If that's an after and before pick she looks a lot better before lol.

dave3d wrote:

Holland seems to be the place where old hybrids go to die. I looked at Volvo bits for mine just as a matter of interest and there were loads of Dutch breakers.

That's interesting, mind you the thought occurs that if it were easy to sell an EV converted classic for £245k it would be worth buying a brand new EV, perhaps even a Tesla, to remove it's drivetrain to fit in the classic!

I also don't see the market for a £245k EV converted classic rangerover but would expect the firm making them to know their market... I expect the 50 classic rangerovers will end up being shipped all over the world?

Someone clear this up for me - Is it usually classic cars that are converted to EVs because converting an older car avoids having to type test the results? Or why not an EV L322 etc?

Prompted me to look at parts (batteries, drive units, etc) from breaking EVs on Ebay... Seems sellers expect top prices for parts and it would be difficult to buy a complete smashed up EV. These firms that convert classic cars to EV must have some sort of arrangement with insurance companies to get first shot at buying a smashed up EV? I'd be up for doing EV conversions if parts were available at reasonable cost, there seems to be a market for it.

Quoted from the link

Lunaz announced it was to produce classic electric Range Rovers - with prices starting at £245,000.
The company, based in Silverstone, Northamptonshire, is creating an initial run of 50 of the luxury SUVs built in the ‘classic era’ between 1970 and 1994.

£245000 lol.. but they expect 50 buyers at least and I'd bet they get them, crazy though.

I put a lot of work off on my own cars due to working on customers cars but there are limits to what I'd put off hehe! Would definitely sort this kind of problem pronto... and know not to drive it in the meantime.

Just a quick post..

I LPG converted an early L322 with BMW 4.4 for a guy from the other side of Barnsley from me (over 10 miles away) around 8 years ago, the same owner phoned me a couple of days ago to say it had started losing a lot of water and could I have a look at it please, asked me to give him a call when I had a bit of time. So today I phoned him and he drove over 10 miles to see me, in the last couple of days he's also been using it on the motorway..

As soon as he pulled up I saw loads of steam coming from under the bonnet. Pulled the bonnet and saw the steam was coming from the back of the engine. Removed the engine cover and removed the middle/heater air filter panel on the bulkhead for visibility and access (he's an ex mechanic who now works for a firm that supplies HGV bits but he'd never had the engine cover off and didn't know the middle panel could be removed).

I found a coolant T (for the LPG reducer) had snapped, there was hardly any coolant left in the engine at all. After leaving the engine to cool for some time and after I'd fitted a new T and put the middle panel and engine cover back on I put some antifreeze and water in it and it ran absolutely fine.

He said he has been topping the water up at home and at work but I'm very surprised the engine was still running and wasn't cooked, especially as he'd been on the motorway with it etc, it must have quickly pumped all it's coolant out due to the severity of the leak.

Even a sports car won't go as fast if when it hits a bump it bounces across the road...

Reminds me of boy racers who lower their cars then have to drive slower than ever over speed bumps otherwise they'll lose their bumper / exhaust lol. Similar story for them with firmer shocks, they might do marginally better on a smooth race-track with firmer shocks but unless they're Colin McCrae re-incarnate they'll probably go slower on potholed roads. Had a boy racer go past me on the motorway the other day, exhaust drone must have been annoying, it also showed off the fact he only had a 4 pot engine under the bonnet.

Some or all super unleaded will still be neat or E5 though, no worries if running on LPG just use the more expensive E5 for the bit of petrol we use?

I'm sorry for going off topic at the start but I continued to post because Mace said he'd found a problem with his CKP signal in the same way I had on a different model vehicle. I didn't want to take the topic completely off track but as an aside I thought at least you, Mace and I were interested in this.

I see what you mean.. If the object is to look for the 6v pulse which is a position reference point (for say TDC), the 4v pulses from other teeth (even though intended and necessary signals) could be considered noise - and you're saying it is the convention to consider the 4v signals noise even though they're intended and necessary? Fair enough. But you'll understand other people thinking that in the wider context the 4v pulses from the other teeth are not just base/background noise because they are intended and necessary, the engine wouldn't run properly without them?

