I don't actually need a jenny, just a matter of interest really and got to wondering after looking at the cheap petrol lawnmowers. Thought if I ever did need one a self build one might make sense and might as well be 2kw rather than 1kw.. Could probably make one quieter than most stuff on the market by experimenting with exhausts, cheaper and to own spec.

I've seen quite a few big RV's with 3kw invertors installed but wired up to just a single 100Ah battery, even with the capable invertor that sort of setup isn't going to run at fill tilt for long before the battery is flat (knackered even) even with the engine running. So also imagined a lawnmower engine on the RV blowing it's exhaust into the big engine exhaust, alternators obviously local to the lawnmower engine but the battery(s) and invertor could be a bit more remote. A lot of big RVs have standard fit jennys but they're 110v 60hz, some campsites don't allow generators but nobody need know one is running if it's quiet enough.

I know a couple of alternators feeding individual batteries and a 24v invertor would be a fall back option if there were issues with connecting 2 alternators in parallel... as long as one or both were electrically insulated from the chassis of the setup.

Lots of torque from a water wheel but not much power?

Yesterday I bought a new petrol lawnmower from B&Q for £140. Got to agree with my dad's engineer mate than a complete lawnmower with petrol engine and all the other bits for that money seems ridiculously good vfm when you consider what went in to making it... Probably couldn't even buy the engine separately for that much. So I wondered about buying another just for the engine and using the engine to drive an alternator to charge a battery to power an invertor to make my own invertor generator. Alternators are cheap from scrapyards and the lawnmower engine would have enough power to drive several alternators.. So how about a high power invertor and several alternators in parallel... But are there any issues with wiring alternators in parallel?

I've got loads of sound equipment but stage stuff not hifi. Grew up with dad's flight-cased Revox's, Teacs, Akai etc real to reals around though and inherited an old Grundig real to real with 'magic winking eye' valve thing for recording level. At one point I used a Revox to record computer programs. My dad was an entertainer and ran a recording studio, one of the first 'acts' to make and use tape backing tracks due to most club organist and drummers being crap. He was working weeks away on cruise ships etc, one time he went he forgot to take his Revox so though he wouldn't be able to work, told the captain, captain said 'thats ok we have a Revox on the bridge that we used to use to record depth and seismic readings (nothing to do with Russian subs obviously) but we don't use anymore, you can borrow it'. Still got SL1210's, Denon 2500 and Denon 2600 amongst other stuff I used for DJing. Loads of speakers including 18" subs, Peavey Hisys 15" and 12" stuff, a JBL setup, loads of big power amps such as very heavy Peavey 2000 class b that needs repair), Peavey 2600 class H, active crossovers, mixers, etc. Sold my 4 EV SX500's just a few years ago, needed the space.

I think E34's handle great but that still isn't ideal if you can't see properly to drive and the A pillers get in the way of sight a bit, halfway between a comfy 7 series and nimble 3 series, like the chassis though and M5's and 4,4 aftermarket supercharged go well ;-)

I've LPG converted quite a few MX5's and imported Eudos' in the past, not touched one in ages. They always remind me of driving my mates Spitfire 30+ years ago only better in every respect. Not for me but I see the appeal of nimble little lightweight sports cars without massive power and without seat width tyres and wonder if owners of more powerful more expensive sports cars would enjoy chucking an MX5 about more. Not sure if they're still in business but there used to be an MX5 specialist in Conisbrough near me with a showroom full of them.

Kind of going from one extreme to another Rutland? Unless you're planning an RV8 transplant (not from your P38 though lol).

I took a pic but by the time I was ready with my phone camera it was a bit far away to make out what it reads in the pic.
A Suzuki 4x4 around here has a "One wife, livid' and 'Sniff my diff' stickers lol.

A lot of P38s around here have "One life, live it" stickers on the back. I don't think many of them or many on this forum would get on very well with a guy who passed me on the road the other day in a Jap 4x4 with a sticker "One live, don't waste it fixing Landrovers". There are lots of people with similar attitudes, the owner of the last Landcruiser I converted told me "If you want to go into a desert you need a Rangerover, if you want to come out again you need a Landcruiser". Oooh, uncalled for eh!

Reminder to myself to tell 'our lass', she's particularly squeamish about needles being stuck in eyes lol.
Always getting crap in my eyes, maybe happens a bit less often now I wear glasses... which is the only positive of wearing glasses. Can't see bugger all through goggles / masks under cars so never used them. Never had a proper pair of glasses, I don't see the point (pun?) as my eyesight seems to be changing so fast... I just spend £20 on 20 pairs of plastic specs of varying strength every time I pass Poundland lol. 1.25 strength for driving and seeing far away, 1.25 or 1.5 for general work on cars, 2.0 or 2.5 for reading/computer/phone, 3.5 for close-up fiddly stuff like soldering on pcb's.... it's a pita! Don't seem to have to pull my eyelids open and swipe with a Qtip to remove bits of rust/spots of grease as often now at least. Once went into the house with both eyes feeling like there was a 1cc bit of grit stuck in them, filled the eyewash container with what I thought was Optrex and put it straight to my eye, soon realised that Optrex bottles look very similar to minty mouthwash bottles lol. But all seems to pail in comparison to your eye situation - good luck with that and with the viscous.

