Great write-up!

That's what I would have presumed thanks Bri.

Gilbertd wrote:

They'd need a good excuse because you don't fall under the distance selling regs.

Thanks for that. What about 'cool-off period' ?

My mate in Liverpool deals in used motorhomes now, in the past he's been a used car dealer. In both cases he's had people buy one but come back just before a couple of weeks are up saying they want their money back having put over a 1000 miles on the clock. He told them he'd charge them a rental and cleaning fee, in some cases this has led to solicitors exchanging letters but as far as I know he came out on top.

I've never had it but I wonder how I would fare if I converted a vehicle to LPG for someone and a couple of weeks later they returned and asked for the system to be removed and their money back - I imagine I could charge them for the labour but have to refund the cost of components?

75 Litres is 16.48 gallons.

185 miles from 16.48 gallons is 11.23 mpg. Which could be right if driving is around the doors, or would be low for a 60mph constant steady cruise on the motorway.

Mpg much depends on the driving conditions. If you're stuck in a long traffic jam and leave the engine running the whole time you could achieve 0 mpg, if you drive at 120mph you might get 4mpg.

My first thoughts were along the lines of flaps like Brian said in post #2. I'm not familiar with heater box design on P38's but if flaps move sideways and have become free to swing (actuator broke or something) it would be easy to imagine turning causing them to swing sideways.

I have known heaters get hotter/colder when turning, going uphill/downhill or with changing engine rpm due to water flow aspects but usually when there's a problem with water flow or just not enough water in the system.

It runs on LPG so will have an LPG pressure reducer plumbed into the heater system. I've known cases where reducers have been plumbed in parallel and most water has gone through the reducer at the expense of flow through the matrix in some conditions but centrifugal force during turning can change the dynamics and pushed more hot water through the matrix. Or plumbed in series and overall flow has been restricted but centrifugal force has caused more overall water flow perhaps by seeing the reducer (if fitted at a high point) is more fully bled up.

Although the problem is described as occurring when the heater is being used, if AC is on it could be due to something that causes the AC clutch to disengage when turning right.

Cornering might imply body roll and/or a change in engine rpm.

Wouldn't want to go far and it completely break. If you're not going out much due to lockdown it could be the ideal time to arrange a date with insurance windscreen fitters, they might not be as busy as usual due to people not using their cars so much, or if they're busy (maybe they get busier with cracked screens this weather) and mess you about changing the date of an appointment you won't mind so much if you don't have any plans anyway due to lockdown. Any down sides to fitting a windscreen in cold damp conditions? If it's not an inconvenience it's a bonus... new completely pit free screen with fully working electric heating.

Would it help to take the plugs out? Thinking it will crank faster so oil light will go out quicker while there won't be as much weight on bearings in case there is no oil pressure.

A mate used to have a race spec engine from a 70's 3L Capri in a mk2 Escort, it had a manual oil pump he'd pump a few times before starting the engine. Could anything like that be plumbed to the oil pressure sensor port to get oil around the engine and speed up the time it takes for the oil light to go out next time you time cranking?

I used to rebuild my own alternators, there was a local firm called Start & Charge in Grimethorpe. He kept all the brushes and bearings in stock, if you turned up with your alternator would identify which bits you needed, sell you the bits for a couple of quid and tell you how to do the job. Don't know if they're still there.

Some will have heard my story about having an alternator fail on a bank holiday weekend when me and my son decided to go and explore Scotland? No chance I could get the alternator fixed or a replacement on the bank holiday and I knew I could fix it for a couple of quid back home... so I bought a generator, wired it's 12v output to a cig lighter socket and drove all the way home with the genny powering the car electrics, no heater or radio and only sidelights on.

Gilbertd wrote:

It's looking more like the figure given by OBD2 standard and displayed by the Nano, is calculated differently to how Land Rover calculate it.

I wouldn't be surprised at that. What diagnostic gear do Landrover use?

You'll have to remind me if this is Bosch or Gems, I probably don't fully remember intake ducting arrangement for Gems but all air including IAV passes through the MAF on Bosch(?) and I seem to remember (though now expect to be corrected) it does on Gems? Gas entering downstream from the MAF is still gas, doesn't detract from the air the engine needs.

