Fitting LPG - hey, it's a gas, man!

[Laird_Scooby]

Those of you that know me will know i've been threatening an LPG conversion for some time now and the "final straw" was buying my Jeep last year.

Like many people, i was under the impression that there were a lot of drawbacks to running on LPG and to be fair, there's a whole world of myths out there supporting that.

Taking those myths as a starting point, let's have a look at them and decide from there whether they're fact or fiction!

You lose performance on LPG.

Dangerous to carry a tank full of gas in the boot.

These are two of the most common myths and can be answered with a few words - not if it's done right!

To explain in greater detail, the lost performance. There is a slightly lower calorific value with LPG so for every litre of LPG burnt by the engine, you get about 2-5% less power than from the equivalent amount of petrol. However, if you consider the weight for weight calorific value, LPG is much higher. Also LPG has an octane rating of about 105 (from memory) so the timing can be advanced to take advantage of this, depending whether the vehicle it's fitted to has adjustable timing.

In practice, there is little or no perceptible loss of performance on LPG, i've used my Jeep to tow a spares Rover 825 (about 1400kg) on a car trailer (about 600kg) and even uphill ( a very steep hill at that!) it pulled just as well on LPG as it did on petrol. That was before i fully tweaked the system. On the open road, switching between gas and petrol, even when hoofing it, there's no difference.

Now for the more dangerous sounding one - carrying a bomb in the form of the gas tank in the boot. Any fuel, by it's very nature is dangerous. The multivalves fitted to LPG tanks have several functions including thermal and pressure "fuses" - i use the word "fuse" a little loosely as they are simply valves that cut the flow of gas if the temperature rises above a certain level or the flow through the outlet exceeds a preset limit. Both of these prevent a hazardous situation becoming a problem.

The tanks themselves are designed to withstand all kinds of horrors so it's no more dangerous than having a normal petrol tank in the boot area, in some ways safer as a normal petrol tank doesn't have these safety features built in.

Most of the other myths tend to be related to outlay and recovery of cost and the fitting being carried out by "competent personnel". Yes it must be fitted by a competent person and there are regulations which must be adhered to. Some insurers insist that it is inspected and passed safe and there are a growing number of places offering to do this. Most of the regs are common sense and a copy of the regs is available from http://tinleytech.co.uk/

who also supply LPG parts, systems etc.

As for cost etc, well there is obviously a payback time on anything. However, the system i am going to fit is one of the most cost effective ways of getting LPG and i've also used a lot of secondhand bits to minimise the cost further. The average cost of LPG in the Birmingham area at the moment ranges from 40-44p/L with a few sites charging more and in some cases much more but even if you said 45p/L against current petrol prices of 118p/L for the high octane stuff you can still get nearly 3 times as much gas for the same price. If you currently spend £600 a year on petrol that means you'll be saving about £400 a year!

http://filllpg.co.uk/index.php?page=lpg.php

On those figures, £600 a year is only about £12 a week or 2.5 gallons of petrol. Even at 25mpg that's only 62.5 miles a week or about 3250 miles a year. Given most people do about 4 times that, the savings could be as much as £1600 in a year at those prices!

 

Obviously the payback time will be different for everyone, that's only to give an idea.

What exactly is LPG?

LPG is Liquified Petroleum Gas, also known as Propane. At room temperature it is a vapour so to make it liquid, it is compressed to quite a high pressure. This also makes it more compact to carry about in a fuel tank - when it vapourises, it's volume increases by a factor of 270! In other words, for every litre of liquid LPG you have, it will produce 270L of vapour!

Systems

There are several different types of system available, the simplest is open-loop mixer, then closed-loop mixer then you have the gas-phase injection systems and the latest liquid-phase injection systems. Some of the more fancy injection systems link in to the OBD-II engine management system on the car to help ensure the fuel trims are as near factory as possible.

For this project, i'll be concentrating on a closed-loop mixer system. To explain what that is, and how it works, i'll first of all explain an open-loop mixer system.

