He was a young lad with a shiny new Snap On scan tool, I have to wonder if he'd rather just plug that in and charge for some 'report' than do much dirty hands on work.

I don't think I've worked on brakes where wear sensors are separate from brake pads but don't doubt they exist.
He reckoned his supposed twisting wires together probably didn't work (to turn off the warning light) because the sensor has a built in resistor. Shrugged and said he was going when I suggested that in that case he could prevent the warning light by wiring in a resistor. Probably sees his scan tool and writing diagnostic reports as easier than actually changing brake pads.. but to be fair I reckon his report will have been accurate even if an unnecessary expense for the owner. The owner reckoned the brakes were binding but they didn't seem to be binding when I drove it and the wheel(s) etc didn't get warm... mind you I noticed the osr tyre was a bit deflated so I blew it up ;-)

Just LPG converted an L322 with BMW motor (well, finished it on Wednesday but the owner isn't collecting til tomorrow).
The owner had a mobile mechanic come to look at it today (Fri) because his brake warning lights are on. He's just had new brake pads fitted, the warning lights came on straight after that. I had to pop out for half an hour whilst the mobile mechanic was here (step daughter in labour so some running people around to do), when I got back the mobile bloke reckoned the fault was just that the new pads didn't have the necessary brake light warning connection on osr and possibly also on the nsf. He reckoned he'd tried twisting the wires together but that didn't prevent the warning light (but I'm not sure he did anything to get dirty as he looked immaculate when he arrived and looked immaculate when I came back). Anyway.. He used a tablet style Snap-On code reader to see the fault codes and could get into most modules with it. He advised the owner to take it back to the people who fitted the brake pads. Not sure why the owner even hired him tbh.

Should be the one, even if not it will fit anyway.

Or you could just ask me Dave... considering I converted it and have a copy of the invoice lol ;-)

Vapour filter https://www.lpgshop.co.uk/lpg-filter-y-inlet-1x12mm-outlet-2x12mm/

But I didn't specify which (exact) Valtek Liquid filter I fitted on the invoice... and I occasionally (rarely though) list Valtek filter solenoids on invoices when I've really fitted an OMB filter solenoid or similar. On the shiny cap bit of the filter solenoid it should say what type it is.. (a number after Valtek like 07). Probably this one https://www.lpgshop.co.uk/valtek-zavoli-emma-gas-lpg-filter-paper/

Just change the filters and leak check as Gilbert said. If cars come here for service I'll do a bit more like checking fuel trims, compare trims on different banks, connect to the LPG ECU with the laptop and check pressure etc... But that won't be necessary at all, wouldn't expect to find any issues if I converted it lol ;-) Usually when I get cars in for service converted elsewhere there's loads to do with calibration etc.

Simon

On the subject of parallel versus serial reducer plumbing I think which route is best comes down to the model of car and model of reducer. Some cars heater circuit designs dictate a certain routing.. some with water control solenoids would have no or severely limited water flow with the heater turned off/down, some with electric pumps in the heater circuit (and/or various shunting valves etc) would see most water flow go through the matrix instead of the reducer especially at low rpm (when the pump kicks in). Two aspects of water flow, volume and pressure - Could have a heater circuit with high pressure where pressure decreases dramatically as flow rate increases in which case series routing might be best, or could have low pressure but capable of retaining that pressure at high flow rates in which case parallel routing would be the best. Both the reducer and the matrix will give some resistance to water flow - with average pressure and volume capabilities there probably isn't much difference between volume and series routing, in terms of advantages for one way or the other what you gain on the roundabouts you lose on the swings. If the river Ouse flowed hot water and I wanted to use it's flow to heat multiple small items where each item had limited internal flow I'd stick them side by side in the river (use parallel routing) / If I wanted to heat the same two small items using a tiny little jet of hot water leaking at high pressure from a boiler I'd probably go with series routing. Some cars and reducer positioning can make airlocks more of a potential issue with one way of routing over the other, usually series routing would be most likely to prevent airlocks but it can go the other way. Different model reducers have different water flow properties, wouldn't want to use series routing with (say) a Bigas reducer that uses 10mm pipe when usually the matrix is fed with 19mm pipe. Reducers and matrixes can furr up reducing flow, with series routing if one gets blogged it reduces flow to both... I've 'fixed' a few factory fitted Vectras plumbed in series where besides the LPG system not working the heater also didn't work.. because the matrix was blogged - by re-plumbing in parallel (at owners request after I'd explained the real cause of the problem and the owner decided he'd fix the matrix later... in summer or the owners might have gone for swapping the heater matrix straight away lol).

