Agreed with Gilbert.

Only times I've seen plugs in that condition is when I've removed them and left them outside for a day or so to rust.. in which case of course they wouldn't have looked like that when removed / Or from an engine that hasn't been run much in a while, particularly if coolant has made it's way into the cylinder or if the engine had none-hydraulic valves and had been stood with exhaust valve open on that cylinder.

If it is a fake NGK it still begs the question how it rusted on the threads... I don't know it spark plug thread repairs are ever done with e.g. helicoils on these engines but such repair could maybe account for rust on threads and different compression?

The front of the single pipe is a terminating block under the transmission tunnel, the single pipe splits into 2 pipes within this block, the 2 pipes then run forward to the usual 2 pipe AC stuff under the bonnet. I haven't had a look at the rear evaporator yet, it may be that there's some sort of single pipe to 2 pipe adaptor before the evaporator unit or it may be that the evaporator unit is connected directly to the single pipe.

Might be possible to remove the single pipe and just weld the affected area... but the last time I tried aluminium welding myself was using a mig on a Vauxhall Senator's heater pipe and it didn't go so well! If I were to do it again I'd practice first on a bit of AC pipe removed from a scrap vehicle. Wonder if they are aluminium or an aluminium alloy though.

Not trying to change the subject but if I'm allowed to digress from P38s a bit... I recently bought a Nissan Elgrand people carrier which has 2 AC evaporators (one in the front and one in the back). AC wasn't working, didn't have time to take it for a proper regas so I tried the Halfords kit. It worked at first but then the missus could hear a hissing from the back end and it stopped working - hissing coming form the corroded front to rear AC pipe on a bend near the rear. Normally I'd probably try cutting the corroded bit out and replacing with some compatible high pressure flexible pipe (like I once did on a Pug306) but this pipe has another pipe running inside it. A new pipe is over £1000 and special order from Japan so bugger that! I need to either find a replacement pipe in a scrappers or fix this pipe.. Anyone good at aluminium pipe welding?

Here's what UKLPG's Mike Chapman had to say about it.

To all UKLPG approved autogas installers

LPG suppliers are currently experiencing a delivery backlog to bulk LPG customers which is due to supply issues from terminals first felt earlier this year which were then exacerbated by the extreme weather conditions experienced across the country. This combination is unprecedented.

UKLPG supply member companies are operating extended delivery times to deliver LPG to customers and increasing staff levels to improve the situation as quickly as possible.

Regards Mike Chapman.

Charlie Browns was running an AC regas, AC works or no fee operation until recently and I think other firms do the same; bur I've been past what was a Charlie Browns today and noticed it had changed to a 'Tyre warehouse' which doesn't run the same AC scheme.

Can buy a DIY AC recharge kit from Halfords, I have one but it's only really economical if the AC just needs a top-up, otherwise you'e better off going to a 'no win no fee' setup as mentioned above.

A very basic test of AC system condition (as in leak / no leaks) is just to depress the low pressure side schrader valve, it there's still pressure in there chances are it just needs a regas.

When it switches from stone cold the reducer temp sensor wiring is probably shorted, when it won't switch it's probably open circuit, OMVL Dream reducer temp sensors fail more often than most. From memory the thread is bigger than M6, probably closer to M10, the temp sensors get corroded in and then trying to remove them with a spanner rounds the brass hex of the temp sensor... Better to remove them using a 12mm hex socket after cutting the wires as close to the sensor as possible.

Sometimes when the proper Dream temp sensor fails installers remove an allen/torx bolt that holds the reducer together to fit a more generic sensor but not all sensors have the same electrical spec.

Said before that Tartarini systems were available with Matrix XJ injectors. OMVL systems were available with Matrix HD injectors.

The HD injectors are good performers but not as good as XJ. HD injectors aren't as reliable as XJ (actual injectors), actual injectors aside they also suffered a lot of internal temp sensor problems.

May find that the gas inlet on the HD's is 11mm and most 12mm pipe will still seal if an appropriate jubilee clip is used. OMVL kits used to come supplied with pipe clips instead of jubilee clips, a pipe clip with a purple band usually fitted OMVL brand pipe on 12mm fittings but were too slack on Matrix injectors so we used jubilee clips with Matrix injectors. OMVL brand pipe is thicker walled than most 12mm vapour pipe so the clips could only be used with OMVL pipe even on 12mm fittings.

If your injectors do have 11mm inlets and you have any problems you could change the inlets to 12mm or fit 11mm pipe, most of which can be persuaded to fit on 12mm fittings on filters etc.... especially if you heat the end of the pipe in a pan of hot water.

Good stuff. Yeh I'm warm in my long sleeve Tshirt, jumper, another jumper, coat and hat :-)

Gilbertd wrote:

Morat wrote:

See you on Friday, Simon! (I'll get that photo of the LPG injector plug when it stops pissing down)

Have you broken it already?

Morat wrote:

it's the Jeep, it needs some TLC.
Sadly it's just started throwing a check engine light with codes for the MAP sensor. I've changed the sensor and then it did it again :/

I know the Jeep ran better on the way home, is it still OK Morat (besides the PAS pump)?

Always a good idea to impress upon any MOT garage that you will be doing all your own repairs, so from their point of view a fail will mean them retesting the vehicle for free within the next couple of weeks ;-)

Morat wrote:

See you on Friday, Simon! (I'll get that photo of the LPG injector plug when it stops pissing down)

Yeh see you Friday Miles.

