Sorry if a bit off topic...

Years ago an ex's uncle was a rep for an engineering firm. His firm 'designed' a system that allowed hydraulic systems on vehicles such as cranes (Palfinger type) to be powered by the vehicle engine instead of by a separate engine or an electric motor. He started describing how this system worked... a hydraulic pump driven by the engine but which could be disconnected from the engine (so the pump wasn't running all the time) just by pressing a button on the dash. "What, like an AC compressor clutch?" I asked. '"Yes just like one of those"... And he got a £50k bonus on top of his salary for selling such systems to fleet managers, seemed like his job was too easy...

I'm afraid I wouldn't have been travelling with Rob, not particularly big but heavy lol.

Gilbertd wrote:

We even had a chart in the office of how much each of us weighed so we could match who could travel together too.

Clients always did wonder why your works always sent a little and large team out to visit them lol

Hypothetical situation... What would happen if you got flagged onto a weighbridge but the passenger got out and just walked away. Would they have the legal authority to stop the passenger walking away, assume a weight for him, or just have to go on the weight they could measure. You could say 'Ahh that was John, he looks burly but only weighs 4 stone and those heavy duty looking bags he was carrying were lightweight PVC and full of kids balloons'.

Whether or not they're capable of carrying a ton inside is an interesting point.

But for your purposes and with your concerns surely the practical ways of shifting the blocks 2 miles are no brainers. If you've got easy access to a trailer, use that. No trailer, put a sheet in the back then do 2 x 4 mile round trips each with 25 blocks in the back. Or if concerned about airbags do 3 or 4 x 4 mile round trips.

Run into a few pheasants over the years but the magpie the other week was a first for me, it tried crossing the M180 at 90 degrees to road direction and coming down at around 30degrees, cleared the West bound carriageway OK but was lower when it got to the East bound where I was doing 80mph.

Launch X431, not sure if it will do some of these pre-canbus proprietary non standard protocols but I would guess it does considering it comes with a big set of adapters to connect it to many types of pre-OBD2 proprietary diagnostics sockets.

I've got a Launch C Reader too, I know that has no chance of accessing any of the other systems, mine won't even connect to the engine on some JOBD stuff.

Still don't know what my Launch gear will do on P38's. I think it very likely that there will be gaps compared to what a dedicated tool like a Nanocom will do but it may surprise with greater coverage than expected, For sure it will do a lot of things (and a lot of things on top of) what some expensive dedicated tools for some other make/model vehicles will do. I wouldn't be surprised if it would be capable of connecting/diagnosing issues with (e.g.) multiple types of ABS system on P38's where a certain licence on a certain Nanocom might limit which types it could talk to. Almost regardless of vehicle I've tried it on, including those where generic OBD tools don't seem to work, it seems to be able to talk to, diagnose and run real time actuator tests in every electronic module on every vehicle I've yet tried it on.

I think he means can he put 100% concentrate in (no water)..?

I would think water is the better actual coolant, other stuff is there more to protect against corrosion and as anti-freeze.

Couple of years ago I LPG converted a(nother) Volvo T5. After giving it a good booting during LPG calibration it started over heating, problem soon getting worse so that it started overheating at idle and finally during just slow cruising (so very soon it had no cooling at all and would overheat under any conditions). I diagnosed a failed waterpump but because I was so busy with LPG conversions I farmed the water pump replacement out to a local mechanic / garage. He found that the impellor had broken up similarly to your impellor.

Gilbertd, I should remember (but can't) who swapped the BMW diesel into their P38... Would they be able to shed some light on your problem?

StrangeRover wrote:

Removed this.

And added this.

Helps having a spare in the right place, the first time its been there since 2003.

The opposite of what most people are thinking of doing.. But because you think LPG is done for because of MFG? If you wanted me to convert it back to LPG again, I'm fully booked until January ;-)

20mpg at 60mph... At £2 per litre that's 45p per minute and 45p per mile, 1p every 1.3 seconds. Even if there are no LPG forecourts in your area you might be able to get gas delivered to your door, at least in bottles. Bottled gas was very expensive compared to forecourt gas but in the bigger bottles these days not so much expensive at around £1 per litre - and compared to £2 per litre and when delivered to your door... Then decide whether to pump it into your vehicle tank or run directly from the bottle.

Just having a flick through some forums I regularly visit including this one this evening... Too many points I'd like to reply to and not enough time.

So I'll just say that I can easily add several hundred miles range to most LPG vehicles for a few hundred quid by fitting a second LPG tank. Which can make having to drive a bit out of the way to refuel with LPG at decent prices instead of petrol even more worth it.

There will come a time when the only vehicles on the road run on batteries (electric), LPG, CNG or (maybe) hydogen when petrol and diesel are not available. Perhaps too late for most here to care.. But I will be among the last to run a vehicle with an internal combustion engine.

LPG is a product of oil and methane extraction 60% and oil refinery 40%. Oil is needed to produce plastic. While we make plastic or extract natural gas we make LPG. If every forecourt that sells petrol and diesel closes I can still buy bottled LPG. Whilever gas is piped to homes I can run a car on CNG (I can buy or make a compressor and refuel at home). It is possible to make carbon neutral and synthetic LPG, they are available at forecourts already.

I don't mind spending 5 or 10 minutes at forecourts but I would never pretend that a necessary forecourt visit is in any way productive or enjoyable. I would not enjoy spending 30minutes recharging an EV anywhere except at home and a necessary stop for a charge could be no more productive than making a phone call or replying to emails from a layby.

Gilbertd wrote:

Two person job though as it is a nice tight fit through the grommet in the bulkhead so you need one person inside and one outside to help it through.

