Those of you that were at the Summer Camp will have met my other half, but we found a way of inadvertently worrying lots of people this weekend.. We were off to the South of France last Thursday, straight after work. I had a car that needed delivering and another that needed bringing back. Rather than the usual Classics that get stuck on a trailer behind the P38, these were both modern cars that were to be driven and Dina wanted to do some of the driving. So, as women do, she posted on Facebook that she was going to Nice for the weekend. Now we weren't actually going to Nice but if she'd posted that we were going to Tourette Levens, which is about 6 miles inland from Nice, nobody would have known where it was.

We left home straight from work, headed down to Eurotunnel and were happily cruising a Porsche Macan Turbo at a steady rate southwards. Dina's phone had decided it wasn't going to connect to any of the French networks at all and was showing no service all the time (turned out that when she'd changed her contract recently, 3 had decided to bar roaming on it). We'd got about as far as Riddlemethis's place around Dijon when I got a text from my daughter telling me to check the news as something had happened in Nice. At that time what information was coming out was still a bit sparse and we carried on, Nice was still another 500 miles away. Checking a couple of hours later we found the extent of the atrocities so I sent Dina's daughter a message telling her that we hadn't got there yet but her Mum had no service on her phone so not to worry.

However, most people had assumed she had done the sensible thing and had flown down to Nice and was there enjoying the firework display to celebrate Bastille Day so were sending her messages on Facebook checking that she was OK and getting no reply........

Until we got back Sunday night, she couldn't reply but her daughter spent most of the weekend getting messages from very worried people asking if she'd heard from her Mum as they'd tried and got no reply. She was, she was happily taking her turn driving back in what she described as an animal. The car we had to bring back is a 2014 Audi RS7. As standard the twin turbo'd V8 puts out 565 bhp but this one has been chipped to 720 bhp. It's the first time I've had a drag race away from an Autoroute toll against a Ferrari and won......

Water drip is almost certainly from the Air Con, it'll drip down either side of the gearbox (roughly level with the gearchange cable). The plug from the O2 sensor is clipped to the side of the sump (or it is on a GEMS) but there is a locking tab on the plug that connects to it that you need to squeeze as you pull the plug off. If the O2 sensors are switching but the adaptive values are out of range, that would point towards the MAF sensor. The Motronic is very fussy about these and doesn't like aftermarket ones apparently (the GEMS isn't too keen on them either). See what the Nano is telling you with airflow.

Courier companies will take anything as a parcel as long as it weighs less than 25 kilos and is less than 1m long. I've sent a complete cylinder head for a 4.2 Jaguar engine and they are bloody heavy when they have the valves and camshafts fitted. It had to be packed well and was right on the limit for both size and weight, but they took it. I use www.parcel2go.co.uk to book.

Good luck with that. We've had so much grief trying to find anywhere capable of doing that kind of work in France, we've been getting it done in the UK and shipping bits back and forth.

and so it continues..... Decided that for whatever reason the bank 1 sensor was going to sleep after a little while of running so tried it on the way to Summer Camp. Nanocom plugged in showed both banks to be switching correctly (running on LPG too) but after about 10 miles, bank 1 flatlined at 5.09V and up popped OPEN FAULT again. Switched off the Nano and forgot about it. The Nano GEMS documentation shows one error on that screen which is OPEN DUE TO A DETECTED FAULT which it says is caused by a faulty sensor so figured that's what it was telling me but the screen isn't big enough for all the words to be displayed.

Not done any more about it since until yesterday when the postman delivered a shiny new FAE lambda sensor so I crawled underneath and fitted it. Plugged in the Nano and started her up. Success! Both banks switching properly. For a mile or so then bank 1 went to OPEN FAULT again and sat at 5.09V.

Think I might have a loose plug......

Orangebean wrote:

I've a feeling you won't be painting the grille orange then...

I would consider it if I had the blue lights to fit in it but without them it might look a bit silly with two rectangular holes in them. Although a pair of flashing blues might help getting through traffic.....

