Evening and welcome. Now if you post in the Elektrikery bit about your flashing keyfob, I'm sure Marty will pop up and give you an answer. It's probably something to do with the passive synchronisation but as both mine are too early for that, I've no idea personally.

If it's running out of steam at full bore, you didn't get it right. DO IT AGAIN and get it right this time......

Sitting the laptop on the passenger seat or in the passenger footwell and flooring the throttle to see what the stepper does will tell you what is happening but it is almost certain it will try to open up to get more gas in but the vaporiser can't supply enough. It might be full of heavy ends or you might have a restriction somewhere. Squashed pipe or clagged up filter maybe? I assume you do have an OMVL R90E vaporiser and not some crappy Italian thing rated at 190 Italian horsepower so only good for about 130 on a good day? That's what was fitted to my Classic when I first got it and that went all sick and flat at anything over 1/3rd throttle, swapping for an R90E cured it completely.

Yes, you are chasing your own arse. The amount of gas going in is dictated by the setting of the vaporiser, not by the stepper, the stepper is purely there to fine tune the mixture when needed. If the system has been set up correctly the stepper should hardly move whether at idle or at full bore. The amount of fuel required is directly proportional to the amount of air so as you open the throttle, more air goes in so more fuel should go in too. If it doesn't it's because the vaporiser isn't capable of supplying enough. Since my new engine now has 20,000 miles on it and is nicely run in, I can hit the sport button, floor the throttle, watch the rev counter hit over 5,000 rpm before the box changes up and still wonder how the hell you can get something weighing 2.5 tonnes with the aerodynamics of a small bungalow accelerate that fast. If there is a noticeable difference between running on LPG and running on petrol, it's wrong and needs tweaking.

So here is the complete, from the top, published on about 3 website forums and now about to appear on a 4th, how to set up an OMVL R90E vaporiser on a Leonardo/Millennium single point LPG system wot I rote a while ago.

Setting up a Leonardo

Software is simple enough to get things going. Plug it in and start her up. On the main screen you'll see things like the lambda output and actuator opening. To start from scratch you ideally need a manual valve to fit in place of the actuator. If you don't have one, I've made one using a plastic water pipe Tee piece and a seat belt mounting bolt but you can use just a length of hose and squeeze it with Mole grips if you have nothing suitable.

You can use the manual valve to get things close in case there has been any random twiddling on the vaporiser. Take the stepper actuator out of the hose and fit the manual valve but leave the stepper attached to it's cables so you can see what it is doing. Set the manual valve about half open. Go into the software and under the Actuator tab (under Optional Configurations), set the upper and lower limits to 255 for idle and out of idle. If you make any changes in the software you must hit Return after typing the new value in or it doesn't save the setting and reverts back to what it was. Also make sure the actuator default lock box isn't ticked. Screw the idle bleed screw, the top one or smaller one if it's an older R90E, all the way in. With the computer connected so you can see what is happening, start the engine and get it running at around 2,500 rpm (screw the throttle cable out on it's adjuster if you are on your own). Adjust the manual valve for highest revs (and adjust the throttle to keep it the same) and check the opening on the stepper. It wants to correspond with what you have the manual valve set at and, looking at the software display (hit F12 to display what is going on), you'll see the lambda sitting either somewhere in the middle of the scale or flipping between extremes. You want the actuator and the manual valve to be somewhere in the middle, around 80 - 150 on the software display. If it is right at the top (fully open), you need to unscrew the main bias screw on the vaporiser half a turn (the lower one with the spring under it) at a time until it is in the middle somewhere. Too low (fully closed), screw it in. Re-tweak the manual valve to get the revs back up. Keep doing this until it is sitting somewhere in the middle. You can check that the actuator is working by watching what does when you adjust the manual valve. Screw the manual valve in a little to make the mixture weak and you will see the lambda go green and the stepper open up to try to compensate. Screw it out to make it rich and the lambda will go red and it should start to close.

