Are they nylon the same as the P38 EAS pipes? Could you buy a length of this https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/air-hoses/4834970, tape the end of the new one to the old one and pull the old one out and the new one in?
nigelbb wrote:
If we were to move & the new property had an existing LPG tank I wonder if we would be able to utilise it?
I don't know if tanks come with a blanked off bottom take off or if you would need a specific tank but yes, you would need a pump to transfer it to a car.
BTW I assume that using 47KG bottles or an LPG bulk tank we should really be paying 28.88p per kilogram fuel duty.
Strictly speaking, yes you should declare what you put in your car to HMRC and pay the fuel duty and quite possibly the difference in VAT too as domestic fuel is 5% VAT rated (so that is what you would pay your supplier) but road fuel is taxed at the 20% rate. That is one of my arguments against EVs, anyone that charges at home is using electricity intended for domestic heating and cooking so only has 5% VAT on it and no road fuel duty. Charging at a public charge point and it has 20% VAT on it.
It is but the rules are pretty strict as it needs to be a certain distance from the house and the boundaries and then it needs to have a bottom (liquid) take off too. So most people's houses aren't really suitable unless they have a huge garden. As for prices I can't find any of the suppliers that quote a price online, they all want you to enquire for a quote, but this thread from earlier in the year suggests around 50-65p per litre https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=207&t=2068231.
That would be a good call, even paying the MFG ripoff price at Morrisons for half a tankful would get you through the MoT.
I've got a Flogas depot that is nearer to me than anywhere else and they are selling at 90p per litre. As they are only open Mon-Fri office hours no good at weekends so I, along with multiple others in the area, will fill up on a Friday. There's a few others at anything from 81.9 (Milton Keynes) up to numerous places at £1.10 which, while expensive, is still cheaper than Morrisons now so if I need LPG at a weekend I'll use one of them and bung in enough to last me until Monday.
Even if the savings aren't enough to make it cheaper than petrol, I'll still run on LPG. That is what I attribute to the longevity of my engine (now at 523,000) and the recently purchased red one still runs like a dog on petrol but perfectly on LPG.
Ahh, there's the difference. I NEVER re-use the ferrules. They are so cheap it isn't worth making up new pipes and using old ferrules that are going to be less than perfect. Then a good dollop of grease on them to stop damp from ever being able to get to the threads.
davew wrote:
On a more serious note even just turning the fitting slightly with a vice grip - maybe half a turn - causes the fitting to leak and brake fluid is a
penetrating oil.
If you can undo it half a turn, its undone so you don't have a problem.....
Yes it does but it shouldn't allow the evaporator to go much below zero or ice will form on the outside of it which could potentially damage it. I'll have to wait until we get a frost, which if last winter is anything to go by, might be one day sometime in February, and see what temperatures are shown then. Don't have any plans to go to the In-Laws in Latvia this winter so can't test it in really low temperatures. I know you get cold weather in Canada, do you have a Nanocom to check yours out of interest?
Not today but over the last couple of weeks. Back in August I replaced the AC evaporator and all appeared well, but it wasn't..... Now I install domestic AC systems and to be qualified to do that did a full F-Gas course which includes how a system works. A mate did the cut down automotive course which tells you how to do it but not the finer points of why you are doing what you are doing. He gassed it and the pressures didn't look right. If a system is working correctly, it should have shown around 150 psi on the high pressure side and 50 ish on the low side but it was showing low on both sides (like 95 and 15 psi). Normally that would suggest a low charge but as we had just put the correct 1250g of R134A into it, we knew that wasn't the problem. But it was working so leave well alone.
Only it wasn't working, or at least not as it should. After it had been run for 15-20 minutes, the book appeared on the HEVAC and it refused to engage the compressor. Leave it for a few minutes then start it up again and it worked but the low side pipe (the thick one) was covered in ice. It should be cold, but not that cold. Not only that but the compressor seemed to be running all the time. Consulting the course notes this suggested a restriction somewhere. As it is always advised that the receiver dryer should be replaced if the system has been open to the atmosphere or the desiccant will solidify, decided that must be the problem. Both of us missed the obvious in this diagnosis, the dryer is on the high side so a restriction there would affect high side pressure not low side.....
