readings from the elm match what the software is showing. They may not be connected, the LPG system doesn't need them to be, it's just convenient to be able to see them on the screen rather than on a separate code reader.

We did but it's easier to refer to it as the Ascot as that's what the badge on the back says. Its got everything that an hse would have so is a high spec. Dina has named them anyway, mine is white man, the SE is big blue and the Ascot is that rather than just calling it the silver one.

Pretty unlikely I'll get anywhere close to 10k for the Ascot but I'll be happy with 1500..... Just had a proper look at the RPi one on eBay. Noticed no sat nav and then saw its a 98 but they are fitting a Thor? How's that going to work then?

So how much does that make the Ascot worth then? Air springs have been on it for under 2 years, valve block and compressor the same, blend motors changed or rerfurbed, heater o rings done, full service with all fluids changed, heated seats repaired, brakes checked and pins lubed, kick panel multiwsy connectors removed, front door latches replaced, grille and front bumper painted and everything else I could find that I wasn't happy with. Running perfectly on petrol and LPG too.

Having spent the last few weeks on the Ascot, doing everything I would do to it if I was to keep it myself, I finished the final job yesterday. That was removing, soldering and heat shrinking the connections in the footwells that used to go through the pretty green and hairy multiway connectors. At that point, other than waiting for the original stereo to come back from being refurbed at Clarion, as far as I was concerned I'd finished the mechanical and electrical work (just need to persuade BPSM to take a trip down to deal with the cosmetics now) and it was spot on. Everything, and I mean everything, now works exactly as it should.

But ideally, it needed a bit of a test. Daughter's Toyota MR2 has recently developed an evil wailing from the RH rear wheel bearing but a press is needed to remove the old one and press the new one in. Not too much of a problem as a mate has a workshop with a suitable press but he's only there during working hours. So I would need to remove the rear hub and get it down to him at a time when he would be there. As the Ascot was now sorted, I swapped cars with her last night confident that it would get her to work and back for the next couple of days and give me the time to pull her car to bits and get it back together again. At 8:50 this morning my phone rang. I've broke it, she said. She'd managed all of 50m from her driveway to the end of the road, the engine had died and now the message centre was telling her she had a gearbox fault, a traction failure, an ABS fault and the engine wouldn't restart. Got there and found that everything looked normal when the ignition was switched on, it was only when the key was turned to start the engine that the starter did nothing and the dash went blank. The negative battery terminal was loose. I can't remember when I last had the battery off but I obviously didn't do it up tight enough when I put it on. Tightened it up, jump started it from mine, checked that it was charging and she went off to work (and so far, hasn't broken it again).

What I don't understand is why then? Over the last few weeks I've used it a few times to run around in just to see if everything was working as it should. I've done a couple of hundred miles in it and never a problem. I've started it and had it idling for ages while doing other jobs and not once has it shown any signs of a problem. So why is it that the first time a woman used it, the damn thing dies?

Yes, thumbwheel is the manual vlve so you can remove the solenoid plunger if you feel the need. Yes, there's a non return valve in the inlet and another in the filler so all that will come out is the contents of the bit of pipe between the two.

To empty the tank do just as you said. Park the car somewhere windy and with no drains or hollows as Propane is heavier than air and will pool wherever it can (so on top of a hill is ideal). If you don't want the car to stink of Ethyl Mercaptan, the odorant that is put in Propane so you can smell a leak, attach a length of pipe to the outlet and run that to the outside of the car. Using a battery, switch and 20 feet of cable, open the solenoid and keep upwind of it (or you and your clothes will also stink for weeks). Using a switch is far less likely to cause a spark than dobbing a wire onto the battery. It'll take a while and look pretty spectacular as 1 litre of liquid will become 270 litres of vapour..... Don't worry about the cows though, it's nothing to the amount of Methane they produce.

No they won't, I thought the problem was only on petrol. If it's on both then it does point towards either an ignition problem but, as OB has already said, that would usually be worse on gas or a leaky injector. When you had the plugs out were any of them particularly blacker than the others? That would signify a rich mixture on that pot so could be down to one or two dual fuelling. As your gas system is only taking a lambda reading from one bank, if you've got a pot or two on the other bank running way out all will appear to be normal. I actually suspect that's what I've got. Mine takes the lambda signal from bank 2 and I'm pretty sure at least one injector on bank 1 is intermittently leaking petrol in there too so that bank always shows as running rich and at odd times it feels slightly down on power.

Have you reset the adaptives? If it's running rich on gas then it will have set the trims on petrol to attempt to lean it off, so it will run rough on petrol. The longer it has run on gas the worse it will get. For some reason when mine is run on gas one bank shows permanently rich while the other shows a correct mixture with the lambda flip flopping as it should. That makes the other bank adjust the trims to max lean and it will run rough when switched to petrol. Resetting the adaptives cures it and it runs fine until it has been run on gas again for a while.