Now remove the manual valve and throw it somewhere, you may need it one day but hopefully not for quite a while, and fit the stepper in its place. Start the engine and hold the revs up to confirm that it is still in the wandering around the middle and the lambda output is flipping from one extreme to the other. Let it drop to idle and see what the stepper sits at then. It wants to be roughly the same at idle as at 2,500 rpm. If it closes down, screw the main bias screw in a touch to bring it back up. Rev it again and check that the stepper is still in roughly the same area. You'll need to try this a bit to get the idle and out of idle opening the same. You won't be able to get it spot on and a slightly higher opening at idle is fine. If you can't get them to match and the idle opening is always lower than the out of idle, then that is a sign the R90E is showing signs of age. Going rich at idle, allowing more gas through than is needed, is the first sign. If it opens up at idle, then try screwing the main bias screw out a touch. If you find you can never get the out of idle opening within a sensible range and the idle is still opening up, then open the idle bleed screw a touch. I do mean a touch, it is very sensitive, especially on the newer ones with two 6 mm adjusters.

Finally, when you are happy that it is as good as you are going to get, close the actuator limits down to something sensible, say +-30 at idle and +- 40 at out of idle. If you are lucky, you should be able to get it looking like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6sGp2I9lts which is my 4.0 litre on an identical system.

If the lambda sensor is dead the Millennium will be adjusting the mixture using incorrect information so getting it wrong. The 5-0V Titania sensors used in a GEMS P38 give 5V for a lean mixture and 0V for rich. So if the lambda sensor has died it is giving 0V, the Millennium sees this as a rich mixture so will close the stepper down to make it leaner. That will cause you a problem..... In this case, using your manual valve, get the vaporiser set as above and note the actuator number. Tick the Default Lock box and type that number into the box that appears next to it. Then set the idle and out of idle steps to +-5. That way you will have locked the actuator opening to that fixed opening where the mixture is as close as it is going to be for most of the time.

Backfires are caused by one of two things, either an iffy spark due to a dodgy plug or HT lead or a lean mixture. With your experience with older stuff you must have seen engines spitting back through the carb when the mixture is lean. It's no different except you've got an inlet manifold and plenum chamber full of a combustible fuel/air mixture, hence the big bang as the whole lot ignites. Under the Vehicle Configuration menu you'll see the settings for your car. If you want you can set the Changeover to Alternative Fuel start and then you don't need to go through the switch flipping routine to start on gas. Standard settings are changeover on deceleration at something like 1,200 rpm. That way you just leave the switch in the gas position, start the engine (which will be on petrol), blip the throttle and as the revs drop, it'll changeover. You may find it dies, or tries to die, as it changes over. In which case, increase the Fuel Overlap setting. This increases the delay between turning the gas on and the petrol off (I think mine is set to 1 second). As cold running enrichment is not needed on gas, there is no need to warm up on petrol first, just start and drive (although to prevent the chances of the vaporiser icing up in the first few seconds in the depths of winter, you ideally need the vaporiser plumbed in series with the heater not parallel as many are). I know a 110 Defender owner who's petrol pump died about 4 years ago and he just set it to start on gas and never bothered fitting a new fuel pump. He tells me he'll get round to it one day......
.

You'll need a double garage, you can get a P38 into a single one and you may even be able to get out of the car once it's in, but there's no way you can work on one. A standard sized single garage is just too narrow. I know, I have to do all my work outside in the rain/cold/blazing sunshine (rarely) as the garage is only a single.

When I first looked at my place, I liked the house, I liked the location but the best thing for me that took priority over both those, was the space. I've got 2 P38's, a Maserati Biturbo Spider, another car in the garage, my company car, my wife's car and there's still space for others. At the moment there's also a Bentley Continental GT Speed and there's another one due to arrive at the end of this week.......

To me it looks like your only problem is that someone has sold your house.......

For completeness, only the 4.6 was fitted with a 4 pin rear diff, the diesel and 4 litre only got the 2 pin. But, having just come inside after taking her for a test drive, all I can say is, My God, it's quiet! The nose bearing on the one I took out had a decidedly notchy feel to it but the one I've just fitted turned nice and smoothly. What a difference though. I think all the other work I've done, on the incorrect belief that the rear diff couldn't be the source of the noise as I had only recently changed it, has tightened up everything. I can even hear the V8 rumble from the exhaust when I boot it even with the windows shut. Definitely 2 hours well spent.

For anyone wondering, it is a simple enough job. Sit the rear axle on axle stands and remove the rear wheels. Drain the oil from the axle and disconnect the propshaft from the diff (but it can be left attached at the front and suspended on a bit of string from the exhaust hanger to keep it out of the way). Remove the 6 bolts holding each hub to the axle and pull the hub and halfshaft out by a couple of inches. There's no need to even remove the brake callipers, they can be left in place as there is plenty of slack on the brake hose and ABS sensor wire. Undo the ring of nuts that hold the diff to the axle and pull it out. As Mr Haynes says, refitting is the reverse of the above.