Not sure what you mean @Super4 but you can ask LPG questions on this forum or LPGforum if you're a member of LPGforum.
The LPGforum section on this forum was, as Gilbert said, just for the few of us that were rescuing LPGforum at the time. You don't need access to that section of this forum to ask questions about LPG, you could just start a thread in (say) the Oily Bits section.

Morat wrote:

Does anyone else see ACME filler and have to go Meep Meep?

Just me then?

I'll get my coat...

Me too... and half the Yanks I've sold DIY kits to have said beep beep.

That square cap will fit yours Dave.
It's only £4.40 if you buy from LPGShop's website rather than from LPGShop's Ebay listing.
You can use the screw in adaptors for other countries - The brass part of your filler is exactly the same as brass parts used in 70mm round housings.
https://www.lpgshop.co.uk/uk-bayonet-w21-8-to-all-europe-adapters-set/ You could combine postage..

Hehe.. It is a load of bolx though the way they talk etc eh? Can imagine there was once a time when that sort of language was more the norm, in which case why hasn't the language moved with the times?

I was once done for having no insurance on my son's Corsa when I was teaching him to drive. Had just dropped my daughter off in his Corsa, I was driving with my son in front passenger seat. I didn't have my docs on me but told the copper I had a trade policy that also covered me to drive any vehicle tptf. The copper didn't believe my policy would cover me if I wasn't driving for business purposes so I got a letter, could either accept 6 points and a fine or go to court. I knew I was covered, checked my docs, replied to the letter saying I was covered and included a copy of the policy but they stuck to their guns... accept the points or argue the toss in court. I chose to go to court (Leeds magistrates), they kept me there all day before I went into the actual courtroom... and then I was suddenly discharged without trial. At that point I was disappointed not to have been tried, I was fired up and looking forward to it! But I think I know why I was discharged... I recognised the prosecution barrister, couldn't place him at first, then I remembered where I knew him from.. He was a customer who I'd converted a BMW740 for! Quite a coincidence. But there was another coincidence with the same bloke... Before I converted his BMW I once saw him launching his boat at Acaster Marine when I was launching my boat, we didn't speak at all on that occasion but I knew his face when he brought his BMW to me and then when I dropped his car off for him at his house I saw his boat outside.. He was launching his boat with his 740 the first time I saw him when we didn't speak. I have to wonder whether they discharged me without trial because they realised they were wrong (I showed a copper or a court clerk my docs), or because the prosecution barrister knew me, or because the prosecution barrister had allowed me to drive his car without checking my insurance situation lol...

Impressive thread.. Gordon could set up a link from the home page and name it 'Why you should want to be a member of this forum'.

What I was getting at was that it'd probably run much better when first cold started because of the excess fuel factor (choke effect) which on most engines provides a far richer mixture than would be necessary... the excess is usually in excess.

Might expect it to start from cold even with the evap pipe pulled off but run poorly and maybe sputter to a stall as it warmed up.

Easiest fix for an evap system that's gone wrong on a simple setup is just to disable it by blanking the manifold and evap solenoid pipe connectors, you can do that on most cars but not on relatively advanced Ford V8 stuff like Ford/Jag engine'd L322's because the ECU is so fussy it can detect if the engine is getting the bit of extra air (with petrol fumes) when the purge valve is pulsing and will throw a code if it gets just a tint bit too much or too little extra air or if the solenoid is unplugged.