Are the pulses from your reluctance sensors always 4v for teeth that are close together and 6v for the gap or do these voltages change with engine RPM (frequency)?

Are we correct in thinking that the 6v pulse is bigger than the other 4v pulses because of the wider gap between teeth, or is something else making the pulse from the bigger gap higher voltage than other pulses that are closer together (I would think it's due to the wider gap)?

Are you implying that the ECU looks for the higher voltage pulse to detect the (say TDC) engine position or would you say the ECU is looking for the missing tooth/pulse to detect TDC (I would think it's looking for the missing pulse)?

If the ECU detects the (say TDC) position by the missing pulse (and especially if voltages of pulses change with RPM) I still don't understand why you reckon the 4v teeth signals should be considered noise that might detract from the ECU's ability to properly detect the (say TDC) engine position?

Apologies to Mace again for keeping this up. Dave I'm not wanting to argue, I want to understand.

davew wrote:

I see you are in one of your overly-pedantic moods (again) Lpgc !

"Ah, I see where you misunderstood: In this particular context of course the 'base noise' is (using your choice of voltage) the 4V signal and the Timing reference signal is the 6V spike (triggering a positive spike on the trailing edge before the gap and a negative on the leading edge of the next tooth in the PICO/Jag scope illustration I posted). "

Happier now Lpgc ? I also note I wrote 'ECM' instead of 'ETM'..... although at least I tried to stay on the Reluctance/P38 topic !!
Again the main point is a Basic Coil, as we use for CKP, is really not ideal

Incidentally within RF/AC descriptions where there is a constant background signal it is totally valid/conventional to describe this as "base noise" and any 'event' occurring during that is the signal (of interest). Pedants may not agree with this entirely of course....

Not being over pedantic Dave, just interested what those 4v spikes were. If they're noise fair enough but Gilbert's said the reluctor ring has multiple teeth besides the gap for TDC, could those 4v spikes be the other teeth? And if they are they're not background noise....

davew wrote:

Ah, I see where you misunderstood: In this particular context of course the 'base noise' is (using your choice of voltage) the 4V signal and the Timing reference signal is the 6V spike (triggering a positive on the leading edge and a negative on the trailing edge of the tooth in the PICO/Jag scope illustration I posted).

The main point again though is that we are just dealing with a few volts (AC) here between 'states' (ie. between tooth/no tooth/ or even double tooth..) and this can be very easily disrupted, particularly by the tooth-sensor 'air gap'; It makes more sense if/when you see a faulty P38 CKP signal in practice... I have (had ?) a photo of this -somewhere- posted up years ago on RRsnet, via a storage scope IIRC (along with the ECM illustration,) but I am not going to try to search for it on there thanks to their almost-useless 'search facility' !

If you do scope it mace take a photo ....

Not sure if your sensors work on starter motor teeth or on separate (for purpose) position sensing teeth? As I looked at it each 4v spike is signal from an individual tooth and I might assume the higher 6v spike after a position sensing gap is due to something related to magnetic flux causing a higher voltage pulse after a long period of no pulse but I'm no expert in the way these sensors work. Surely though the 4v spikes are not noise?

Like Mace I don't see much noise on your scope trace though Davew?

davew wrote:

The Crank Sensor is just a basic coil, and there is precious little attempt to clean up the output

I was talking another make/model vehicle

The signal still looks very square even with the scope set on a faster time base but I didn't take any pics on faster time bases.

The engine symptoms (sudden multiple cylinder misfires) and rev counter reading fluctuation (also rpm reading in OBD live data) occurred simultaneously with the double width pulse, no double width pulse no symptoms, no symptoms no double width pulse. Tried with several different crank sensors fitted the results always the same. The fault and symptoms mostly occurred with pinj>9ms (> around 0.8bar map) and rpm > around 2K but it also sometimes displayed symptoms of poor starting.

mace wrote:

Interestingly enough, I hooked my scope up to my crank sensor a week or two ago, trying to find a reason for slightly lumpy running. Noticed that most of the signal spikes were the same amplitude, but three or four of them were higher. Took the cover off and very subtly tweaked a couple of teeth which weren't bang on parallel, and it made a big difference to the running. Bizarre, but hey.