Supernatural would be my guess. My EAS is very well behaved but at very odd times I have noticed it do strange things when parked. I can park up and 99 times out of 100 it stays at whatever height it was running at. A couple of clicks to lower the drivers side to compensate for my weight getting out of that side but that's it. Then on the 1 time in 100, there's lots of clicks and it drops down to motorway height. Maybe yours is just getting dizzy doing those 5 circles on the ramp?

So it's a gecko you use in the Philippines is it? I've got a cousin who lives in Thailand and there they use some sort of flowers to ward off evil spirits. His (Thai) wife insisted that he had his car blessed by the local holy man before she let him use it though so that has probably given it some sort of blanket cover.

The original 300,000 mile rear diff had quite a bit of slop in it but was quiet so I swapped it with the one from the 130,000 mile SE. That stopped the clunk whenever I went from forward to reverse and I expected it to last for at least another 150,000. That is why I was convinced the noise was coming from the front. It's easy enough to tell if one has been changed before because the bead of silicon around the outside is a nice uniform size where it was put on by machine when the diff was assembled compared with it being all irregular where it has been put on by a man with a tube of RTV. So I'm 99% sure the one I took off the SE and fitted had never been changed beforel. Despite filling it with Millers synthetic gear oil, I suspect something isn't right in there.

The whine started off as a standard sounding diff whine but as the speed got up it turned into a howl and peaked at 70mph. I thought it was only audible inside the car until I went through a tunnel with the window open and realised that it sounded like a jet engine from outside! Avenger 4x4 supplied me with a warranted replacement for the grand sum of £60 and as I've got a slack day for work (and it isn't raining), I'll be out there changing it later today.

Wouldn't it be easier to swap the plates on a Monday?

A couple of months ago my car developed what sounded like a whining diff. As I had replaced the rear not that many months previously it couldn't be that so I assumed it was from the front. There was a bit of up and down slop on the input and oil that did resemble metalflake paint so I figured that had to be it. Marty fitted new top and bottom ball joints to a spare front axle he had, I went to his workshop and we fitted that. On the way home it did seem to be much better and the front end felt much more precise so the ball joints had done the job. Over the last few weeks though, the whine still seemed to be there. I wasn't sure if it was me being hyper sensitive to it and do remember my missus once saying that it sounded like a bus and had almost come to the conclusion that it had always been there. The noise always seemed to be coming from the centre of the car. I'd changed the transfer case anyway and that hadn't made any difference so I was starting to suspect something in the gearbox. But dropping it into neutral didn't cause the noise to change and running it through the gears with the transfer box in neutral and it wasn't there.

Yesterday I decided to convince myself once and for all so crawled underneath and dropped the rear propshaft off. Took it for a run down the road and realised that it is most definitely the rear diff. What a difference with no drive through it, near silent just as I remember it! No noticale slop in it at all but something definitely isn't right inside. However, I did come very close to a major disaster. I got home, went to refit the propshaft and found the parking brake drum had almost fallen off. The countersunk screw that holds it in was on the last turn of it's thread and another half mile or so and the drum would have fallen off and shot out from under the car doing who knows what damage on it's way out to freedom. So if you are going to try running with no rear propshaft, make sure you put at least one of the nuts onto a stud to hold it in place.

A visit to Avenger 4x4 to pick up a replacement rear diff would seem to be my first call tomorrow. Unlike the front, the rear is a piece of piss to change......

I have to drive a tin can Renault Kangoo van for work, although tin can is perhaps the wrong description as it seems to have a fair amount of plastic in it too, but getting out of that after another 200 mile round trip in a day and getting into the P38 makes it all seem worth while. OK, so mine has the basic plod spec cloth interior and is devoid of things like cruise control but she fires up first time every time, rises up if she's been left more than 5 days (as it takes that long before it even drops a millimetre) and just does what she should. I've currently got a 2014 Bentley Continental GT Speed to play with but after a 50 mile round trip in the luxurious leather interior and testing the quoted 0-100 mph in 9 seconds a couple of times, it started to feel quite ordinary in comparison. There is just something about a P38 that cannot be described.