I thought about going overboard with the wheels and then decided not to. The alloys on the Merc I bought for the other half were corroded to hell. I took them to two wheel refurbishing places who both said they were so bad they'd need to be shot blasted and then powder coated so I'd be looking at around £80-100 a wheel. Mine are as bad if not worse. As well as the wheels looking scabby on the Merc, it had a couple of small dents on the top of one front wing, the bonnet had been resprayed badly in the past and the front bumper and valance was covered in stonechips. The guy that does the paintwork on the imported Classics for me sprayed the wing, bonnet and bumper and sanded down (or got his apprentice to sand down) the wheels and sprayed them. He charged me £350 for the lot. Mates rates I know but I suspect if I do the stripping off of the trim bits on mine, I'll get a damn good paintjob for under a grand, including the wheels. I mean, it's cosmetic and by now most of you will have realised, I do mechanical and electrical, not cosmetic. It's only taken me 5 years to get around to cleaning the drivers seat!

In that first picture, even the tyres look black. Looks like someone went over it with boot polish before the picture was taken. The second one is closer to original, this is mine before it was retired to civvy street (but before it was treated to the reflective strips down the A posts).

Not bothered about it being in vogue, just that if I keep it the original Chawton White there'll be no need to do the inner bits that always get missed on a colour change. I'm even going to refit the huge Spraybuster mudflaps. It's an ex-plod motor so I want to keep it as one, just make it look a bit more presentable. It's a shame one of the reflective strips down the A posts has started to come off as I'd have liked to have kept them too. I'll be taking the mudflaps, inner wheelarch liners and door rubbing strips off before it goes it to make life easier for them too. I'll probably attack the wheels with a wire brush too and see if they'll give them a squirt of silver paint while they are at it (although I could probably do that myself). All I need do now is find a dark grey satin finish paint suitable for plastic to make the grille and bumpers all the same colour. Satin black will be too dark but if I can find something that is the same colour as the bumpers, I'll only need to do the grille and the strips under the headlights that have faded with the UV in sunlight (presumably when I've been in France as there's not a lot of chance of that here.....).

In anticipation of 5,000 miles in the next 2 months and the forthcoming respray and general tidy up of my car, I've decided to do the odd little niggly job that I've thought about for a long time. Things that work but had an outside chance of needing attention at the side of the road if I was unlucky. One of these was the hoses to and from the throttle body heater. On the GEMS, and I suspect the Thor is much the same, there's a short pipe that runs from the inlet manifold to the heater and another long one that goes from the heater back to the coolant reservoir. When I had it all in bits rebuilding the engine, these needed a bit of attention. The short pipe had split and been shortened at some point and was only just long enough and the long one is a hard plastic pipe with hose on each end so it could fit onto the heater and reservoir. The hard plastic had gone brittle so cracked when I moved it and the hoses on the ends were looking a bit dodgy too. Unable to find any 8mm inside diameter coolant hose, I'd used fuel hose and had a couple of joins in the hard plastic bit too. It worked but I recently found that fuel hose isn't ideal. From previous experience I knew that you can't put fuel through coolant hose as it dissolves it but figured the other way round would be OK. It isn't. It isn't intended for the sort of temperatures so goes very hard and inflexible. Originally I thought about replacing the hard plastic with 8mm copper microbore pipe but would still need some 8mm inside diameter coolant hose for the ends. So why not replace the lot with one run of hose and avoid any joins? Finding something suitable wasn't easy but I ended up buying a length of this stuff http://www.autosiliconehoses.com/silicone-hose-shop/performance-silicone-hoses/silicone-1-ply-radiator-heater-hose-up-to-30-metres.html. 8mm inside diameter silicon coolant hose.