On quite a few P38 LPG conversions, and in fact on quite a lot of other vehicles too, I have seen engine load decrease at idle running on LPG compared to petrol. Some of this can I'm sure often be attributed to new LPG injectors supplying more equal cylinder to cylinder mixture than old/worn petrol injectors but I think there's a bit more in it than that because the same happens on some engines even with petrol injectors known to flow exactly the same - I believe it's related to the difference in stochiometric ratio. Another advantage (in some cases) of a mixer over injection is that if there's any difference in airflow cylinder to cylinder (which can effect cylinder to cylinder mixture in the same way as worn injector flow rates) a mixer will see that each cylinder gets the same/correct mixture anyway.

Most metric live data readings use grams per second as the unit of measurement for airflow, 18Kg/hr equates to 5 grams per second which seems about right for a 4L engine.

Maybe if you lightly touch the throttle in D the load reading will increase, or maybe it will see you're on the throttle and load reading will change to an 'out of idle mode' (my term hehe).

For most intents and purposes P is the same as N except P brings in the parking pawl, same load on the engine anyway. But maybe passing R causes a momentary ignition timing retard that could see the load reading blip positive a little (idle is less efficient with retarded timing but could make for less harsh gear selection)?

For sure the engine isn't running at 28% of power producing or airflow/fuel using potential when it's just idling even in D with AC on and the alternator causing maximum drag. Doubt a normal calculated load reading would reach 28% even if it were a manual labouring the engine flat out at 1000rpm (e.g. high gear low speed uphill).

Load seems to be calculated differently by different vehicles/ECU's. It's often loosely related to the maximum expectation of pinj x rpm, or max expectation for airflow. This of course means that even at full throttle if rpms are below the torque peak calculated load will be less than 100%.

Most OBD systems on most vehicles reckon calculated load is about 3% or so at warm idle. Iirc (but I forget what OBD readers I've used for this) I've seen calculated load much higher than that 3% at idle on P38s.

The calculated load figure isn't a reading I'd normally take much notice of. A manifold pressure reading at idle is a much better pointer for idle efficiency etc. The Rover V8's do seem to idle with a bit more manifold pressure than the average engine, I put this down partly to the cam and valve gear setup compromising a bit of bottom end charge trapping ability to gain a bit more top end (rpm) charge trapping ability.

On some ECUs OBD readings seem to change to a different kind of mode at idle. Maybe the 25% reading reflects the engine could only shift 4 times as much air at idle rpm if the throttle were opened? Does the figure increase by a lot if you put it in drive and turn all the electrical gear on?

Happy New Year...
A strange time to be online but everyone's in bed and I'm bored with the TV, might as well set the ball rolling. Hope for less Covid this year.

Will it depend on whether the birthday is counted as midnight tonight or the time of 'birth' on the 29th?

I disregard reviews on a firm's own website - a firm could write anything it wanted on it's own website, good reviews likely to be from the boss himself or his friends, bad reviews likely to be from competitors.

Some garage reviews and recommendations can be a bit useless anyway - customer1 might go for brake pads changing and be very happy, he might recommend the garage to customer2, customer2 might go for engine diagnostics, the garage who do great simple straightforward mechanical servicing/repairs work might be crap at engine diagnostics.

There are many charlatans working in fields related to vehicles diagnostics, some of them believe their own hype, if they don't believe their own hype they must set out to con customers from the outset.

Or even a round head machine screw? Arguably neater than a bolt head but still no chance of being ingested.

gordonjcp wrote:

I guess if you use a grub screw you should stick a bit of thread locker or something on, so it definitely can't go all the way through if it rattles loose and get sucked into the engine.

Yes, some suppliers sell 'injector hole blanking screws' which are really just grub screws, I wouldn't use a grub screw because there's potential for it to be ingested by the engine, a bolt head cannot be pulled through. A bolt (set screw) will be too long but can be cut short so it doesn't affect airflow.

dhallworth wrote:

I’m going to order a little grub screw rather then using a bolt with a hex head on it as it’ll be neater.

I wouldn't be able to sleep if I did that on a customer vehicle.

Reducer water flow direction doesn't matter if the reducer is below the tide line (you get the gist) when the engine is turned off. Best not to fit a reducer above the tide line but if it is it is better if the intake is at the bottom as this will keep the water channels full (as opposed to an internal waterfall) and lessens the potential for airlocks in the reducer.

dhallworth wrote:

Thanks Simon, I forgot to put .jpg at the end of them so was probably correcting that as you were reading.

So I should be good just to block off that port in the inlet manifold?

David.

A coincidence we're both on forum at the same time.

The pics are what I expected.

Yes absolutely.