Some of you, like me, are old enough to remember when you opened the bonnet of a car and the only fuel related component was the carburettor. This mixed petrol and air to the right mixture for combustion by a set of precisely drilled holes known as jets (sometimes there was only one jet with a needle to vary the effective size of the jet in carbs known as Constant Depression types eg SU, Stromberg etc) which allowed petrol to flow through proportionally to the airflow. This is exactly how an LPG mixer works, although it is mixing gas/vapour with air instead of petrol.

We already know the LPG is a liquid, so we need a means of reliably turning it into a vapour - enter the vapouriser! This is basically a water-heated heat exchanger that the LPG passes through. When it changes from liquid to a gas, it takes heat from its surroundings to do that and if the vapouriser wasn't heated, it would soon turn to a block of ice! It's a very effective refrigerant!

In the vapouriser, there are generally two adjustment screws, one gives the main mixture and the other gives the idle "fine tune", a bit like the main mixture screw and idle bypass on the old carburettors. Because there is an amount of vacuum acting on the vapouriser outlet to "pull" the gas through, the mixture for all running conditions can be set using these two screws.

The LPG mixer ring is generally installed on the throttle body and the vapouriser somewhere nearby. This is pretty much all you need to run an open-loop system. Yes there are other components to facilitate the changeover from petrol to gas but they will be explained later.

A closed-loop system is virtually identical, however it also has an ECU and a stepper-motor controlled valve in the vapouriser to mixer hose. It also contains the changeover circuitry, programming facilities for number of cylinders, changeover points and a few other things but most importantly the ability to read the value of the Lambda sensor in the exhaust and vary the amount of gas the stepper-motor lets through to give precise mixture control across a wide range of load conditions. In this way, it achieves near-stoichiometric (14.7:1) air/fuel ratio for minimum emissions and best performance/economy.

Talking of emissions, when LPG is burnt in the engine, there are really only two by-products - CO (carbon monoxide) and water. None of these horrible nitrates/nitrites or soot or anything else. It also produces 120 times less micro-particulates than a diesel engine so is much kinder to the environment and humans as well as to your pocket! Also it's kinder to your engine as it keeps the oil cleaner for longer due to the lack of pollutants in it.

Anyhow, i have digressed! The closed-loop system! A brief rundown of the components :

Tank - can be toroidal (donut/spare wheel well) or cylinder (torpedo) mounted on the boot floor or under-slung from the boot floor which is typically for 4x4s thanks to the increased ground clearance allowing this. Both types of tanks can be "single hole" or "4-hole", this refers to the number of holes in the tank for the inlet and outlet valves, level sensor, pressure relief valve etc. A single hole tank needs a multivalve to perform all the various functions.

Fill Point - the LPG version of the filler neck on your petrol tank. Many options exist including drilling a nice, big hole in your bodywork to fit a fill point to small fill points (fillers) that can be hidden behind the existing petrol flap to towbar mounted brackets and a few others. For this project, i'll be using a towbar mounted bracket - no way am i drilling a 70mm hole in my bodywork!

Vapouriser, mixer, ECU and stepper motor - as explained above

Miscellaneous - besides the bits above, there are electrically operated solenoid valves, one on the vap and one on the multivalve to shut the gas off/turn it on. Also i have an extra shut-off valve/filter on the liquid side which is optional - i have it so may as well use it. Obviously there are various bits of rubber pipework, some for coolant and some for the gas, small bore copper pipe for the filler to tank and tank to vapouriser connections, a fair bit of wiring and the only part of the conversion visible inside the car, the changeover switch. This has indicators on it to show petrol or gas operation and usually some kind of level display for the LPG tank contents, a fuel gauge if you like.

As i go through the installation, i will explain some of these parts in greater detail and start throwing some pictures in (i know Geoff likes to look at lots of pretty pictures! ) and hopefully it will all come together nicely like a thing nicely coming together!

[Mazda Man]

Marvellous, another great post from the 'Post Writing Guru'.  That explains away a lot of concerns that some people may have (including me) and looking forward to the pic and video laden installation. 