I have to thread wires through tight bulkhead grommets often, usually by taping to something stiff like a long 5mm drill bit, bit of 6mm copper pipe or brake pipe. Just had a ball-ache doing it on a Porsche Cayenne turbo, mostly because I'd forgotten where the bulkhead grommets were.

Bit of an aside...

When BP, Shell, MFG pull LPG pumps and tanks from their sites what happens to that equipment? Might expect some to appear on Ebay etc but haven't seen any for sale.

Would be nice to have the option of buying some to set up adhoc LPG stations in areas where there'd be demand.

A fella on another forum asked other forum members (all in the NorthEast) if they'd like to club together to set up an LPG site for their own private use so they could all enjoy LPG at cost price. I suggested they'd do better making the site for public use, maybe buy for a lower price if buying in greater quantities, charge a markup price even for investors, run it like a business so investors share the profits... If you have the chance to save £10 on a tank of LPG by not paying a markup, or pay full price at the pump but the pump puts £20 back in your pocket, you're better off doing the latter. The latter also has the advantage of potentially expanding to 2 sites putting £40 back in your pocket.

It didn't happen though, no-one showed interest. That said he was thinking of a site in an area already not too badly served by LPG stations and asked the wrong people whom he showed figures quoted by Calor for setting up new equipment. Stark contrast to the pop-up adhoc LPG stations I've seen in the past in areas like Rotherham, where a few fellas would rent an old bit of land, install second hand equipment and buy-in gas from the supplier that charged the lowest price.

Reminded me about Sweden, my son and his American wife are flying to Sweden on Sunday, must remember to feed their cats while they're away lol.

If some vehicles have both a P0175 (bank 2 too rich) code and a P0172 (bank 1 too rich) code then they may also be likely to flag a P0103 (MAF voltage too high) code. The reason for this is that the MAF gives higher signal voltage the higher the airflow and the ECU should provide more fuelling the higher the airflow. Both banks seeming to have too rich mixture (or both bank1 and bank2 lambda sensors being wrong) is a less likely fault (more than one component gone wrong) than a single component fault of an over-reading (in voltage terms) MAF sensor. That would make sense... But you don't have P0103 you have P0102 which points to under-reading MAF... which makes the combination of your 3 error codes curious - An under-reading MAF usually leads to high positive fuel trims (and lean mixture or under-reading lambda sensor codes). The curious part is why would an ECU give error codes for both under-reading MAF voltage (low airflow) and too rich mixture (from lambda sensor readings) at the same time. I.e. Why would it read low airflow but then supply the engine with what it thinks is correct fuelling for high airflow (more air requires more fuel and vice/versa).

Air intake rates / MAF voltage figures can vary by quite a lot for the same engine power (or idle rpm) if mixture varies. These days we normally assume mixture is correct when comparing MAF readings (and it goes without saying that the engine is fully warmed up).... If mixture is a bit rich the engine will usually need less air than usual to average to maintain idle speed, if a bit lean (or especially a lot lean) or a lot rich it will usually need more airflow than usual to maintain idle speed. Idling with correct mixture on LPG the engine may need slightly less air than idling with correct mixture on petrol and the MAF reading can be a bit lower than it would be on petrol, that's because of a few things such as the better atomisation of the fuel and the vapour LPG taking up volume in the inlet manifold that would otherwise be vacuum when vacuum is a factor in pumping losses, both are real efficiency gains in the relevant respects.

Got to wonder if some aspect of resetting adaptions, or (on the other hand) 'false' learned values during time with failing head gaskets contributed to the combination of error codes.

If in doubt about the LPG setup would advise getting it running properly on petrol before seeing what happens when it's run on LPG.

I see what you mean David @dhallworth.

That's a good advert you've done on LPGForum ;-)

Does the lube system inject lube into the gas feed between reducer and injectors (most of that design/make do but some of the more recent ones are capable of injecting lube into the inlet manifold, where-as the old type couldn't feed into a vacuum)? I would never fit a type that injects lube into the feed between reducer and injectors because you tend to find that the lube fluid all goes out of the first (or lowest) injector it gets to, so you end up with one or two cylinders getting most of the fluid and others getting little fluid. Lube fluid also clogs injectors leading to early injector failures and inconsistent fuelling even before failures (imagine a load of fluid that had pooled in pipes suddenly reaching an injector). I say all this in case it sways you to keep the system and switch to a different type of lube system, though I know that's not likely ;-)

Or.. before fitting the heads could fit some tougher valves?

Simon

BrianH wrote:

It might be worth seeing if Simon (LPGC) shows any interest though I'd guess he would have already been in touch if it was.

Could say I've got a 'nodding interest' but I'm watching the thread more out of general interest than out of interest in buying myself.

I wouldn't normally go much out of my way to buy second hand bits but if the tank is a 720x270 4 hole(?) I'd be interested in that if you were closer... and interest in that might make me more interested in the job lot in case you didn't want to sell parts separately. A long shot for me though, probably wouldn't be up for meeting North of Manchester anytime soon.

Would advise advertising the parts on Ebay and LPGforum, as Gilbert said if the ad is seen by the right buyer they'll pay a much better price than someone like me.

Seems to be turning out great with the smoothly curved response readings etc. Well done :-)

Most OBD systems report airflow in grams per second rather than kg per hour but of course it's simple to convert between the two.

I doubt that in practice readings of less than around 4 grams per second (15kg per hour) need be accurate because below that kind of level the engine would be in over-run no fuel mode, so probably won't need to worry much about matching response accurately for voltage below around 1.1v

Also interesting that from the maf readings we can work out how many bhp or kw worth of fuel an engine uses just to idle.