Would you rather be fixing the car or having an eye injection lol? What's up with your eye anyway? My eyes were perfect 10 years ago, seem to be getting poor at increasing rate.

Mazz1 wrote:

Hello Hoppy. That lump of metal is now with Tom. Strange you should mention a gear box fault. Mine now appears to have that as well as everything else that is wrong with the stupid thing.

Which points to a MAF sensor problem as Hoppy described then? Hoppy has described how a dodgy MAF can be the cause of both a (phantom) gearbox fault and a lack of power... He's implied/suggested that you should unplug your MAF sensor to see if it cures both your problems. If it does cure both your problems it goes a long way toward proving that the underlying problem is actually the MAF sensor, in which case you should replace the MAF sensor.

Ridiculous to delete forum content to 'upgrade' software. A forum is it's content, no use without the content regardless of how pretty it looks.
Could this be a temporary situation with intention of restoring old content to the new software (perhaps when they have sussed how to do it)?

When it seemed LPGforum could be taken down at any time with the possibility of all that content being lost I asked my son to come up with a way of downloading every thread completely and he managed it... Not needed now as LPGforum has been saved but I still have all that data backed up and I'm sure we'd have come up with a way of including that content in a new forum if LPGforum had disappeared. We didn't/couldn't download user accounts, an implication of that being that the old content would have to be available on the new forum just as some sort of archive, but we'd have done all we could to make the archive searchable.

Edit - Hehe I started writing this post just before a customer turned up, finished writing after the customer left... Probably a bit out of touch in the light of recent posts it crossed with.

I would err on the side of others advice above, unless when you took it to the garage you told them something to the effect of 'just fix it please'.
Anyway, if you know it needed a new water pump... it obviously needed doing... so is there a problem with them fixing it?

Hope you eye is OK Morat.

Thanks for the reply om 31st July Bolt, yes that's what I suspected. Now I'm back from holiday I'll keep letting some out until the surging stops, then let a bit more out.

Back home, had no dramas on holiday or on the way home. Rear wheel bearing maybe just slightly louder than it was but will still use it and not expect it to break until i have time to change it. Done over 2200km, over 700 miles of that towing, all good.

Wouldn't think you could have that much pressure in there Gilbert or wouldn't some high pressure switch prevent the AC compressor engaging? As seems to be the case on mine since I overfilled it.

I have owned AC regas gear albeit not professional gear for years and recently bought another set including little refillable/exchangeable bottle and charging 'gun' (pipe with LP connector, connector to exchange bottle, trigger and pressure gauge) from Halfords.

My car, not a P38, supposedly takes 0.99kg of refrigerant. I recently fitted a replacement rear evaporator and some new lines on it then took it to a garage for re-gassing. It worked fine after re-gassing but I regularly drive many other examples of the same model vehicle and some of the others seem to get just a bit colder. With my paranoid head on I wondered if the 0.99kg should really be 1.05kg but the vehicle manufacturer avoided stating over 1kg as some refill garages would charge a lot more for a regas over a 1kg threshold, also wondered if the garage machine was set to over-read the amount of gas it was putting in (to short charge systems to save the garage some refrigerant). So I put a bit more in myself... quite a bit more, and it seems I overdid it! Because it worked perfectly after the garage regas but now on a particularly hot day (for the UK) if the engine has already been run and the condenser is heatsoaked, as soon as the compressor clutch engages it disengages and this continues until I've driven some distance until maybe the condensor has cooled a bit and some refrigerant has been shifted. It was even worse until I let some refrigerant vent to atmosphere.. I could probably improve it by venting some more refrigerant but don't want to risk breaking it altogether while I'm on holiday.

Morat wrote:

I've seen your yard 😉😉

Hehe! I can't get rid of my mobile office(s) though ;-)

Passed my test at 17 in 1987 after about 4 lessons.. But in 1984 I was driving Landrovers towing one boat on the back and pushing one boat from the front (front towbar mounted towball), not on public roads though,. But dad did used to send me into town by myself on public roads to buy fuel for said boats.

I have a Nissan Elgrand Jap import... Lots of confusion over whether or not it's even legal to tow anything with the import(?) but I towed my caravan to Cornwall with it...

I just became a member on the other forum... thought I already was (from years ago) but went to log in and found I couldn't, no emails from the .net site either,

I do have to have to have posts approved but that's to be expected for a new user. Will see in time if posts no longer have to be approved. Different username to the one I use here but an obvious one to most of you lot.