[Laird_Scooby]

The first of the pics is a-coming! The very first one gives an idea what i need to achieve, however there are reasons it's not as simple as it first looks :

That's roughly the fitted position of the tank. The two "ears" shown just inside the "hole in the donut" are for fitting the gas tight lid. If you look very closely, you can just see one of the mounting bolt holes in the bottom of the hole, just to the right of the multivalve which is the odd looking arrangement sitting in the rearmost part of the "hole". It can't just sit in there though, the mounting bolts have to be fitted and also a gas-tight hose to bring the pipework and electrical connections in through. So it has to come out :

This is where some of my other toys come in handy! The trolley was an Amazon special, capable of carrying 150kg and was originally bought to transport my shopping from the car to the kitchen at the back of the house, saving me umpteen trips on foot carrying a bag or two at a time. The weird looking white thing sat on the trolley and supporting the tank is actually what i used to get in the bath - got a wet room now so not needed! Was going to sell it but the battery pack seems to be dying, needs further evaluation. If the battery pack is ok, i'll still sell it after cleaning it back up of course!

Anyway, i've digressed! Here's why the tank had to come out :

The lug/bolthole for the spare wheel clamp is in the way of where the gas-tight hose has to come out. Looking at it, there are just 4 small welds holding it in. Grind them off and lift it away or so i thought!

What i couldn't see while i was looking in there because of shadow and the sun shining into my eyes are four spot-welds also holding the lug in :

You can just see the spot-welds if you look closely. I hadn't seen this picture on my PC monitor until after i tried grinding the four spatters of weld off and found it still wouldn't move.

Tomorrow is another day and hopefully i'll have less disturbances than today so will make more progress i hope!

[Laird_Scooby]

Managed a bit more progress today although it was 4 steps forward and 3 back!

Firstly the new trailer socket/bumper protector landed :

It has a black plastic protective film on at the moment. This will be peeled off as and when i fit it. Time to get the fill point mounting plate as well :

That's how thick the fill mount is and this is what it actually looks like :

I also exhumed the replacement trailer lighting xocket and gasket from my stock pile and fitted them to the bumper protector :

They're now ready for fitting onto the tow bar so i moved onto drilling the spot-welds out on the spare wheel mounting lug :

The next stage was to get the rubber mats cuts to size and fitted roughly in position to protect the tank :

This meant i could play hokey-coky with the tank, putting it in to mark where the mounting bolts will go, removing it to drill the first hole, refitting it the opposite way round to mark the second hole, remove it again, drill the hole and then put it back in to heck the holes were in the right place!

Don't get too excited yet - although the bolts are in, they only just reach through the floor! Without the rubber matting they would indeed reach, this was something impossible to foresee until after i found the rubber matting to protect the tank from the towbar bolts going through the boot floor. Still to be done before i can even think of plumbing it in is making the hole (about 30mm) for the gas-tight hose to come out of the bottom of the car - surprise, surprise, the tank needs to come out so i can make a hole in the rubber mat, put it back in to mark the hole on the boot floor, remove the tank again to make the hole then fit the gas-tight hose to the bottom of the tank.

Then, and only then, once i get some longer bolts can i start plumbing it in!

There are one or two bits of prep work i can do indoors later, if i get time i'll do them and post a bit more complete with more pretty pictures!

[Mazda Man]

Excellent.  We're apparently in for some great weather over the next few days, certainly into early next week, so you should have it done by the time Antiques Roadshow starts Sunday evening. 

Another silly question...where will your spare wheel go?  Or are you intending having one of those cans of Tyre Weld in the glove box? 

[Laird_Scooby]

If i keep plodding away at my present rate Geoff, i should hopefully have it done by sunday - which sunday i'm not sure though!