Disturbed the air flow meter?

Don't want to seem pedantic, yes palladio's are usually supplied with an external filter solenoid (Valtek type 37 or similar the same as Dream HP filter solenoids). The outlet of type 37 filter solenoids feeds gas to a central post with a nut at one end and either screw thread fitting (to attach directly to a reducer) or an M12 fitting to take 8mm copper pipe at the other end. The posts used on palladio's is supplied with the palladio, it has quite a unique thread, which means it would be difficult to connect anything other than that design post... which means a type 37 or similar is almost always used with palladios.. which means suppliers usually ship palladios with type 37's. But strictly speaking integrated would mean it was built into the reducer.

When using a palladio it's almost necessary to use a type 37 filter solenoid fitted directly to the reducer, which can be a disadvantage on some installs where space is tight. With the other reducers I mentioned you have the option of directly attaching a filter solenoid to the reducer (and wouldn't have to be a type 37) by using a common thread male to male adaptor, or fitting a filter solenoid discrete from the reducer with a length of pipe between them.

Adaptors exist. Particularly if your feed pipe is copper an inline adaptor/coupler with a metre or new pipe might be a good idea (even if you didn't want to step up/down pipe diameters)... you might need to extend piping when adjusting routing to get the gas feed to a different design reducer. You wouldn't need to step up pipe diameter for the Romano or MagicJet Extra reducer, they do have 8mm inlets but if you needed to feed them from a 6mm pipe you'd have the option of 6mm or 8mm filter solenoid regardless of whether you fitted the solenoid directly to the reducer... To fit a 6mm solenoid directly to the reducer you'd need to use an M12 to M10 male male connector with an inline 6mm to 8mm pipe connector / to fit an 8mm solenoid directly to the reducer you'd use an M12 to M12 male male connector and wouldn't have to use an inline 8mm to 8mm pipe connector unless you needed to extend the pipe. Similar story if you were fitting the solenoid remotely from the reducer, just that instead of the male male connector if you used copper pipe you'd need an inline adaptor to get from 6mm to 8mm between the solenoid and reducer if you used a 6mm solenoid or between existing feed pipe and the solenoid if you used an 8mm solenoid. Using Faro pipe between a remote solenoid and reducer can be a good idea particularly if you need to step up.down pipe size, both 6mm and 8mm end fittings are available for 8mm Faro pipe (as are end fittings to screw direct to M10 and M12 threads) along with the further advantage of Faro being flexible. You can't get 8mm end fittings for 6mm Faro pipe but can get 6mm end fittings for 8mm Faro pipe. M12 and M10 threaded fittings are available for both 6mm and 8mm Faro pipe but you might struggle to get an M12 6mm fitting. Use 8mm Faro if you intend on using Faro as a means of stepping up/down diameter.

A wide range of reducers suit P38s given the moderate power demand and lots of available under bonnet space... I've probably seen just about every type of sequential system reducer (and pairs of reducers in case of lower powered reducers) on P38s.

But I'd steer clear of reducers which don't have much range of pressure adjustment. Some otherwise decent reducers such as Zavoli Zeta S can be a problem if the narrow range of pressure adjustment doesn't suit the combination of engine and injectors... E.g. the Zavoli Zeta S really only likes to work at 1.5 bar, the older design of OMVL Dream reducers used to be widely pressure adjustable (between 0.8 bar and 1.8 bar) but with some messing about swapping out springs etc and some of the newer OMVL Dream reducers don't seem to like different pressure even if you swap internal springs. So even though a wide range or reducers can work on a P38 it's best to talk about those I'd advise given your injectors etc rather than just say anything goes... Magic3 high power, Romano HD, Emer Palladio should all fit the bill but they all have 8mm inlets, need external filter solenoids, use 16mm water hose and 12mm gas outlet.