Yes, RAVE doesn't even mention it. I assume that a main dealer, who RAVE is aimed at after all, would just fit a new steering box. If you have an assistant to rock the steering wheel from side to side to show any play, then you will be able to see if it is in the box or the joints on the lower column.

There isn't anywhere brake fluid can go other than fall out onto the floor. As far as I know it can't leak inside the modulator and, unlike a conventional servo system, you don't have a vacuum hose to the inlet for it to be sucked in there. There's a couple of short metal pipes on either side at the rear, one on each side, that are tucked away and do rust. Mine has also had the main pipe from front to rear replaced with copper/nickel at some point so that could be leaking somewhere along it's length.

The level is going to drop slightly as the pads wear and the caliper pistons move out but that would only move the level from max to min even going from a complete set of brand new pads to almost worn out. It shouldn't need to be constantly topped up.

No doubt Bolt will be able to explain exactly why but I suspect the battery suffers in the heat (just like we do). Actually, it makes sense. When it's really hot we feel like we have no energy so why should the battery be any different?

Yes, done mine as it had a bit of play at the straight ahead point. You need to be very gentle with it, I put a blob of white paint on the edge of the adjuster so I could see how much I'd moved it by. 1/8th of a turn at a time and if you tighten it too much, it gives an 'interesting' feel to the steering. When tightening the locknut, use a ring spanner so you can hold the adjuster in one place.

I actually asked one of the girls in the hotel I stayed at (after I greeted her with a Bonjour and she then replied in something resembling French that I couldn't understand) and she explained that French had arrived in Canada with settlers from France. Over the last 400 or so years the language has evolved just the same as French spoken in France has evolved. 400 years ago it was the same language but they've just evolved in different ways. Made sense to me.

Bolt wrote:

Now, there is a very angry ex pat Brit in Wa state who does seem a wee bit peeved at all of the Z Plate registration folks out there........

Who would that be? You're not going to let on that RRTH is an ex-pat surely? He must have had the full frontal lobotomy at US immigration......

We get it to a certain degree over here with Londoners. It may be because it can take them 2 hours to drive from one side of London to the other or anywhere you can't get to on the London Underground is a foreign country but they think the world stops outside of London. For 3 years I drove into London every day, 84 miles each way, all motorway, and it I could do it in under an hour and a half. Yet Londoners would look at a map, see how far away somewhere was and wouldn't even consider travelling that sort of distance. Many years ago I used to run a car owners club and we had a meeting every couple of months somewhere in the country. As we couldn't find anywhere suitable in London we arranged one in Windsor. Now it's only 20 or so miles outside of London yet no London based members turned up. A week later I got a phone call from a London member who asked when the next London meeting would be and I told him he'd just missed it. Oh no, that was in Windsor, when's the next one in London? He couldn't comprehend that for me to get there I'd driven to London, gone around the outside and then out to Windsor. Surely, you'd need a couple of overnight stops for a journey like that?

Anyway Tom, we'll accept you as an honorary Brit. You're travelling around the British colonies in a British built boat after all.......

I have nothing against Canadians at all, I spent an extremely enjoyable week in Montreal a couple of years ago. Amazing place and people although I must admit it did seem a little strange at first. It looked like I was in the US but everyone spoke French. Now I go to France about 8 times a year and have a reasonable grasp of the language but listening to someone speaking what is obviously French but being unable to understand a word of it seemed very odd. The thing that amused me most was that in France a stop sign says STOP, in Montreal a stop sign says ARRET.

Driving there was interesting too. I've never come across such a polite bunch of drivers anywhere in the world. The way everyone stops at a crossroads and takes it in turns to move, anywhere else in the world they'd all try to go at once and end up in a big, mangled heap in the middle.

I also heard that the biggest insult you can give to a Canadian is to call them American........

He's moved from Dubai so I suspect it was to keep all the cool air from the AC inside rather than keep filing the car with stupidly hot air from outside. Most of us need to do it the opposite way, to keep the hot air inside.

Very true. Problem I have at the moment is that it switches off at 8:30 because I would normally go to work at around 9:00 but I'm working from home today.....

Doesn't work when I've got two cars outside that have things I want to do on them, it's down to about 3 degrees and the front of my house faces North so doesn't even get any sun on it. Doing fiddly things in woolly gloves is a bit difficult.