Ordered a receiver dryer, the gas was recovered, and fitted it. Regassed it and it was even worse! Now the high side pressure was still just under 100 psi but the low side, the suction side, was going minus down into a vacuum.
That would suggest a problem with the expansion valve or evaporator. The replacement evaporator had come complete with expansion valve but, due to getting at it being a bit awkward (up against the bulkhead behind the throttle linkage) I'd managed to cross thread the bolt that secures the clamp that holds the pipes on and buggered the thread so had taken the expansion valve off my original evaporator and used that. That had been working perfectly before so it couldn't be that which only left my replacement evaporator. Not wishing to dismantle the dash again, I bought some AC Flush, a cleaning fluid with so many hazard warnings on the container the label is only just big enough for them all. Disconnected the pipes and noticed this.....
So it appears that my receiver dryer really had been shot and the desiccant had been escaping. Cleaned it out, pumped the fluid through the evaporator. A couple of bits of dirt came out along with a lot of green dye and it seemed clear so, after removing the high side (thin) pipe and blowing it clear, put it all back together again. Mate turned up, regassed it, and the pressures were still low so that only left the expansion valve and we figured it must have been damaged by being hit by lumps of desiccant with 100psi behind them. Gas was pumped out yet again and the AC Off button left switched on. A Britpart expansion valve is £65 but a pattern part from an AC specialist company ( https://www.autoairconparts.co.uk/ ) did one for £25, so ordered that. That arrived the next day so took the pipes off again (at this rate I should be able to whistle and they will jump off on their own!), removed the expansion valve, fitted the new one and put it back together yet again. Went over to my mates place and we gassed it for the umpteenth time. This time the pressures were spot on, air at around 4 degrees was coming out of the vents and the Nanocom showed an evaporator temperature varying between 0 and 6 degrees.
The way it works is that if the evaporator temperature is above about 2 degrees, the HEVAC engages the compressor clutch. When it gets down to 0 degrees the clutch disengages and it starts to warm up from the air being drawn through it but as soon as it hits around 6 degrees, the clutch comes in again to bring it down. It does this ALL THE TIME, even if you set the desired temperature to Hi. The AC still works to dehumidify the air and the temperature of the air coming out of the vents is controlled by the blend motors directing air through or around the heater matrix. I suspect the only time the AC doesn't kick in would be if the temperature of the air being drawn in from outside is below zero. So, as well as reminding me of stuff I learnt when I did the course, I've learnt more about how the HEVAC system on a P38 works.
If all else fails, blue spanner, they can't fight back when they are liquid......
The Dunlop branded one is cheaper in the UK while the Thomas is more expensive, so it will depend on where in the world you are which is cheaper.
If you look at the diagram in RAVE (or the EAS SID), for the reservoir to drain it also needs NRV1 to be leaking.
That's worth a try. My method when they have been rounded off by someone using an open ended spanner, is to cut the pipe off (as it is going to be replaced anyway) and use an Irwin tapered socket, with lots of Plus Gas too. If that fails, take the calliper off, put the remains of the ferrule in the bench vice and unscrew the calliper from the ferrule rather than the other way round.
I was given a valve block that had been rebuilt but still leaked out of the exhaust silencer. Turned out that the diaphragm was fractionally thinner than another (worn) one that I had laying around. Replaced it again with a different one and all was fine.
It's a bit weird, brake pipes are always 4.75mm or 3/16th inch no matter what the car is even though the ferrules can be either Imperial (on older UK or US built cars) or metric M10x1mm (rather than the 1.5mm thread pitch for a standard M10 thread).
The other advantage with the second type is that they will do steel pipes far easier than the first type. I've got one of the first type, in fact I've got 3 for some reason, and when I wanted to replace just one end of a pipe on my son-in-law's Toyota, it really struggled to put a flare on a steel pipe. The pipe was plastic coated along its length except right at the end where it had rusted and ran the full length of the car so just cutting it and putting an inline join in was far easier than trying to feed a pipe along the full length, much like the ones that run over the fuel tank on a P38.