The spare wheel question isn't silly at all - it's a very good one in fact. I could leave it sat in the boot or as you suggest, carry a can of TyreWeld. For short journeys i'll probably do neither but on longer journeys i generally (although not always) carry my "sh!t kit" as in get me out of it and that has a small 12V compressor to inflate tyres and if memory serves, a can of TyreWeld as well as a small bottle jack and quite a lot of cheap tools all crammed inot a 20" toolbox. All in (apart from the bottle jack) it cost me about £60-70 which to my mind is a cheap, one off insurance payment to be able to fix most things without resorting to the RAC. It also gives me a handy toolkit to use for scrapyard visits as well and with the cost of the individual tool sets inside being a tenner or less, not a great financial loss if they do go AWOL at some point, just inconvenient.

Chucking the spare wheel in the boot for longer journeys is definitely an option, i didn't want to go down route of the torpedo tank between the suspension towers in the boot so it had to be the toroidal tank in the wheel well.

[Mazda Man]

I have the same in my boot Dave, I borrowed it from a previous company Passat and it includes a warning triangle, a few spanners, screwdriver with various bits, fuses etc.  I also have a small £10 Tesco Special compressor for blowing up tyres and in my cargo net I keep a few tins of silicone spray, brake cleaner etc.  Oh there's a fire extinguisher in the side pocket too.  I would rather carry stuff around and never need it than need it and not have it.  Plus a plastic (empty) petrol can. 

[Laird_Scooby]

Just ordered some M12 x 150mm long bolts for the LPG tank - the ones i got the other day are 120mm but the longest the fasteners place i went to had in stock. I can almost certainly use them on the Sterling when the time comes as the tank for that is slightly smaller (600 x 220mm) instead of 650 x 235 which gives capacities of 47L and 59L respectively. Because space must be allowed for the gas to exapnd with temperature, they only ever fill to 80% so the useful capacities are about 48L and 40L - either way i should have a 300+mile range on each car.

[Mazda Man]

Sweet, well the BBC weather department confirms this weekend is going to be hotter than Daisy Duke in her cut-off shorts on the bonnet of the General Lee, so you should make good progress Dave.  Beep Beep. 

[Laird_Scooby]

All depends whether the General drives past with Daisy still on the hood!

I have some progress to report from today which i'll do shortly.................

[Mazda Man]

Goodo.  I'll be in bed soon so I'll read it tomorrow....after I've tackled the weeds in the back garden!  Oh joy.  Much rather be tinkering with Purple but he's seeing his Uncle Stu a week on Sunday for a well overdue oil and filter change...it's been 7 months!! 

[Laird_Scooby]

As just promised, the progress from today :

First of all i got the fill point mounting plate and the fill point and fitted the fill point loosely :

How the towbar is at the moment :

A sneaky peek at the vapouriser, mixer, stepper motor and shut off valve/filter :

The towbar bolts were so loose it didn't take long to get to this stage :

Note how rough the old towbar trailer socket plate looks! Now with the new stuff including the fill point fitted loosely :

I did tighten the bolts on the back of the fill point to secure it before fitting by the way! All tightened up :

How rotten that socket mounting plate really is!!!

The (almost) finished towbar work :

I admit it doesn't look like much but there were a few more things that had me saying "What a palaver!" that obviously slowed things down! Still have to wire the new electrical socket but other than that it's ready to plumb the fill pipe once i get the tank secured. When that's done i can fit the shut-off valve/filter under the bonnet and the vapouriser, mixer and stepper motor then get them plumbed in.

All coming together slowly but surely!

[Mazda Man]

Good progress there Dave, looing forward to another update. 

[Laird_Scooby]

Thanks Geoff - no progress today for various reasons but tomorrow is another day and hopefully will bring lots more progress.

[Mazda Man]

Sweet...well the weather is going to be nice all week but cooling down towards the weekend again...just in time for my Sunday oil/filter change when it will be minus 10, hurricane force winds and precipitating as it usually is when I go to Stu's. 

[Laird_Scooby]

Well i've taken lots of pics today Geoff but in all honesty have achieved precisely 5/8 of diddly-squat!

This is the starting point under the bonnet :

The plan for today was to move the various bits and pieces to facilitate fitting of the LPG system such as the air filter, intake trunking etc so with that in mind, i did achieve something today.

