Thanks OldShep.

MOT passed and taxed :-)

Back on the road! Now I just need to fix the aircon..

All back together, bumper on, engine oil+filter changed, fog light fitted, haven't yet topped up the ATF but will only have lost about a litre and it holds 10 so that can wait a bit until I change the box filter. Haven't changed the CV gator but it's only a small split and it's raining lol... will change it soon but will go for MOT first. Just about to make a battery bracket (never had one), MOT booked for 4pm. Already been down the road in it about 10 miles trip to the foreign hand car wash, run will have cleared rust from disks. Runs well :-)

Just about finished the R32 VR6 Caravalle conversion today, runs great on LPG, straw injectors were a pita to fit as expected but I have a novel way of fitting them ;-). So I can finish the odd bits on the the Caravelle tomorrow, check calibration and warm-up, got a few 'diareps' booked in (diagnostics/repairs) which I expect to rattle off in no time... and hopefully I'll be able spend a bit of time putting the rest of the Elgrand together, sorting the shifter adjustment, swap CV gators and oil change. If everything goes really well I might even get it MOT'd. Ahh bolox I forgot about having to fit the fog light!

Gilbertd wrote:

They will be, the Bentley W12 is basically a pair of VR6 engines using a common crank.

Exactly. Converting a V12 is usually about double the work of converting a V6 and it's the same between a VR6 and W12 except with the W12 the manifold is a lot easier to remove and work around than on the 6 because on the 12 the manifold is top central instead of at the front with no space to work around it or get it off (VW) or side (Porsche). Although then again this W12 is a twin turbo and the engine bay is a lot tighter for bits such as the reducers as the VR6 lol.

Saturday evening after seeing my daughter I shifted the subframe/engine/gearbox assembly back under the van, dropped the van onto it and bolted up, connected steering, prop, struts, refitted the alternator PAS pump, belt pulleys/tensioners, belts, TV fan.
Sunday afternoon I refitted the rads, fitted LPG injectors and manifold/plenums/TB, heater pipes, fill with coolant and pas fluid. Still hadn't refitted the front bumper but at this stage it should have been able to run/drive properly. The ignition is the type where you can leave the key in your pocket and turn the ignition to start the engine but the keyfob battery was dead so I tried the actual key (which removes from the keyfob) in the ignition.. Instead of the engine cranking nothing happened except that the horn beeped once. Around 9pm at this point so I left it for the evening.
Monday morning I fitted a new keyfob battery, had to work on customer cars all day, just as I was packing up I tried to start the car again, still no joy but the horn didn't beep this time. Then I noticed the dash shift indicator wasn't showing a P (for Park) or any other gear selection. Checked under the car to make sure I had plugged the loom onto the gearbox, I had. Then I tried shifting from P through the gears and the dash display did go through RND321 etc... So I put the shifter in N, turned the key and the engine fired straight up :-) Drove around the yard a bit, no probs. There's a bit of adjustment where the shift cable attaches to the selector arm, I had bolted the cable back in the same position where I'd removed it from (could see the shiny bit where bolt had previously been), this will just need a bit of adjustment. Bonus - the 4wd is working again now! It had previously failed to work straight after I'd broken an ABS sensor whilst changing a wheel bearing, the ABS code cleared itself when I fitted a new sensor but the 4wd ECU didn't self clear it's code.. seems those months without a battery cleared the 4wd ECU code.

Now I just have to refit the front end (bumper / lights / etc), fit a fog light, change a CV gator (I know I could have done that with the frame off), oil change (engine still has the black oil it came with) and take it for MOT going the long route to shift rust from brakes etc. Since I spilled ATF when putting the box on (came out the dipstick until I blocked the hole properly) I'll top the ATF up with Carlube ATFU (dex6 synthetic), it's supposed to use Nissan Genuinematic 'S' fluid and it's difficult to find data on equivalent specs but what research I've done leads me to believe ATFU should be compatible. Then at an early point I'll fit a new trans filter and new ATF... May try to get hold of genuinematicS for the complete fill but if I can't get hold of any of that may complete fill with ATFU or Mobil synthetic stuff. Not like you can ever completely change the ATF anyway with the TC holding so much.

Currently converting a rare VW Caravelle (Transporter), rare because it's one of a few made with a 3.2 VR6 engine. 2005 model, owner paid £18k for it! Next week have mostly repairs to do but one car to convert, week after that 2 cars to convert including a Bentley Continental GT 6L W12 twin turbo. The Caravelle and Bentley are both narrow angle V engines and both a pita.

