That's the one I've got going spare...... Simple enough to change just one of them too.
Second one looks viable, first one simply looks overpriced. But I've got 3 and there is no way that I am getting another (not until at least one of those I've got has been sold anyway).
OK, so what will you be driving down to the south of France in September then? I'll still buy you a beer and might even let you have a drive of my P38 just so you can remind yourself of what you are missing.....
That is one of my biggest complaints about diesels. OK , so I can't stand the smell and, while they may be quick, I don't like the power delivery and driving dynamics but the main thing is the noise. When did anyone ever rev a diesel engine with a big silly grin on their face because of the noise it makes? Same goes for electric and hybrid cars. I know someone who bought a BMW i8, 350 bhp with performance to match but no soundtrack. BMW have thought about it though and you can programme the sound system to give an appropriate soundtrack.. You can even choose what car you want it to sound like. Problem is, as the owner said, only the driver hears it, you can't drop the windows and floor it through a tunnel and let everyone else have the benefit. Or is that considered anti-social and childish? In which case I'm both........ .
There's a nut that holds the solenoid coil over a brass tube, so taking that off allows the coil to be removed. Inside the brass tube is a steel plunger with a tapered end and a spring so when power is applied to the coil it moves and unplugs the hole and allows gas through. The brass tube has a hex at the base so it can be unscrewed BUT, there even with the tank solenoid closed there will be a length of pipe from the tank that is full of liquid Propane. Liquid expands by a factor of x270 when it vaporises, so 1 litre of liquid will give 270 litres of vapour. A 3m length of 8mm pipe will hold around three quarters of a litre of liquid so you'll get quite a lot of vapour and you need to slacken off the union to allow it to escape first or the brass tube will come out like a bullet.
Vacuum line off wouldn't affect changeover, just, as bpsm says, cause it to run rough..
The pressure sensor could be failing, there's two types, an AEB013 which is known for failing with age and the replacement, the AEB025 which is much more reliable and can be fitted as a replacement for the earlier one if you use an adapter cable. See the second row down on this page http://tinleytech.co.uk/product-category/lpg-parts/electrical/pressure-sensors/?widget_search=yes
The temperature sensor in the reducer is the one that gives the T Reduc figure at bottom left of the screen so that is showing everything fine up in the 70 degrees area. The one in the gas line gives the T Gas figure just above it and that is fine too. What isn't is the gas pressure. In Pic1, it's showing 1.38 bar, but in Pics 2 and 3, it has plummeted down to 0.73 and 0.46 bar. It appears that as the revs go up, the pressure drops and that is what will cause the system to switch back to petrol, it thinks you are running out of gas. Might be a clogged filter but it would need to be really clogged to have that amount of an effect, more likely one of the solenoids isn't opening properly. There's two, one on the tank and one on the reducer. Might be that a coil has gone partially short circuit or the plunger is sticking. Check the coil resistance (expect to see around 11-15 Ohms) plunger can be removed and cleaned on the reducer solenoid after you have slackened the feed pipe to allow the gas in the pipe from the tank to escape. Tank solenoid isn't so easy with a tank full of gas although you should have a manual shut off which will allow you to do the same.
Tried it on the Ascot yesterday. Locked it on the fob but, as it isn't working, the drivers door didn't lock, opened the drivers door and the hazards started flashing to tell me the alarm had been set off. Put the key in the ignition, turned it on and it came up with Engine Immobilised, Press Remote and the engine wouldn't turn over. Pressed the remote and it then turned over and started. So no option to enter the EKA, just use the remote. Not so good if you don't have a working remote or the signal is being blocked.
When it does it, check the reducer/vaporiser temperature. If there is a blockage or air lock in there as soon as it starts running on gas, the temperature will plummet and it will switch back. With the software running, you should be able to see the reducer temp anyway.
Yes but only if it has been programmed to move to a different position when you select reverse. If someone has previously programmed it so the mirror position in reverse is the same as when not in reverse, it won't move. Or if neither of them move, that feature has been turned off like how it tells you in the owners handbook.
Which white bits? The small rack (think rack and pinion) that runs on the cog on the motor or the bit that it pivots on? I've got the rack that was on the original one but they are handed so that one is for the side to side movement (I found this out after getting one of them in place on the motor only to find the ball on the end was facing the wrong way). Not got the other bit that the thing pivots on as that was missing on the original mirror so I pinched the one off the spare.
No, I bought the car from a Range Rover specialist who by all accounts is pretty good (RRLondon). The owner bought it in to them and asked if they were interested in buying it as he'd been quoted a huge amount for sorting out the stuff for the MoT. They weren't interested in buying but offered to sell it on his behalf.
Incidentally, I must have had it idling for well over an hour last night while trying to get the running on LPG sorted. Plugged the Nano in to find a coolant temperature of 68 degrees. Definitely need to change the stat but I'll leave that until I get a mixer and replumb the vaporiser. No point in draining and refilling it twice.
B&Q will do you a cheap gas blowlamp which will be enough. I've found that if you slide the clamps right off the end you can get a thin cold chisel in the slots to open them up a bit too. If you use something like Stillsons on the adjuster, they bite harder the more grunt you put on them and don't round off the hex like a spanner will. First time I did mine I ended up laying underneath it, handing onto the chassis and pushing a pair of Stillsons with my feet. It moved eventually.
Yes, I had a spare mirror anyway but it was a non-memory one so only had 6 wires and not 8 like the memory one has. Got the little plastic rack out of that one and a white plastic piece that the mirror carrier pivots on and it all works now. Fiddly to do and as the teeth on the motors were a bit chewed it doesn't move completely smoothly but it moves and now points in the right direction. Took almost as long to get the glue from the duct tape the previous owner had used to hold the glass somewhere close to where it needed to be as it did to fix the mechanism.