However, lack of available space under there means i won't be able to fit the extra shut-off valve/filter :

I might think about fitting it somewhere at the back underneath but obviously don't want to put it in harms way or anywhere it can attract all the salt, mud and general crud on the road.

Somewhere under the bonnet i have to find room for this wee beastie - the vapouriser :

What can't be seen on the left of the pic are the adjustment screws :

The big one is the "bias" screw which sets the average mixture all the way through the rev range and the small one is the idle bleed screw which lets enough gas through to keep the engine running at tickover, much like the idle bypass screw on an old fashioned carburettor.

By careful tweaking of both screws, a near perfect fuel slope can be achieved, giving more fuel at higher revs while maintaining a correct idle mix or less fuel at higher revs while still maintaining the correct idle. This is done in conjunction with the laptop so you can see how the adjustments are effecting the mixture all the way along.

Also needing to find a home under the bonnet is the mixture adjustment stepper-motor valve :

This connects to the mixer (which sits on the throttle body) through the short hose, which ideally needs to be as short as possible.

I shortened that hose, cleaned up the mixer including the old RTV sealant where it had previously been installed, ready to try and trial-fit it :

Annoyingly the mixerwas just too small to fit on the throttle body but luckily i had another that did fit :

If you look carefully you can just see the brass elbow coming from the mixer on the bottom left of it - i need to alter this to come bottom right so the stepper-motor can sit vertically (recommended orientation) and the long hose from the other side of the stepper-motor can link round to the black plastic stub topmost on the vap as this is where the gas comes from. The vap is roughly where it will be once fully fitted, from there i can pick up the coolant feed and return hoses but i need to make a bracket for it. I can just about get to the adjustment screws which are now on the rear end of it, nearest the bulkhead.

Use your imagination a little now and imagine the intake trunking is running downwards towards the air filter, instead of through the bonnet potentially :

This shows the mixer to be about right in terms of physical size and is designed to fit a 72mm (OD) throttle body. Funny thing is, both the systems i bought from fleabay were sold as having been fitted to 4.0 Jeeps - luckily i've discovered the very early ones had slightly smaller throttle bodies whereas the "HO" (High Output) later versions (like mine) have a slightly larger throttle body which coincidentally is the same size as the 827s. This means both were correctly sold but for different year vehicles, something i doubt either seller realised! Purely for the facts and figures things, the one that fits is for a 72mm and the one that doesn't is for a 68mm throttle body. Fairly sure i can find another on fleabay or even Tinley Tech for not a lot so shoudln't be a problem. Won't need it for a while as it will be going on the Sterling.

This is how i left it at the end of all that shenanigans :

In other news, the longer bolts for the tank have arrived and i managed to find and buy a 29mm holesaw for cutting the hole for the gas-tight hose in the boot. It feels and probably sounds a bit all over the place at the moment but hopefully all the disjointed bits will gel together like a gelly thing soon!

[Mazda Man]

Good stuff, there's lots of "somewhere under the bonnet I need to fit this" but all I can see is a full engine bay full of 'stuff'.  Is there room / going to be room under there Dave to fit everything? 

[Laird_Scooby]

Big shoehorn Geoff!

Joking aside, it is tight under there but i'm fairly confident as long as i can make a bracket to fit the vap where it is at the moment or close to it that i can get it sorted.

Been through all the options like mounting the vap under the air filter box etc but although it will fit (just, the length of hose and pipework is prohibitive - besides i need to be able to adjust it as and when) it won't have much protection down there. I would in some respects be better off (in terms of space) doing away with the original air filter box but firstly i have fitted a K&N long life standard replacement filter (no real power gains implied or claimed by K&N, just long life) so don't want to lose that, second i would have to fit an aftermarket filter which would cause other problems and lastly i want to retain it as standard as possible, except obviously the alternative fuel parts.

