@RutlandRover Dave, there is room for a small type of wormdrive Jclip but they're fiddly and not usually necessary. The spring clips are good because they will self tighten if the rubber 'gives' a bit... Tighten a wormdrive clip to the extent the pipe won't come off even if the rubber gives a bit and eventually the pipe can snap at that point. There are other types of (tighter) spring clip but they're at least as fiddly as the small wormdrives. Or it is possible to fit the 'eared' spring clips I'll have fitted on yours but designed for 5mm id pipe rather than 6mm id pipe which makes them tighter.
@Hugh, that does point more to ignition but could also be a fuel trim or lambda (leading to fuel trim) issue.
Thanks for all the tips.
Will definitely be sanding lights with finer stuff, didn't know about using soap. ...I'll look into the Tcut kits but I wonder if the coarser Tcut is just the equivalent of coarser paint cutting compound? I've got Farecla cutting compound somewhere.
Maybe I'll get the machine polisher on them, will get a new polishing head for it. Would've been easier before I put the lights back on!
I don;t expect the lights to look new when done but they already look much better than they did, reckon I'll get them looking better still with a bit more effort.
Looking like paint or tape for the pipes, most likely paint, most likely Hammerite lol. But Morat set me wondering if there isn't a better aluminium paint. I wouldn't spend a lot on special paint though, pipes I fitted look like new and should be good for quite a few years even if I don't treat them. Covering them with an outer pipe would be a none starter as the sections that corrode are short and have many bends..
While on the subject of cleaning plastic lights... Not that I have any need for this at the moment but has anyone ever tried similar with glass headlights or even windscreens? Not yellowed in the case of windscreens but the tiny marks and scratches they get over the years.. I've wondered if they could be sanded and polished, how much of a ballache would that be lol...
@BrianH I posted your insurance cert last night mate.
I thought they used enamel on series Landrovers?
'Tis looking like it'll get Hammerited lol.
Waiting for a customer picking his car up I just converted, I've been wet n dry sanding my yellowed headlights. Got rid of the yellow and they now look great when wet but are hazy due to the sanding when dry. The finest paper I have here at the moment is 1200 grit, I intend on getting some finer stuff which no doubt will get rid of the haze... But I wonder if Tcut would work just as well and be less effort or if Tcut would make the plastic lenses yellow again? I've got a large machine polisher somewhere but it'd be too big to miss the surrounding paintwork and (much worse) the rubber around the headlights.
Will have to wait for now though, I've got another car coming to be converted in the morning, another on Sunday (being left all week) and the Bentley GT Continental on Monday (if he doesn't put it off due to health problems again).
Seems that if aluminium and steel have an electrical contact and are damp the aluminium will be the bit that corrodes.. dissimilar metals with water = electric cell and either the anode or cathode corrodes. I'm not that clued up on it! But seems to be what's at play here and is a common problem on some (other) cars such as Peugeots where the AC pipe is held in a thin rubber bushing close to the front of the car that gets wet. And of course the AC pipes do have electrical contact with the body of the car.
That'd do for the steel but is it compatible with the aluminium ac pipes? Would be unfortunate if in an aluminium/zinc combination aluminium were the sacrificial bit lol.
Sloth wrote:
Sorry I missed this, if its working though that's great :)
Might be worth coating the pipe in something to prevent corrosion in the future - thick oily goop maybe? Something that won't wash off too easily but keeps it protected. Sounds like a pain to get replacements for!
I'll probably just stick some Hammerite paint or pvc electrical tape on the section that corrodes. The section of pipe that corrodes is the narrow singular (non-concentric) two pipes that attach to the rear evap. Seems a bit of a design flaw with those pipes being exposed right behind the rear ns wheel, in fact the whole area that the heater box sits in seems design flawed really... no drains from there (except from the evap) so the area that the rear heater core sits in may get damp due to condensation from the heater/AC box and rust from the inside of the car out. Will be Hammeriting maybe undersealing the car around the rear heater box area.