I like the performance of the Bigas double reducer but it is bulky, heavy and is a pain regards plumbing. It really is just 2 reducers just stuck back to back sharing a common coolant channel so it has 2 pressure adjusters (1 for each reducer) and balancing their pressure output can be tricky.
The 2 gas outlets must be merged before feeding injectors to ensure both sets of injectors get the same pressure under all conditions...there'd be little chance of each set of injectors getting the same pressure over the engine's full load range if each of the reducers fed a separate set of injectors even if the reducers pressure was balanced properly at some points in the load range, the only condition where you get chance to balance reducer pressure is at idle unless on a rolling road. If you find your outlets are not merged (old installs would use a couple of Y connectors, one to merge, one to split back to separate feeds for the 2 sets of injectors) these days instead of using a couple of Y's you could just fit a H filter (2 inlets 2 outlets)
https://www.lpgshop.co.uk/h-2-inlets-2-outlets-filters/
Even when the outputs are merged, if one of the reducers is set to say 0.9 bar and the other is set to say 1.5 bar the one set at 1.5bar will do almost all the work until it's flow limit is reached at which point pressure will quickly fall to 0.9 bar before the other reducer even starts to do any work, so in this situation you'd effectively have a reducer rated at only 190bhp instead of 380bhp because a system set to work at 1.5bar will probably be approaching the point of switching back to petrol due to low pressure at 0.9 bar. OK if you get the pressure settings near enough balanced, say within 20%, they really are good for 380bhp probably more like 430bhp. To balance pressure first make sure outlets are merged, engine running, watch pressure in LPG software, turn one of the reducer's anticlockwise (increasing pressure) a bit and see if it made any difference to pressure reading, if not try turning the other reducer's pressure up a bit... you're trying to find the one with already highest pressure.. then if you turn the other reducer's pressure up until it just changes the reading on screen the pressure outputs will be balanced.. but confirm the results a few times by turning the pressure screws both ways on both while watching readings. You can perform the balancing the other way around (looking for lowest pressure) but it doesn't work exactly in the opposite way because the pressure reading at idle will obviously always reflect the higher pressure, so you'd be turning down pressure on the one with highest pressure until when you lower pressure a bit more the pressure reading on screen doesn't drop any lower and then pressure should be matched... provided you didn't turn the pressure down on the one you just adjusted too much lol.
Dunno how bad your water leak is. If your reducer just has a stain of coolant on the outside, water doesn't leak into the gas outlets and gas doesn't pressurise your cooling system it might not be bad enough to change or rebuild, though a different model reducer might make for neater plumbing.

AEB ECU's such as your Bigas ECU flash the yellow light on the switch and temporarily switch back to petrol (without any beeps) if they've determined that 1. The necessary gas injector pulse length (given the calibration settings and any compensation for pressure and temperature) is longer than the available window for gas injector pulse length, while at the same time 2. Pressure reading isn't low enough that it would seem you've run out of gas.
If the switch beeps it's because the system has detected low enough pressure that it thinks you've run out of gas, then the switch back to petrol remains unless you press the switch to manually switch back to gas (obviously if you really have run out of gas it will very soon beep and switch back to petrol again).

V30 injectors come in a couple of flavours, some have internal holes only 2.5mm diameter, some have internal holes 3mm diameter. The nozzles they come with also have 2 flavours, some can be drilled out to 3mm, some not quite to 3mm. There would't be much point in drilling nozzles to wider than 2.5mm if internals are only 2.5mm because it would be the internals not the nozzles that would be the limiting factor in terms of flow, but it wouldn't be a problem because 3mm nozzles on injectors with 2.5mm internals would just flow as much as 2.5mm anyway. For 2.5mm nozzles I'd initially set the reducer output to around 1.2 bar, for 3mm nozzles 0.9 bar. The reducers I advised early in this post are all adjustable for that range of pressures while not compromising bhp capability but so too is your Bigas twin reducer.

