Ultimately, putting a hole in your roof is a bloody silly idea for a car - especially one with excellent HEVAC - but it was a bit of a fashion item back in the day.
Welcome Jeremy :)
I don't know if my P38 is a forever car but I've thoroughly enjoyed it so far!
Marshall8hp wrote:
Hence my comment. StrangeRover is getting 14mpg on the road, I’m getting 21mpg, I.e. 50% better economy.
I’m not saying running costs are less on petrol, we all know they are not. But I’m not sure they are as great a saving as some feel they are. What would you consider a reasonable time to depreciate the LPG installation cost, as that should be taken into account. Say £500 year over 4 years for a good multipoint system?
We are pretty used to fitting and running LPG here. You have to appreciate that Australia probably has the highest density of LPG cars in the world, against the number in the total fleet. It has been a common fuel here for 50 years and every service station carries LPG, or at least it is rare to find one that doesn’t. If you have LPG fitted to your vehicle in NSW, then your annual Pink Slip inspection (what you would call MOT) can only be done by a specialist LPG MOT station as the whole LPG system is gone through annually as part of the vehicle safety check.
50% better economy but the fuel costs in the UK are generally double for Petrol over LPG so it's well worth it over here. It sounds like your government didn't like losing the revenue!
The installation on The Duchess cost £1500. From my figures in my earlier post I'm saving 12.9 pence per mile (@64ppl for LPG which is the national average) so that paid back in 11,627 miles.
I normally fill up at ASDA which is currently 52.7ppl in York so it was actually a bit quicker for me.
Almost.. but that doesn't account for the fact that you'd burn about 10% less petrol if you were using it.
Marshall8hp wrote:
I know LPG is cheaper than petrol but 233 miles on 75 litres is 14 mpg. I get that around the city on petrol and 21 mpg on the freeway at 110 km/h.
MUCH Cheaper than petrol!
MPG is a silly measure as fuel density varies a lot. Petrol weighs about 0.75Kg per litre but LPG weighs about 0.51Kg/Litre.
The more useful measure is Miles/£
If we take petrol consumption as 3.5 miles/litre that costs £1.20/3.5 = 34.2 pence per mile.
If we take LPG consumption as 3.0 miles/litre - we get £0.64/3 = 21.3 pence per mile.
Irrespective of the volumes consumed, in the UK you save over 1/3 of your fuel costs by driving on LPG and those are very favourable figures for Petrol as I generally pay under 55p for LPG which gives me 18.3 pence per mile.
Lpgc wrote:
You can't force start most BRC gas systems on gas.
I don't think the potential for a leaking LPG injector or reducer has been mentioned? Run on gas and the gas system gets pressurised, turn the engine off and gas leaks into the manifold, try to start the engine and the engine gets petrol and gas instead of petrol and air until there's been enough cranking to pump the gas out of the manifold but by which point the plugs might then be wet with petrol.
At least worth ruling this out by driving on petrol for an hour before turning the engine off so if there is such leak gas will have been used with the engine running rather than displace air in the plenum?
Others will know better than me but iIrc the pump doesn't work on these until cranking, either that or it runs for a couple of seconds in pos2 then stops until cranking. 17 Seconds after stalling is probably about right?
A lot of engines give a really long 1 or 2 petrol injector pulses immediately on turning to the cranking position before reverting to normal pulse lengths for cranking which may be temperature dependent.
Thanks for the input Simon - I tried running on petrol for a day but no change in the morning. I guess we can eliminate LPG from my enquiries!
It's quite a weird position for ODBII to be fair...
@ £29 per litre that surely is Special Oil!! I bet you feel happier though :)
Gilbertd wrote:
I'm confused, easy I know, but you say you can hear the fuel pump relay cut out after 17s yet you also say it doesn't run with the ignition in pos 2? Are you saying you can hear it over the noise of the starter cranking? You can often hear a relay click in but not drop out. Simon's suggestion is a possible too but if it is the fuel pump not running, then hot wire it. Run a wire from the fuel pump relay socket and put it on the battery positive (or put a jumper in place of the relay). Then you'll be able to run the pump before you try to start it. If it fires up immediately, it is a fuel pump problem, if it's just the same, it's something else.
Sorry, should have been clearer - I'm using the nanocom to turn the pump on before cranking, same as the wire trick but from the comfort of the driver's seat. I crank it first, and on rare occasions it'll start perfectly. If not, I run the pump until it cuts out and crank again. It can take a few tries before it starts. I've found no obvious correlation between the number of times I need to run the pump and the length of time the car has been standing. Or temperature, or wet weather.
Once it has been running for a couple of minutes it'll re-start normally.
Gilbertd wrote:
It's an odd one as if the pressure was down or if there was a restriction, it wouldn't run normally once started.
Yep, that's the thing. I did test it by warming up on LPG, swapping back to petrol and flooring it in second. No det, no hiccoughs - smooth to the redline.
Harv wrote:
Morat I had a Dakota that acted like that. The problem was a bad check valve in the fuel pump. It’s there to hold pressure for your next start. If it leaks a bit, the pressure won’t be there and you need to cycle the key a couple of times to run the pump for a few extra seconds. Maybe not the same issue but maybe?