My best guess is that the ECU looks for a voltage increase above a threshold, and the faster ramp time on the big pulses was causing it to fire ever so slightly early.

I should have mentioned that I tried a couple of replacement crank sensors before reaching the conclusion.
The output from these crank sensors always give pulses of the same amplitude and the connecting wire to the ECU isn't a shielded wire, I expect the crank sensor on this vehicle contains electronics that clean up / filter the signal and always output the same amplitude pulse. There are 30 grooves on the flex plate for the crank sensor to pick up on (the crank sensor doesn't use ring gear teeth) set in 3 groups of 10, each group separated by a long uncut section. I expect that if the crank sensor misses a groove (due to seeing a double width pulse) it will count 9 pulses (instead of 10) in quick succession and then interpret the longer pause (due to the uncut section) before seeing a 10th pulse as a sudden drop in engine rpm, the rev counter and OBD readings certainly seemed to agree with this. Looking through the crank sensor hole I rotated the engine looking for any scars / debris / dirt, I did find some seemingly magnetic particles stuck to the flex plate and removed them, don't know if these came from a failed previous crank sensor or from the starter motor, same problem remained after I'd cleaned the flex plate best I could anyway. I got someone to crank the engine while I watched the flex plate, there was a little bit of run-out as it turned but I didn't think it excessive or enough to cause the problems. I considered trying to use a de-gauzing wand on the flex plate but working through the small hole the crank sensor uses I doubt I could have got in with a de-gauzing wand even if I could find one (probably last saw one my dad owned for tape recorder heads around 40 years ago lol) and if I'd have got it wrong with the de-gauzing wand could have created even more problems. Using my scope (and it's limited capabilities including it's low resolution small screen) I could only accurately see around 180 degrees of engine rotation at around 2000rpm but I ran the same tests many times and the double width pulse and engine symptoms only ever occurred simultaneously.

While I've been typing this the owner has txted me to say he's been to the specialist vehicle dismantler who has spent 6 hours changing crank and cam sensor looms and 'running various other diagnostics'. I asked if he'd used a scope to check the crank sensor pulses...No he didn't. He doubts the flex plate or crank float is the problem (even though he hasn't checked the long pulse) and suggests changing the main loom for £400. The owner asked me if I wanted to buy the car, er no thanks! I reckon I could fix it by changing the engine (and making sure the replacement engine comes with a flex plate) but I don't want to change another engine. On this model car it's almost just as easy to change the engine if the gearbox has to come off so I wouldn't just change the flex plate while I had it in bits I'd change the engine to rule out crank float and bearings at the same time as flex plate.

Morat wrote:

Well, it's about time I came over for an LPG service on the P38 if you want to hook up diagnostics to it while I'm there - no worries.
How are you fixed?

Hi Miles!

A busy week next week but may be able to do Friday 19th if we could play that one by ear... Could do Fri 26th for sure, may be able to do an earlier day that week too. Any problems with it? Yes we can try the Launch on it if you don't mind.

Hope this isn't too far off-subject...

I recently bought an Launch X431 Diagun 5, it will do OBD2 and OBD1 stuff on a wide range of vehicles and communicate not just with the engine ECU but also with other ECU modules. I had a P38 here for LPG diagnostics repair only yesterday but didn't really have an excuse to connect the Launch because I diagnosed and fixed the LPG problem in no time but I'd have liked to have tried the Launch on the P38 to find it's capabilities on the P38, I doubt it will feature as much on a P38 as a Nanocam but it would be nice to know if it could do suspension level sensor learns etc. The 'fix' to get the LPG working again on this P38 turned out to be to open the manual shut-off valve on the old Ikom 30 degree tank (old enough to have a 12mm copper fill pipe) lol. But as soon as it pulled up I told the owner he probably had a knacked lambda sensor, I could smell the exhaust running rich. Turned out these 2 young lads run a P38 dismantlers/scrapyard and were already aware their P38 needed a lambda probe. I told them it was needed on bank2 and advised them to join this forum - could be good news for some of you too if they do join up (since they run a scrapyard for P38's).