[Laird_Scooby]

A bit of "behind the scenes" progress to report today although no actual work on the car. Firstly the gas-tight pipe aka tank vent between the bottom of the tank and the outside world, mentioned further up i think.

My first thought was to make a short tube with the "tophat" fittings at each end to fit between the tank and boot floor. Basically this pipe has to be gas-tight so any leaks are vented to atmosphere instead of lurking in the boot where they could mix with air and become an explosive mixture. After a bit of digging and a post on the LPG forum, it transpires my theory is correct - if i use a tophat fitting on the bottom of the tank with some gas-tight pipe through the boot floor, as long as it exits 5-10mm below the boot floor, there's no need for the second tophat fitting. This makes life much easier as i can now fit the tophat and gas-tight pipe to the tank and plumb/wire the necessary tank connections.

Which reminds me - i bought a new level indicator for the tank as well. This is a small gauge that has a built in potentiometer that has a range of 0-90 ohms. Others are available with different resistance ranges but the one i need for the Leonardo 175 ECU is the 0-90 (it will work with others but needs calibrating differently and was originally designed for this one - oh yeah, the 0-90 is the cheapest option as well! ) and the ECU displays the tank contents on a row of 5 LEDs built into the changeover switch, one red for "EMPTY" and the remaining four for 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and full. Because there is no damping on the sender arm, the gauge and also the reading can be up and down like a brides nightie on rough roads so isn't a terrifically reliable reading unless parked on the level. However, it's still better than no form of indication!

More thought went into the mounting of the vapouriser etc as well. As such i bought a 3/4" elbow and a couple of 16mm elbows for the gas outlet (from the vap) and the coolant pipes respectively. This will mean i can turn the gas outlet 90 degrees to the left to prevent any kinks in the gas/vapour hose that carries the gas from the vapouriser to the stepper-motor and mixer. This in turn means i can keep that hose fairly short and straight. This should give the optimum throttle response and because i've got the stepper-motor so close to the mixer, the optimal mixture response too.

Talking of the mixer, i mentioned before that the one i had planned to fit wouldn't fit so had to use another one i had. The reason i had another is because i plan on doing the Sterling too. Using the mixer for that on the coupé means i am now short of a mixer for the Sterling! I had a hunt on fleabay and found this :

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291752654319?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I've used this seller before and found him to be honest so had no qualms about buying a secondhand mixer by itself - even with the complete kits i bought they are dubious but generally come from cars that have been scrapped for whatever reason and were usually running ok. If you read the listing, you'll see it came from another Rover 827 so it should fit no problem!

In addition to the elbows i bought today, i also bought a 38mm bi-metal holesaw to cut the hole in the boot floor for the tank vent pipe. The tophats are only 29mm but the gas-tight pipe that goes on them is 35mm. Obviously i'll have to protect the pipe from chafing against the floor so ebay to the rescue again with some channel grommet as i've always known it or grommet strip as it seems the rest of the world calls it!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322094110385?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&var=511021159236&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

While out and about, i picked up a metre of 30 x 4mm flat bar to make a bracket to mount the vapouriser on. The original bracket isn't quite big enough to reach where i need it to so bought something hefty enough to make a "muthah" of a bracket for it! Maybe it's time i got round to making my metal bending machine! It's only a small vice-mounted jobby, made from three bits of 2" section 5mm angle iron and some hinges. Not sure what i've done with the hinges but i'll find them! If not i'll "cut'n'shut" the bracket and weld the bends in it!

That's about all for today, fingers crossed for good weather tomorrow! Also got the dreaded annual on the Sterling coming up so might have to divert my energies for a day or so, depending. Should be ok though, not done many miles since the last one and as long as i get an oil/filter change done ASAP should be fine on the emissions too - famous last words after the coupé and its front Lambda dying while on the emissions tester!

[Laird_Scooby]

Well the good news is the Sterling flew through the MoT, no advisories although one botty-clenching moment when the emissions seemed a bit high. Turned out the cat had cooled down a bit while the rest of the test was being done and the engine was off but it passed.