Yes, that sounds identical. I just wish there was a hatch in my floor already! Thing is, the pump doesn't seem to run on the key, only on crank so it'll be a new pump rather than getting along with the "poor man's prime" on the key.
BrianH wrote:
Morat - have you got a lead for your lpg system? If so can you actually see any fuel timings when your cranking? Or alternatively can you force it to start on gas? Thinking you could rule out crank sensor if you can see timings or start on gas.
Alternative way to rule that out would be to verify you have sparks, if you haven't already done so (when the problem is present).
Sadly no lead and I don't know the trick for forcing a BRC to start on gas. I'll put some flashing spark plug testers on and verify spark but the fun thing is that it fires, sputters and dies most of the time, then you have to pump up the fuel. Sometimes it'll fire on the second attempt, sometimes 3rd or 4th. I can hear the fuel pump relay cutting out after about 17s (just count thousands in my head). Does the fuel pump cut out when correct pressure is achieved or is it just on a timer? Because it's remarkably consistent.
Another thing I don't know is whether the fuel pump relay is meant to kick in at posn1/2 on the key. Looking at the nano, the fuel pump only seems to start running on crank which is quite a bold strategy compared with my other cars which run the pump at position2 on the key whether you crank or not.
Of course, just to be special, it will fire right up from cold maybe 1 time in 10.
As you can imagine I'm not massively excited at the prospect of swapping the fuel pump to get a new check valve but it might end up being the correct option. The other end of the system could also be at fault if there's a leaking injector but I guess that's just as annoying to check as the injector rail is tucked under the manifold. The knackered Schraeder valve is just another annoyance.
It's weird, once it's started it runs fine and restarts instantly when hot. But you have to run the fuel pump a few times before it'll fire on a cold start. A filter can't hurt, I guess. I suspect it's the return valve (assuming there is such a thing in the fuel module) so a fuel tank drop/fuel pump may be in my future. I can't smell any leaks.
I tried pressing the schraeder valve but the pin wouldn't budge. I suspect that might be why my adaptor wouldn't screw on. It seemed to grip the thread and then popped off. Of course, it's in a stupid location so I can't see what is actually going on :/
I think I mentioned this elsewhere but seeing as this is an actual Tyre thread:
I went with Cross Climates in the end. In doing so I've decided that the Range Rover is 100% on road and the Jeep can do any offroad tasks with its Grabber AT3.
The Cross Climates are quiet and extremely good in the wet for braking and although we haven't had any proper snow yet (despite everyone else getting it, boo) they've been perfect on super cold frosty, icy mornings. We haven't done much driving in the dry recently (or much driving at all, of course) but I did some full ABS stomps on the brake pedal and I was impressed at the rate stuff started flying round the cabin. If we have a summer this year, I'll report back! So far they're shaping up to be a nice on-road tyre for all conditions.
Broke it, fixed it.. still scratching my head...
I've been having cold start problems which I believe are related to fuel pressure so today I finally broke out my Fuel Pressure gauge and tried to attach it to the valve on the back of the engine. It turns out that my gauge has all the attachments except the correct one (although it might just be that the centre pin on the test valve is seized) so I wasn't able to hook it up.
Rather frustrated I tried starting her up, and after a couple of attempts (Crank, nothing, start fuel pump with nano, wait till it cuts out, crank, nothing, fuel pump, crank) she started up and shot straight to 2400 rpm.
I started her a couple more times but after she hit 3500rpm with 0 throttle I decided to have a think. Yep, in thrashing around trying to hook up the fuel pressure gauge I'd dislodged the Cruise Control pipe from its bracket and pulled the CC throttle tight, about 1/2" off the stop.
Doh.
Now I need a way to test fuel pressure.
Wow, they have a lot of solenoids! The AW4 in my Jeep only has 4.
My preference would be for a return for refund.
Under DSR, "I don't like it" IS a valid reason for 14 days.
My cousin married a guy who moved from being some big cheese at BMW UK to being a bigger cheese at Jeep UK. He saw me driving my Cherokee and gave me the usual "Oh, you should call me I'm sure I can do you a great deal on a new Grand Cherokee". He was very confused when I said thanks but no thanks. Ultimately the only argument he had against my current car was "but, it's OLD - I can get you a NEW one".
Needing a new car didn't seem to be in question.
Even 10 years is pants. My cars both ended production in 2001 and I see no need to "upgrade" to something more modern just to keep up with the Joneses. They also run on LPG so they're vastly cleaner running that they were when new. Had I joined the Car Finance rat race instead of buying my Jeep I'd have probably leased 4 cars by now. How is that cleaner or greener?
The whole "new stuff is greener" message is Marketing Bullshit (tautology there) and leads to landfill full of white goods, smartphones, PCs, TVs, DFS sofas and all the other consumer tat with which we surround ourselves. If Mr Chippendale could make a chair that lasted 300 years where have we gone wrong since?
And why can't car manufacturers do the same thing? There really should be leglisation on the minimum life of new cars.