Gilbertd wrote:
Fixing aircon just as the weather starts to get warm? Whatever next......
Againts Sods law but seems I managed to pull it off ;-) Once you see the vacuum has pulled down and held steady on the machine for a few minutes you know you've cracked it. Mind you, I didn't know for sure that the compressor that came with the replacement engine was going to work hehe.
Is it a constant or intermittent misfire Hugh? Constant would point more to an LPG system problem, intermittent to ignition. Going straight from running OK to this sort of problem would point more to LPG, gradually getting worse point more to ignition (usually).
Any unusual noises such as popping when you switch to LPG?
No probs if you want to come see me... I'm busy but a problem with one of my conversions gets priority treatment ;-)
@RutlandRover Dave, did the pipe just come off or did it come off during your manifold removal lol?
Aircon working very well now!
Removed the rear heater / AC box from my car and fitted the replacement evap from the heater box from the scrappers. While it was off I removed the heater drain bung from my heater box but the metal pipe the bung fits on snapped off... So I also had to swap heater cores between the 2 boxes. Easy job to swap AC and heater cores once the heater box had been removed though and even removing the heater box wasn't that difficult (carpets up, under floor ducting out, rear seat out, rear inner trim off.
The original front>rear concentric AC pipe would have been 1 piece, mine was 3 piece so was already a replacement (which had rotted again). The concentric pipe from the scrappers turned out to be 2 piece but the rearmost section of the 2 piece is the same as the rearmost section of the 3 piece. I had already removed my rearmost section but the plug I'd fitted at the end of my middle section had come out and I could expect the end of that pipe (and my original rear evap) to be full of crap. So I removed the middle section, cleaned and flushed it, refitted it and used only the rear section of the pipe from the scrappers.
Let Kwikfit Wheatley Hall Rd Doncaster regas it for £60, good set of lads, entered the correct 0.99kg on the machine, added dye, set machine to change as much oil as possible (dunno what difference if any that makes). Boring waiting for the machine to go through it's motions so I helped one of the lads change rear pads on a VW van while we were waiting.
Maybe some of the others will reply with type of grease gun they've used.
I have a grease gun with end that seems to get into tight spaces, bought it specially for greasing the new wheel bearings I fitted on my boat trailer (my old grease gun wouldn't fit), if you're headed South on your trip you might want to call in en-route and try it, you can even have the grease for free lol.
Gilbertd wrote:
I tried to encourage him to get it to Simon to sort the LPG side of things out but he reckons that even £40 a week in fuel is too much so wants to get rid
Didn't think I'd heard from him, thanks for pointing him to me though.
I'd much prefer an auto P38 over manual but might be different for a collector wanting something more unusual...?
Would think the auto better for off-roading, no clutch to burn out?
Morat wrote:
OK, well I've now got a grease-gun, grease (Lithium ASGII) and a bendy hose for it. I'll see if I can find where to stick the grease!
edit: Grrr, need a narrower fitting to reach the nipples :(
Does turning the prop by moving the car help with access?
Where to stick a bendy hose to pump grease - I prefer syrup of figs though, not greasing my nipples either :-)
Shat yourself, lift off, get stuck, cab fills with water, stranded on the ford with a turd floating about at chest height... Hello RAC lol.
So not lifting off brings new meaning to self cleansing velocity? :-)
RutlandRover wrote:
The machine in our workshop on lists 1250 for all models of P38. When I had it done I had to point out the sticker and they had to manually set up the amounts instead of letting the machine figure it out.
I always check the machine/firm has the same weight dialled in as the sticker says on the car, a lot of my cars would have been under-filled by quite a percentage if I hadn't including Grand Voyagers by about 300.
Even then I wonder if the shop's machine accurately measures the amount of stuff it puts in - Sometimes after such shop re-gas I've gone straight back to base and tested using Halford's DIY kit, it's only a pressure gauge but pressure is supposed to stay in the green with AC blowing full and engine at idle, often the pressure gauge has gone below green and I've put a bit more in from DIY kit to make up for it - and the AC has worked better after I put the extra in.