All reports from my customers who used Admiral used to point to them being a stickler about UKLPG database registration but an increasing proportion of their customers are telling me they're not asking for database registration.

Gilbertd wrote:

Lpgc wrote:

Potential inconvenience with the filler fitted so close to the towball if you do a lot of towing though?

Bearing in mind that I probably fill up just as often with a trailer on as not, nope, never had a problem with any filler, Dvissier, Gasguard, various continental Italian cup fillers (there's 2 or 3 different ones) and Acme. As long as the trailer is straight or off to the right, access is simple.

Well you've certainly got more experience of filling P38's with a trailer on than me!

Dunno if you agree with the 90degree point either.. But if the filler is fitted at 90deg (and fitted where yours is) it looks like the trailer could be in the way for filling from a pump on the driver side?

Is it about to take a piss... of coolant or something Miles ? ;-)

Potential inconvenience with the filler fitted so close to the towball if you do a lot of towing though?

Can be a good idea to fit the bayonet so bayonet lugs are top and bottom (at 90 degrees to normal) if the filler is fitted at the back - the fill pipe from the gun then points sideways toward the pump which gives a bit more slack on the pipe and prevents the retractable type pulling sideways on the filler. Not supposed to fit them at 90 degrees but can make sense to.

Around a fifth of people who ask me about replacement caps reckon they had theirs nicked... hmm have to wonder lol.
Still they don't go for the locking version, more expensive, too much faff, the chance of lost key or seized lock. Don't blame them.
Though more than one person hoped the lock version would both prevent the cap being nicked and prevent LPG being nicked by syphoning...

Anyone had one nicked? You can buy locking versions hehe!

At one time there was only one brand of 70mm round housing available in the UK, Then some lesser known suppliers started selling cheaper versions and then mainstream suppliers started offering the other types besides the original type to compete. The other types are not as strong or well made as the original type, especially if fitted on a slightly curved body panel it can be a problem to remove/refit the cap. Also the caps between brands are not interchangeable... I've never bought spare caps because it doesn't seem the original type of cap (just the cap) is available separately to the full 70mm housing that the cap comes with. Moral is probably that if you need a cap buy a full 70mm housing (original type) from a supplier in the know such as TinleyTech, tell them that you need the 'original brand best quality' type, just use it's cap and dump the 70mm housing bit... That is, of course, if you have the original brand high quality 70mm housing, but you should have that type if your install is more than about 6 years old. Some of the cheap types are so poor that even if fitted on a flat body panel the cap may have to be filed to make removal/refitting easily possible. Not worth my time messing like that so when ordering 70mm housings I always stipulate the original brand and if I need a spare cap I buy the full housing. Don't know any of the brand names but TT will know what you mean. ;-)

Hate doing stuff twice, was kicking myself when I realised I'd put it back together with the input shaft not in properly even though I had doubts about it so it all had to come off again but at least it'll all go back on the car easier this time and I know the input shaft is in properly. Judging by the amount of waddling the box about it took to get the input shaft in properly there'd have been little chance of doing it under the car anyway but with the bulk of the gearbox weight taken up by rope from the crane I was able to bounce it about a bit on the elasticity of the rope and adjust the crane height to line it up - I think in this case better than using an adjustable angle gearbox jack and far easier than the 2 jacks and bits of wood that I actually did use last time.

At various points throughout I've had the weight of the front end of the car (without and with the engine box and subframe) supported entirely by the old tanks. I've had the weight of the front of the car just on the forklift tanks but not with the weight of the subframe etc on. When dragging the subframe assembly out the car was just on the forklift tanks, the exhaust downpipes were still on the engine on the subframe at that point... had to keep making sure an exhaust didn't swipe one of the forklift tanks so when driving the ML I just drove a few inches at a time before rechecking clearance between exhausts and forflift tanks, side-swiping a forklift tank supporting any side of the car could've been unfortunate!