On another make/model vehicle I recently attempted diagnosis of an intermittent misfire accompanied with error codes pointing to the crank sensor and sometimes cam sensors, the same codes occurred even with the cam sensors ruled out (running the engine in group injection mode with cam sensors unplugged a fault still occurred pointing to the crank sensor and the revcounter reading that is crank sensor driven fluctuated when the fault was occurring). Using my cheap digital oscilloscope I diagnosed this problem as one of a knacked flex plate, something related to massive crank thrust bearing problem or knacked rear main crank bearing... because when the fault occurred the crank sensor signal connected directly to the scope showed an occasional double width pulse (the flex plate teeth seemed in good order and the same results were repeatable with several different crank sensors). This conclusion seems a little far fetched even to me (I made the conclusion) but when you've ruled out everything else the remaining possibility(s) must be true and I can think of nothing else that could be true in this situation. The car has since been to another 'specialist' (vehicle dismantler rather than diagnostics master in reality) whom, like me, at first suspected a dodgy engine ECU. He swapped and recoded a replacement ECU but the problem remained. The same car will be going back to the scrapman in a few weeks and I'm quite certain that this specialist won't be connecting an oscilloscope... But I do expect he could fix the problem by fitting a replacement engine along with it's flex plate and he has easy opportunity to do that because he has plenty engines lying around. If he ends up fitting a replacement engine I reckon that either the flex plate will be the fix or the engine without mega excessive crank end float would be the fix... and I expect my unusual diagnosis conclusion to be correct.

I remember watching 'tomorrows world' on TV as a kid when the toilet roll oil filter would supposedly mean very clean engine oil for very high mileages between changes... but didn't mention the breakdown or use-up of additives in the oil during that time. Which is why I expect it never became popular and people still needed to do regular oil changes (additives and detergents). Still I don't worry about cleanliness of oil, running on LPG sees to it that oil remains much cleaner than running on petrol and especially cleaner than running on diesel. ;-)

Can do maybe 3 times the mileage for same oil colour change on LPG versus petrol, probably less important regards detergents etc. But not much will protect against ground off metal bits found in a filter except perhaps good engine design.

I'm surprised modern engines don't have a supplemental electric oil pump fitted to build oil pressure before the mechanical pump kicks in with the engine running... The electric pump could run from turning on the ignition through cranking the engine until rpm is well above cranking speed.

On vehicles where the oil filter isn't orientated with the fitting at the top I've often wondered if changing the filter if not needed does more harm than good... The old filter might have still been doing it's job properly, a new filter will take a short time to bleed up during which time the engine runs without oil pressure.

Still like most other people I change the oil filter with every oil change.

Can understand that a used oil filter might be more effective at filtering than a new filter... but maybe not if the same total amount of oil flow is squeezed through parts of filter that are less blocked than the more effective (at filtering) parts - maybe in this case some parts of the filter are effectively blocked to flow and there will be more pressure difference between none blocked parts and open parts so more crap can get through.

I don't do much general servicing (oil changes etc) on customer cars but when I have done them I've found that the most common types to have collapsed screens are the standalone (none cartridge) type as fitted on BMW's, Mercs and (particularly) Vauxhalls. These are normally very easy to access but probably because they can get very tight to remove and because the housing is plastic (an owner can't just knock a screwdriver through the side to use as a lever without breaking the housing) they often go unchanged for years.

In my post #625 above I should have written 'stops until cranking but obviously pumps during cranking'.

You can't force start most BRC gas systems on gas.

I don't think the potential for a leaking LPG injector or reducer has been mentioned? Run on gas and the gas system gets pressurised, turn the engine off and gas leaks into the manifold, try to start the engine and the engine gets petrol and gas instead of petrol and air until there's been enough cranking to pump the gas out of the manifold but by which point the plugs might then be wet with petrol.

At least worth ruling this out by driving on petrol for an hour before turning the engine off so if there is such leak gas will have been used with the engine running rather than displace air in the plenum?

Others will know better than me but iIrc the pump doesn't work on these until cranking, either that or it runs for a couple of seconds in pos2 then stops until cranking. 17 Seconds after stalling is probably about right?

A lot of engines give a really long 1 or 2 petrol injector pulses immediately on turning to the cranking position before reverting to normal pulse lengths for cranking which may be temperature dependent.