A flare tool that can do a double flare, something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silverline-633545-Pipe-Flaring-9-Piece/dp/B000LFXPQ0/ref=sr_1_26 or https://www.amazon.co.uk/Double-Flaring-BOROCO-Degree-Automotive/dp/B0B56PCDXG/ref=sr_1_47, some standard brake pipe size 4.75mm or 3/16" Kunifer copper/nickel or copper pipe and some M10 fittings. If using Kunifer or copper, there's no need for a bending spring or pipe bender as it is soft enough to bend by hand.
Not quite, that is my white one parked behind Nigel's Alveston Red P38 and not Dina's Rioja Red one. Taking two cars on a 3,100 mile trip around France, Andorra, Spain, back into France and the onto Italy would have been a bit pointless, not to mention bloody expensive in fuel (even with LPG at 0.67 Euros a litre as it was in Italy).
Thanks for the invite and coffee Nigel, a beautiful little place you've got there.
mad-as wrote:
hay Richard upgrade the valve grinding tool , use the cordless drill and save yourself the blisters. works a treat
I used the drill initially with the coarse paste but then went back to traditional methods to finish off with fine.
davew wrote:
Think you misunderstood my 'CV boots quote' comments above Richard, in that the garage in question just went for the 'highest-cost-possible' option - regardless of the actual physical efforts/time involved (or really needed).
What a lot of workshops will do is charge the customer retail price for the parts when they aren't paying retail so on top of the labour charges they make a profit on the parts too. As there's more profit on a complete driveshaft than on a boot kit, that is their preferred option. That applies to many businesses and not just garage services. I install domestic AC systems, get a substantial trade discount on buying the units and that is the cost I pass on to the customer but I have been shown a quote from another company who quoted retail on the units, plus sundries, plus installation and a further charge for the commissioning and certification. I charge cost for the units, plus sundries and installation but as the commissioning is simply the last part of the installation, that is included. It may be that the other company has only one person qualified to do the commissioning so they use labourers to do the installation and the main man just turns up at the end to do his bit but it still seems dangerously close to fraud to me.
The costs for work on classics vary even more of course: Generally 'specialists' want to offer £££ full restorations, 'Car SOS' style (?)
Others it seems will simply 'quote high' because they don't want the work either - as it is just not as lucrative for them as a modern car ....
A 'proper, old school' mechanic will prefer to work on older cars, modern ones being that more complex and requiring expensive diagnostics (the all vehicle Snap On unit is £4k per year) but the old school mechanics are a dying breed, most these days are referred to as Technicians and are nothing more than parts fitters. Sounds like you need to bring your car up to my mates workshop when you need work doing (although I suspect as soon as you mention P38, he'll be on the phone to me asking if I fancy giving him a hand.....).
My neighbour recently retired as workshop manager for a Land Rover dealer. He saw me using the rubber sucker on a stick method of grinding the valves in on a boat engine I was rebuilding and asked if he could borrow it. Took it into work the next day and asked the mechanics if they knew what it was and what it was used for. Not one of them did.
I'd disagree there, you can buy CV joint boots separately but as most places are staffed by parts fitters rather than mechanics, they would rather remove a driveshaft and fit a new one than remove a driveshaft, replace the boot and refit it. I've been in my mates workshop when he has done just that. He's even got a tool with conical 'fingers' to stretch the new boot over the joint. Maybe 15 minutes extra labour cost so adding £15, and a fiver for a boot, to the total bill but saving the cost of the driveshaft. Split boots are a waste of time, effort and money, I'd never use them and I know for a fact my mate wouldn't.
That type of quote is a cop out. Any half decent workshop will have the Autodata, or similar, system. You put in the details of the car and what job you are going to be doing. It then gives you the time it should take a competent mechanic. On every job my mate does, his office assistant (his missus) calls the parts supplier to get the price for parts, add on the labour for the book time their system says it should take and they will quote a customer an exact price. For example, someone I used to work with has recently moved to my area and mentioned that his VW Scirroco was due a cambelt change but didn't know where to go. From his registration number, they checked the parts prices and labour so I was able to go back to him and tell him £488.49. Not about or roughly, but that is the exact price he was charged. Elsewhere he had been told it would be about £550-600, which, as he said, would almost certainly be £650 when the time came.