Yes nearly all the weight is on the 2 Calor bottles at the moment, I put the tanks and chock of wood back under the front end just in case (it gets windy etc) to prevent it all going sideways lol. Much safer when the weight is on the old tanks than on the forklift bottles. I could use the crane now to lift the front of the car, shift the bottles and let it sit on the tanks again but that'd mean repositioning the bottles again when I need to slide the subframe back under.... and I don't think it's forecast to be windy ;-)

Hehe! Yep I did the lot in the yard in the same place I dumped the van with it's seized engine, as usual been having to scrape time tio work on my own cars between working on customers cars and couldn't have my own car in the way. Much of the weight is on 2 x Calor forklift bottles but I wouldn't get underneath it like that, I'll push the assembly back under the car and get the front of the car supported by the engine crane first.

I converted 3 cars in the last 7 days. The last car for conversion came in early on Friday afternoon, so I worked on it Fri afternoon, sat afternoon and all day Sunday to get it done so I had yesterday to fix a few little problems on other customer cars, drop my subframe again and put the gearbox on properly this time. This morning I've had a Lexus dropped off to convert so my car will have to wait again until I've got the Lexus converted.

Went with dropping the lot out from underneath but instead of using the garage beam and pull lifts used an engine crane to lift the front of the van

Already had swapped the engine at this point, putting the gearbox back on here (for the 2nd time... read on!).

Just a bit dodgy!

This was the second time I've dropped the running gear off...

The first time around I dropped the subframe and removed the gearbox from the engine while they were on the floor under the car and used the ML to pull the engine and subframe out while leaving the gearbox on the floor under the car, used the crane to swap engines on the subframe, pushed the subframe and engine assembly back under the car and re-attached the gearbox under the car. However I wasn't confident that I'd located the gearbox input shaft in the TC correctly and I didn't check it by trying to spin the crank before putting most of the car back together, I did have a look at flex plate clearance through the starter hole and it seemed OK.... But then when I did try to spin the crank using a ratchet after refitting the job lot (exhausts, props, steering, ancillaries, lots of wiring, etc) it wouldn't spin, so then I realised I'd goofed up in a big way and the gearbox would have to come off again!

Second time around I pulled the whole lot out with gearbox still attached to the engine, used the crane to help me get the gearbox back on properly after making sure I hadn't bent the flex plate, made sure it was mated up properly.

At the moment the subframe with engine and gearbox on are still sat on the floor in the yard waiting for starter motor etc putting back on.. But at least have learned a bit about what parts must come off when dropping the subframe now and will be a bit quicker at putting it back on this time. Starter motor, AC compressor, front drive shaft, possibly downpipes and heatshields can be left attached, PAS pump and alternator still have to be fitted when the subframe is back on.

Where does the trade turn to when buying driers? I plan on getting the Elgrand back on the road soon then fixing it's AC system but the system has been open to atmosphere for a long time so I think it will be best to change the drier after pressure testing.

Thanks Sloth, raised my eyebrows with DIY kits in the UK aren't allowed to contain actual refrigerant - I have charged completely empty AC systems using DIY refills and they've worked so obviously the gas contained in the refill was refrigerant of some type?

Knowing what I (think) I know now if I still ran cars that used R12 I'd fill them with LPG (propane) and probably see what I could come up with regards compressor oil. Back in the day when AC in the UK was fairly unheard of I used the services of several AC specialists, visited them at their homes, they probably only usually worked on commercial systems since hardly any cars had AC. Filling quantities were guestimated (except for the sight glass) and it was expensive but propane would have been cheap. All the specialists also seemed to over stress the dryer needed changing and would have charged about £700 for that lol, I never changed a dryer and never had a problem.

Surely anyone working on car AC systems should know the clutch won't come in if a pressure sensor reading / switch reflects very low pressure.

I too have had AC specialists try to fob me off with under filling systems and made them put in the full correct amount. I think just about every car I've had with AC (which is just about every vehicle I've personally owned since about 1989) has had a plate with info on how much gas the system should hold... But it seems AC gas capacity data supplied to chain store type AC centres is often a lower figure than the figure on the plate - so particularly in larger/chain AC companies it might not be the technician that's trying to fob people off, it might be the firm's policy to save money by underfilling systems and the technician might be unaware.

Sloth, what are your thoughts on the DIY AC refill kits from e.g. Halfords? They have a pressure gauge and you're supposed to get the LP side pressure reading 'in the green' on the gauge... Is reading LP pressure a reliable way of knowing if the AC system is properly filled? I've used them plenty times especially for top ups and they do work but I'm always left wondering about if the system is under/over filled.

Also, can you use propane in R12 systems?

Yeh that makes sense Gilbert