I don't really trust Charlie Brown / Quickfit type places for AC, they're hardly experts at AC. But I use them because they are cheap compared to a 'proper' AC specialist who should really know what they're doing. It's like gimme the goods, never mind about your lack of expertise I'll take it from here...
But surely just because a machine recovers no oil it doesn't necessarily mean there was none in there? The oil would have to evaporate under vacuum conditions for the machine to be able to pull all the old oil out.
My take on the machines is that they are there to pull old gas out, vacuum test (which will also boil off water) and push new gas in... but they have to be able to cope with some oil. No easy way of getting old oil out? It wouldn't be much good just sticking X amount of new oil in the system on every fill or eventually after enough refills the AC system would contain just oil and no refrigerant.
Analogy - Could remove an engine's oil filler cap and shove a vacuum cleaner pipe in the hole (maybe as part of some PCV valve test or something), would expect the vacuum cleaner to pull some oil out but what force is the vacuum cleaner providing that could possibly get all the oil out of the engine including from the sump?
Think I'm going to just have to guestimate it... I will have added some extra oil when using one of those Halfords DIY regassing kits (some oil in those bottles), question is was there the correct amount of oil in the system before I used the Halfords kit considering my system had a leak at the lowest point of the system and some of the AC pipes are a metre or so above the lowest point.
I know the machines put some oil in but I think they only put as much back in as they take out? And what they take out usually won't be much?
But I'm changing a couple of components that would usually have oil in them, most of which wouldn't usually be recovered by the machine, and the components I'm refitting will have less or no oil in them... net result less total oil in the system. So do I have to put some in? Will only take a drop for O rings, sure I'll be able to scrape a drop from the system if I don't have to buy new oil.
I've bought a 2 part front to rear aircon pipe and rear evaporator for my Elgrand but the dismantler purposefully let a lot of the pag oil drain from them.. Should I buy some pag oil and put it in when I've fitted the bits before I go for ac recharge (and if so how much)? What pag oil to buy and should I get some UV dye? Pipes and bits were drained by standing them upright. In fact would it be a good idea to flush the front to rear pipe with something before fitting?
Today I visited the Elgrand scappers TojoMotors (Steve and Paul) in Beverley Yorkshire, bought the split section AC pipe and got a rear evaporator (complete rear heater box even) chucked in for total price of £380 :-I . Even though I knew I could pick up the split section pipe I still had concerns about getting the AC working again because when I removed the rear AC pipe from my rear evap the clamping bolt snapped as it was corroded into the rear evap. I managed to drill that bolt out and retap the thread so I could fit an M6 bolt in it but I'd only managed to retap the hole in the evap fitting slightly off-centre. Swapping the rear evap will get around any concerns I might have about the new threads not being right or having to offset drill the clamp on replacement pipe I'm fitting. Will also get around concerns of crap (grit etc) having got into the rear evap or AC lines since they've been disconnected (tried to plug them but I reckon some crap still got in there and I don't want to put the AC back together only to suffer a very soon pump failure). Now I have all the bits to fix my AC properly... except a replacement drier :-) I didn't come home and immediately start fitting it (which erm I might have had in mind), after visiting Steve and Paul 'we' had a ride on to Bridlington, fish n chips and a walk around the harbour before returning home, which kept 'us' happy. I do like visiting the coast though.
Advice welcome from all especially the resident AC specialist! Especially about the drier?
And tying off for a second time... It's been a while since the owner got back in touch to say that it's all running really well, he took it to his mate's garage who fitted new ignition bits (leads / plugs / cap / rotor / condenser) that I advised (I did offer but told him I didn't mind if he wanted to use his mate). I originally told him to come back for a check of calibration after having the ign bits changed but he said it's running so well he doesn't see the point, it's saving him over 50% on fuel bills and running great now.
Crazy but only a limited proportion of installers will fit a mixer system these days. Some of the (fill in the blank) lot tell potential customers it is impossible to convert carb vehicles lol!