 

This means i can once more focus my energy on gassing the coupé. Hoping to get the bracket for the vap made tomorrow, mixer fitted, vap fitted and then start the wiring. Then i'll have to plumb the gas lines in and will be more or less ready for commissioning.

Sounds quick and simple when i say it quickly!

[Laird_Scooby]

Well since my last post on here not much has happened in terms of the LPG conversion for the simple reason that circumstances totally outside my control meant i've spent most waking moment sorting (or trying to sort) something else. I've now got to the point where i can't do anymore except pass on the last bit of information and leave it at that.

As such i thought i would crack on with the coupé today. No pics i'm afraid as it was all "intellectual" progress. I did a bit more fiddling with the vapouriser to work out the best position and in all honesty, i was pretty much there last time but it didn't seem to sit right. This time i re-routed the coolant hose that is still on the vap and lo & behold, it practically fell into position. While in this position, i checked the other coolant hose and the gas vapour hose positions. These all looked good so i set about working out the bracket. Using the existing bracket that came with the vap, it works out i just need a strip about 5" long of the 30 x 4mm bar i bought for the bracket.

In between whiles, i have also bought a larger hole saw for the tank vapour drain tube/gas-tight hose to pass through the boot floor. Using this i marked the approximate position it needs to go.

Sadly a combination of rain and pain stopped play today but hopefully (if the weather forecast is to be believed!) it will be dry and maybe even sunny tomorrow so hopefully i'll get some real progress tomorrow!

[Laird_Scooby]

After several hours of will it - won't it on the rain front, the big,. shiny, yellow thing appeared in the sky and after juggling various bits around in the shed, i finally got to the point of making the bracket to mount the vapouriser on.

I cut a 5" length off the 30 x 4mm bar i bought to make the brackets from and cleaned up the end i had cut - almost perfect right angle which made the other (machine cut at the factory) end look odd. Sure enough, it was cut at about 80 degrees! Squared it up a bit on the grinder but didn't go too mad as it really doesn't need to be perfect - a case of function over form.

However, i measured and punched the centres for the holes carefully (from the end i cut) with an M12 clearance (tight clearance, 12.5mm) hole one end, centred 30mm from the end and an 8.5mm hole 60mm away to mount the vap on. The 12.5mm hole is to fit on the stud for the upper wishbone bracket that bolts vertically through the inner wing. There is a body flange 30mm from the centre of the bolt which i'm hoping will line up nicely with the bracket to help it stay in the right place.

Despite the fact it's a function over form part, i still wanted to protect it so here it is in primer, then with a taste of things to come and the final shot :

Not a perfect match for the bodywork but close and a definite perfect match for the wheel centres!

'Tis the same paint you see!

Because of domestic chores various such as mowing the lawn etc, that is about all i got done today.

However i've been working on a little "side-project" that will be trialled on the coupé and if it works as i think it will then i'll added it to the spec of Galactic Dawn.

Not giving too much away just yet but it's a bespoke, custom and most of all hidden (until it operates) Day Running Light system. Before anyone asks, i haven't done what Honda in the USA do and made the inner headlamp main beams come on at about 50% brightness, that's a nasty system IMHO as it dazzles oncoming traffic (i speak from bitter experience - there's a few USA spec Civics round here that regularly dazzle me!) - think more "old skool Volvo" and you might have an inkling of what i'm doing!

[Laird_Scooby]

Between yesterday and today, i've made some good progress at long last! The first pic is a bit of a "mystery shot" but remember it for later - i may be asking questions!

Lovely aren't they? More of them later though.........