FIxed a P38 this morning and advised the owner to become a member of this forum... He intends to and I'm sure he'll have plenty to chat about with you all (he has a leaky matrix and other problems)! On the phone he said he had an OMVL Dream system but it turned out he had a Dream reducer and injectors but Stag ECU. His car hadn't run properly on LPG since he'd had the reducer changed at another LPG firm. Don't know what spec Dream reducer he had before but this one was the HP (high pressure 1.7 bar) version. The combination of 1.7 bar and his OMVL injectors with 2.5mm outlets flowed too much gas for good calibration to be possible, for proper fuelling at idle the gas injectors would only need to be pulsed for 2.5ms which is less than the minimum pulse length for these injectors for accurate metering. He'd got a few OBD errors for no lambda signal on one bank and duff probe on the other but I got it set up great after adjusting pressure to 1.2 bar and doing a full recalibration while the lambda probes were working and it was running closed loop (perhaps temporary lambdas working - I advised him to fit new probes but the LPG system is calibrated great now). I was a bit surprised to be able to turn pressure down to 1.2 bar (from 1.7) on this newish Dream reducer without having to remove a spring and without rendering the reducer incapable of flowing enough gas for flat out, an old Dream reducer would have handled it no problem, this is why Dream reducers are not on the list of those I'd advise.

Sorry I haven't been around for a few days.

RutlandRover wrote:

Not sure what's going on with the photos but both links take me to a photo of this chap:

I see pics of wood trim.. Isn't that you supping the coffee?

Seems P38s BCMs are better than Vauxhall ones.
My son was setting off to work the other morning, got in his Astra, turned the dipped beam on, both bulbs lit but went out after a second and wouldn't come back on again. Side lights and main beam worked as normal. No fuses or relays to check.
They were broke for a few days, fixed now but all he did was change the bulbs without testing them. Says the bulbs look fine and it would be a hell of a coincidence for both bulbs to blow at exactly the same time and not look blown.
Having done a bit of research it seems it isn't unknown for this to happen on Vauxhalls and simply removing bulbs for a while and refitting effects a cure.

Which reminds me, I once bought my dad a gas discharge bulb mod for his Vectra. Wired it all in but it caused the lights to flicker dimly at about 10hz and the bulb warning on the dash to come on. I ended up wiring some sidelight bulbs in parallel with the bulbs high voltage conversion units to get around all the problems. At least on the Vectra bulbs are changed from inside the engine bay, as opposed to the Astra method of accessing bulbs blind from a removed section of the wheel arch liner using a torx bit.

Merry Boxing Day...

Agreed icing is much more likely on a carb engine because the throttle plate has a mist of petrol flowing over it, some evaporates as it shifts from the atmospheric pressure to the low pressure side (with velocity increasing etc), as the petrol evaporates it has a high cooling effect that is in addition to the cooling effect of air pressure and velocity changes. An AC system filled with just pressurised air would still work but only very slightly not to the extent you'd notice but filled with a substance that changes phase from liquid to gas it works a lot better.

Besides the dowel, does the AC compressor have any collared bolt holes... so as you tighten the bolt the collar in the bolt hole pulls into a recess in the compressor (same as often seen on alternator mountings)? Some vehicle models do.

Gilbertd wrote:

Yes there is if you don't want it icing in cold, damp weather. The air intake is under the inner wing so the air being drawn in is at ambient temperature so will ice on the throttle butterfly in the right conditions. Of course it falls under oily bits, as it says, if it leaks, it's in here and the hose for the throttle body heater is known for leaking, which is why it gets replaced with silicone hose.

I know the theory but wondered if they really do suffer icing in the wrong UK conditions if unheated, plenty injected vehicle models don't have tb heating (I don't remember if L322 BMW V8 tb's are heated), the iav isn't heated..
Second line was meant in jest..

Wonder if there are any real world benefits from keeping the throttle body heating on a P38?
Bit ironic that the subject should fall under 'oily bits' section lol - you wouldn't want oil in the water.