You might need to reload the software from scratch so the dll files are installed, otherwise try copying them from the XP machine to the Win2000 and see if that works. Do you have an Alesei N or the earlier Alesei? They use different software and aren't compatible.
When you say it doesn't change on the button press, do you mean that ordinarily you switch to petrol before turning the engine off and leave it there until up to temperature? Why not leave it switched to gas so it switches when ready? The two main problems that stop a system from switching are a problem with the temperature sensor so the system thinks it isn't hot enough or a lack of gas pressure. If the temperature sensor has become disconnected so is open circuit, it will report -40 degrees so won't allow it to switch. If it beeps as it would when you run out of gas, then one of your solenoids could have died so the gas isn't getting through. Having a look around for anything disconnected and checking the solenoid coils would be a good place to start.
super4 wrote:
would appreciate some help. Have P38 Gems here on the mountain in Spain - LPG stopped working - just doesn't change on the button press - waits then beeps to make me press back to petrol. Have finally got the ECU lead from UK and downloaded Zavoli Alesei N software which loads and seems to work on my Win XP desktop (not connected to car) but does not run on my old laptop on Win 2000 . Says various dll files missing. Do you know if it should run or is Win XP the earliest ?
Chris B
Might have been better to start a new topic rather than resurrecting one from a year ago. I'll start a new one for you and reply there.
There's receipts in the folder for work done on the LPG system and for the price the whole system could have been replaced at least 3 times. The venturi on the OMVL mixer is a plastic insert so could have been blown out by one of the big backfires that has split the airbox into 3 pieces but someone has obviously thrown it away not realising what it was or what it was doing in the intake trunking. But it came from London, enough said. While there are cowboys everywhere there seems to be nothing but in London. Having looked through the previous MoTs, it's been tested at the same place for the last 4 years and each time has failed on a number of things that seem unlikely. I suspect they were just failing it, telling the owner it was going to cost X hundred to put it right, he just paid it and they issued a pass.
Mine is the complete opposite, all the guys that work there are into cars (although there is one young guy who runs out the back as soon as he sees me approaching as he doesn't understand anything older than about 2000). They will have boxes of things like assorted copper washers, bleed nipples, grease nipples, nuts, screws, bolts, trim clips, body fixings, you name it, they've got it and you can buy one at a time. They are quite used to me walking in and asking for bits for 1960's cars, where even if they had a registration number (as most are imports that haven't yet been registered), it wouldn't help. If they don't have it in stock, they will get it for me tomorrow and it really is tomorrow too.
Continued last night. Fitted the new (Britpart) tailgate straps that the postman delivered (and I'm sorry Sloth, but they lined up perfectly and the bearings moved smoothly too), refitted the offside rear door trim (the little plastic pegs were in the door but not attached to the door card), got the passenger side door mirror working and the glass attached by it's clips and not held approximately in place with a bit of duct tape and decided to have a look at the LPG system. That has also been the subject of untold bodgery.
For those not familiar with a single point, a little explanation. You have a mixer, a venturi with lots of holes around the inside edge, attached to the throttle body. That is fed with gas at just below atmospheric pressure from the vaporiser via a stepper motor controlled valve to fine tune the mixture. The stepper is driven by a controller which takes a signal from one of the lambda sensors and causes the stepper to open if the mixture is too lean and close if it is too rich. The airflow through the venturi in the mixer draws the gas in so the more air being sucked in by the engine the more gas gets sucked in with it so the stepper is just there to fine tune.
All this lot was buried beneath the air intake trunking so not exactly easy to get to or see and a lot of the cabling had been bundled up and taped looking like it had been done fairly recently and the vaporiser is all new and shiny too (an OMVL R90E, rated for engines up to 6 litres or 380bhp, identical to the one fitted to my car). Pulled the trunking off to look for the stepper only to find there wasn't one there, it had been replaced with a manual valve that would normally be used on an open loop system on a carbed engine. The cable that should have gone to the stepper was in the recently taped bundle of wires. The software for these systems will show the lambda sensor output so you can see if it is rich, lean or happily flipping between the two as it should and it also shows how far open the stepper is so you can see if it is nicely in the middle of it's travel or at either end. Started to tune the vaporiser output pressure and got it so it was idling on gas with the manual valve in the mid position. Swapped the valve for a stepper and started to twiddle. Got it idling on gas with the lambda switching and the stepper moving nicely around the mid point. However, the adjusters on the vaporiser seemed wrong. There's two, one that deals with the actual output pressure and a second idle bleed screw that dribbles a constant supply through. This latter one is normally screwed fully home as it is only needed on a very low revving engine that doesn't generate enough suck to draw any gas through at idle and the adjustment on it is very fine, 1/4 of a turn makes a hell of a difference. That was partly open but the output screw was almost all the way out meaning maximum pressure. As soon as I opened the throttle, the lambda showed fully lean, the stepper went fully open and it still showed so lean it didn't really want to rev. At that point I gave up and decided it was time for food and a bit of head scratching.
Thought about it more and this morning went out to check my theory. My theory was that if the venturi was clogged, then the gas wasn't being sucked in, it was having to be forced in. So, off with the intake trunking again and looked and immediately could see the problem. The bloody venturi is missing from the mixer! Instead of a smaller opening with holes around the inside edge, there's just a hole with a pipe for the gas to come in. No wonder it won't rev, there's no way the airflow can suck any gas in through this......
Look like I need to get a new mixer too......