Gilbertd wrote:

Surely the list of priorities should go:....

The list reminds me of one time many years ago I didn't come out of the garage for 3 complete days and nights except to use the toilet, no sleep or rest, soup brought in, working on a car the whole time. Dad was helping and was with me the whole time, all eyes on the ball the whole time with just a couple of conversations that went 'we should get some sleep', 'well you go and sleep then', 'no I'm not sleeping until you do' lol.. Not something I'd do again but the job was done on time when otherwise it wouldn't have been, then we drove the car the 200 miles according to plan and feeling surprisingly well rested after only 4 hours sleep before the drive. Both of us stubborn gits!

BrianH wrote:

Lpgc wrote:

There was a guy near me who used to have a snow plough attachment for the front of his series Landrover, dunno if it was home made from bits of old farm machinery. P38s are better in the snow than series Landrovers though?

You'd be warmer in a p38, The Series III my mate has takes forever to warm up, and even when it is warm the heater struggles.

Just a bit! My dad went through a Landrover fanatic phase in the early 80s and had a few LWB series, could see the road through the gap at the bottom of the doors and heater output was dire. Fuel economy from the 2.25 or 2.5 no better than a V8 either, just under-powered. Comfort not great with the thin square seat cushions to sit on and 3 ton rated leaf springs on the back. .

There was a guy near me who used to have a snow plough attachment for the front of his series Landrover, dunno if it was home made from bits of old farm machinery. P38s are better in the snow than series Landrovers though?

I'm having no fun working outside most of the time in the snow :-( When does spring start? Lol.

No probs, PM me your address and I'll send it to you... probably won't get around to it this week because I'm so busy converting 2 Nissan Elgrands.

I've effected fixes for Citreon petrol ECU's in the past. Seems a common fault where the petrol ECU fails to read the engine temp sensor reading correctly, the engine starts OK but the cold temp reading that the fault creates causes the engine to run too rich when the engine is warm. I noticed that by applying voltage from 1.5v cells to the temp signal wire I could still get the ECU to read whatever engine temp I wanted even with the internal ECU fault, the ECU fault wasn't the reference voltage it supplied but was something in the ECU pulling the voltage on the signal wire... made a simple circuit to apply it's own reference voltage to the temp sensor and feed a modified voltage to the ECU, this voltage coming from an op-amp output with only a low ohm resistor on it's output to the ECU so the internal ECU fault couldn't pull the voltage read.

Happy to send it to you Gordon, it's no use as it is lol. Charged Dave £200, that's £100 for the second hand Romano ECU, £20 for the new switch and £80 time/labour. I couldn't find the Tartarini ECU I tried on Blueplasticsoulman's car though hence why we fitted the Romano ECU (which meant the new switch).

I've got a little digital oscilloscope, testing the old ECU would probably be best done when it's fitted as part of a normal install on a car with the scope used on the injector outputs... If/when I ever get around to it! It's definitely broke though. I've got quite a few ECU's here, some in perfectly good working order, some broke, so if an ECU malfunctions I'm more likely just to replace the ECU and shelve the old one (with a big X on the back of it) or just bin it rather than try to repair it. Years ago when an ECU might have cost £500 I was more inclined to try to fix them (swapping components from other ECUs with a different problem) sometimes with success but not often lol!

There are various design boards, this will be an older board. I've had the back off most types, the older ones usually have a row of little semiconductor looking components... On such boards with this type of problem I've seen some of that row burned, a bit of research on the net led me to believe they're diodes that are part of the injector peak/hold circuit(s). On very early 4 cylinder boards if one of those components is burned you lose peak/hold on 2 injector outputs.

Cheers Dave, was nice to see you and have a chat too.

Just from what I saw when the Tartarini ECU was trying to autocal I strongly suspected the ECU was faulty so we changed the ECU at a very early stage. The existing ECU continually increased ginj during autocal until it was reading 60ms (lol).... 60ms would be so rich that the engine would have no chance of running if the injectors were actually pulsing for that long but the mixture didn't get richer regardless of how high ginj got, so although the ECU was trying to pulse injectors for a long duration they were still only pulsing for a very short duration, the mixture didn't change regardless of how long the ECU attempted to pulse injectors. Give that info, even without putting a scope on injector outputs it seemed and still seems pretty obvious that either the peak or hold part of gas injector signals was missing and most likely hold.

The Romano ECU fitted came from a Merc ML63AMG that never ran properly on gas... until the owner brought it to me from London last year. I told him I'd probably be able to sort it without changing many aspects of his install (keeping the same ECU etc) but he asked me to replace the full front end with whatever I advised. The ML runs well too now;-)

Dave made all the right moves previously, the reducer did need replacing (old one was pushing over 2 bar pressure and wouldn't allow pressure to be turned down), he would have got there on his own if his ECU hadn't also been broken.

I got banned from a Subaru forum after helping loads of people with advice, just on one occasion 'telling it how it is' about why some owners converted Subaru's didn't run properly with their BRC Sequent32 systems. Got banned from a Lexus forum for talking knowledgeably about LPG installs because a moderator got 'incentives from Profess Autogas who he reckons are the best installer bar none..when really that's me ;-) lol