The short run from the inlet manifold was no problem at all, it's nice and flexible and pushed over the flared ends of the metal stubs at both ends easily. Initially I ran the longer one by the same route as the hard plastic so it ran along the front of the engine under the big metal thing that holds the wiring loom away from the serpentine belt, but it is so flexible that there was a danger that it could move forward and touch the back of the belt. So I re-routed it to run under the back of the alternator. A nice straight run and not in danger of being caught in any moving parts. 10mm I/D hose could also be used to replace the breather pipe from the top of the radiator, the one that seemed to be different on every car we checked at the summer camp. It's not cheap but seems to be good stuff and was delivered next day.

Next job is the headlining followed by the respray.......

That would cause a wobble. Was it on the rear? Rear wheel out of true or balance is often the cause of a shudder between 60 and 70 mph.

Not sure if it would be a failure even if he had spotted it. The actual wording of the reason for failure is " a wheel badly damaged, distorted or cracked, or with a badly distorted bead rim" and it would depend on whether he thought it was badly damaged or merely damaged (or if he also sells alloy wheels).

Hmm, I've got mod status and can edit the post, delete the whole thread, lock the whole thread or highlight the whole thread but it doesn't look like I can split it unless I copied, deleted and then pasted the text into a new thread. But if I did that it would appear to have been posted by me.

Just leave it as it is, it'll wander back on topic, or not, at some point. It is still relevant as it's a cause of using too much LPG if anyone else has a similar problem.

I could have bought mine with me. But nobody needed them then. Or at least they didn't realise they needed them then.......

I'm afraid I have an admission to make. The Summer Camp has inspired me. Last night I attacked my drivers seat with foam cleaner to get it the same colour as the others and I've ordered a headlining kit to do something about the flapping curtains that are currently dangling above my head. You never know, I might even get around to washing the mud off it soon too.......

You WILL need a crowsfoot spanner like this https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-crows-foot-imperial-wrench-set-10-piece/ (although you'll only need one size and I can't remember which size it is) or you will never get the top union on the little short pipes undone.

This thread has gone awfully quiet. You've got it apart, we've seen the pictures to prove it, but has it gone back together again?

Now there's a little re-programming job for you......

Martyuk wrote:

I think it might be running a touch lean still under load as 50-70mph acceleration is a bit gutless, but I think it is also doing it in top gear with the torque converter locked up unless I really poke the throttle.

Almost certainly. Mine is locked up in top at that kind of speed and if the revs are below 2,000 it doesn't have a lot of interest in the throttle unless it is given a good prod. However, I did discover on the way back from the Summer Camp that if, when travelling behind a truck at 40 mph, the Sport button is poked and the throttle floored, it drops down at least two gears, takes off like a scalded cat, revs up to 5,000 rpm before shifting up and sounds bloody wonderful!

Gordon, your problem is almost certainly due to the lack of lumps and the size of your right foot, I've been in your passenger seat remember.

Morat, if you did reset the adaptives and have still had out of range errors, the gas system definitely needs a recal. If it was calibrated with a dodgy O2 sensor, then it will be wrong.

Not a completely fair comparison as I filled up at a Texaco station near me before setting off for the Summer Camp and the next fill was at a Shell station on the way back. But after a combination of cruising at 75-80mph, running around the lanes to the hotel and back and a lot of mucking around in low ratio with a dead Disco on a bit of string I took 60.8 litres after a combined 191 miles, so 3.1415 (almost Pi, is this significant?) miles per litre or 14.26 mpg. As my tank takes 67 litres to full, that would give me a range of 210.5 miles to a tankful. I've seen a bit better than that but I've also seen a lot worse so reasonably happy with it. If I can do better than 200 miles on a tankful, I'm not complaining. I also think the LPG is still running slightly rich so it could be bettered a touch.

That's a 4.0 litre on a singlepoint LPG system. But as you say, ideally you need to average it over multiple fills from the same pump although even that isn't completely repeatable as the ambient temperature and the temperature of the tanks at the filling station will make a difference too.

I can only add one word - plonker. Although I must admit, I've done it a couple of times and turning the key and nothing happening does make you fear the worse rather than looking at what the dash is telling you. There's a D shown there to give you a clue.