With plenty of this :

and some of this :

.................progress started with drilling the hole for the tank-vent tube (gas-tight hose) and painting it to prevent rust :

Note the two holes with missing bungs! All the holes i need are now in the boot floor, two bolt holes and the tank-vent hole. I also cut a hole in the rubber mat for the tank-vent as well :

To protect the tank-vent from chafing on the boot floor, i bought a couple of metres of this grommet strip, or channel grommet as i like to call it :

Here it is fitted with a short offcut of gas-tight hose to hold it in place so it doesn't fall out as it relaxes after being squashed and stretched to get it round the hole :

Some of you may remember i mentioned getting a new tank sender unit - while the tank was out and easy to get at, i thought it would be a good idea to fit it :

Difficult to see there because of how the light was but there is a socket on the front of it to plug the cable into. This then connects with the LPG ECU so the tank contents can be displayed on the switch. Finally we get to the "tophat" and gas-tight tubing, aka the tank-vent :

I had to fit the tubing from underneath the tank to the tophat fed in from the top of the tank - the Jubilee clip wouldn't go through the hole!

Once it is all fitted and plumbed/wired up, i'll put some RTV sealant under the tophat and secure it with some self-drilling screws - this will seal it so it's gas-tight and any leaks will be safely channeled to the outside of the car - LPG is heavier than air and about half the weight of water.

With the tank now ready for final fitting, i filled the grooves i accidentally added to the boot floor when grinding off the spare wheel lug with more RTV sealant, put some sealant on the two bungs (the "Mystery" pic" ) and tapped them into place with a large brass drift, smoothed off the excess RTV with a wet finger (ooo-errr Geoff! ) and gave it a final squirt of gold paint just to keep everything the same colour - ish!

The central rubber mat (the important one!) was then replaced and it was at last ready for the tank :

Tank view from above ^^^^^ and below :

You can see the tank-vent nicely in place, poking through the hole (and the grommet strip) by about 10-15mm. Ideally this would be about 5-10mm but as the gas pipes (or at least the fill pipe) will run along the towbar, i'll leave it slightly longer, just for the extra protection and reducing the height of the vapour outlet point.

I was quite surprised how much the boot floor pulled up towards the tank, i decided not to use the metal tubing as a spacer between the tank and floor as any slight mis-measurement could potentially leave the tank able to move slightly. As the bolt threads finish above the towbar frame, i see no real benefit in cutting the bolts off, originally i planned on having the nuts inside with the bolt heads on the underside of the car - i may still do that although at the moment, the tank isn't moving anywhere and other than protecting the threads, there would be no real benefit in doing it.

Moving to the front end briefly, here's the bracket i made for the vap, all apinted up and in roughly the right place :

You can't quite see the body flange i was on about that the end of the bracket should butt up against although if you look to the right of the green wire from the coil suppressor, you can just see the line of the flange. This should help locate the bracket when it's under the but it's currently resting on. The vap will then be secured to it using an M8 nut & bolt, whether under or over the bracket remains to be seen at the moment. I need the vap loose for now as i have to run a pipe from the tank to the vap inlet (the bright fitting with the polythene stuffed into it) and that means running it under the car (secured every 600mm or less with a "P" clip and self-drilling screw) then bringing it up the inner wing and into the vap. Here's a general underbonnet view to give an idea of the final fitted position of the vapouriser in relation to everything else :

Obviously the trickle charger and that odd white bracket won't be there but there will be the mixer on the throttle body with the stepper-motor and the original trunking between the air filter and the mixer. If i was an estate agent, i'd call it a "compact and bijou" installation!

I'm now at the point where it's plumbing and electrics to do then i can get onto leak testing (washing up liquid solution and a plant sprayer ) and when i'm happy with that, the setting up, tuning and tweaking on the laptop! It seems to have taken an eon to reach this point but if all goes well, there's about a days work left for most people or about 4-5 days for me! Oh yeah, i also have to extend the breather hose a bit - the one with the metal end that goes into the air intake trunking and links to the rear rocker cover. I'll have to make a small "stand-off" bracket to shift the mounting point that's hidden behind the temperature controlled idle valve and get some longer 10mm hose to extend the rubber hose on the rocker end of it.

Fingers crossed for dry weather again!

[hughezee]

Fantastic progress buddy, keep up the good work

[Laird_Scooby]

Thanks Stu - hoping to crack on with it soon, weather looks dry (but not all that warm, thought we were meant to be in summer now???) so just got to build my energy levels up to make a start!