GAS GURU'S come out to play!

[DT-P38]

Hello Gas Guru's!

I have recently bought an old County V8 with some sort of a mixer feeding twin Strombergs and a big fat cylinderical tank gobbling a lot of the rear area. I am restoring "The Count" to use for "soccer dad - dad's taxi" duties and want to convert him to a 10 seat omnibus format. Hence the existing LPG set up must change.

I have already purchased a complete under rear floor twin LPG tank and custom petrol tank set up which is stamped and has a couple of years before its next test/inspection. At this point, I now want to remove the existing set up myself (perhaps with help from a Melbourne based AULRO LPG Guru!) to try and make the install of the new system easier and hopefully cheaper.

I was thinking that it would not be too hard for a reasonably competant person to decommision an existing set up, am I kidding myself? What do I need to do? Pretty sure the tanks empty, but how do I confirm that and what are the important safety/environmental considerations when opening the sealed system to pull apart and out? Tank locations change dramatically, but is there any advantage in some of the existing stuff (heater, mixer, pipes, etc) being left in place and re-used?

Any comment or direction would be greatly appreciated.

Hoo-Roo, Dave.

P.S. Anyone qualified (or even just knowledagable!) in Melbourne want to do a weekend cashie on all this with/for me? PM me if your interested.

[bee utey]

Apart from the obvious observation, that you should take good care around any potential ignition source, mostly it's common sense, although illegal to remove your own gas system. If you can do it in a place that is not 5metres from a nosy neighbour, so much the better. They WILL call the cops/fire brigade if they smell gas.

Basically: Tightly turn off any service tap on the tank. Disconnect the electrical wires from the tank valve. Run the engine, if you can, on gas until there's no gas left in the pipes to the engine bay. Undo a service pipe connection carefully, wait for all hissing to stop, remove.

Then crack loose the filling pipe connection, wait for any hissing to stop, disconnect, then remove the tank. Under no circumstances do you vent the gas out of the tank within a suburban environment. Give the tank away to a gas fitter, put it on ebay, vent it around 1km from the nearest neighbour, or just store the tank as is. The risk is quite low. If you totally drain the tank, water vapour may enter the tank and rust it out over time, rendering it useless. Keep it sealed unless its bieng disposed of, let someone qualified do that.

Vic laws I believe now require an LPG system to be listed on the vehicle roadworthy specs, don't expect your vehicle to pass without comment with a different system fitted. Make sure you are paperworked for the change.

BTW that thing you refer to as a "mixer" doesn't mix anything. It converts liquid LPG to vapour so is known as a "converter". Mixers mix gas and air and are fitted to each carby.

[Davehoos]

victoria now requires a strict laws on gas systems--also all work must be done buy an aproved repairer.that said you only run into issues if you get help from some other party.legally you cant conect gas lines-but i cant see any reason why you cant fit a tank if it has been engineered or meets current standards----not 20 year old non existing victorian standards.so a used system from another car may no longer be legal

but fitting tanks must be to an engineers or australian standards and these change regularl yif you have ALL of the parts from the other conversion its not that hard to fit.

items like petrol tank may not have been aproved.also there have been updates on mounting tanks to chasis and not the floor.heat sheilds.

[DT-P38]

Guess I will be leaving it all alone given the legalities... :angel: Have used a couple of larger gas conversion companies in the past but was also hoping to get a referral to someone LR sympathetic from on here.

Can anyone recommend a decent fitter in (hopefully Eastern) Melbourne?

[DT-P38]

This is what the big tank actually looks like. FYI, the complete system will be for sale as soon as I get the new one fitted. Will post in markets at that time.

[Pierre]

Dave, John at Autogas in Cave Hill Rd Lilydale will give you both the time of day and the correct information, and is a long time LR converter, as will John at Technotune, 515 Maroondah Hwy, Ringwood East.

HTH

Pete :)

[loanrangie]

As mention before as long as you follow simple safety precautions it is no more difficult or dangerous than working on a high pressure petrol system.
I have removed and refitted lpg to my 2 previous rangies and also fitted up the twin sill tanks with solenoid and return lines.

[Mick_Marsh]

.so a used system from another car may no longer be legal
I just had a tank tested. The gas place that had the test done were going to do a changeover with a tank that was already tested. From that I assume it is not illegal to use gas components from another car.

[Blknight.aus]

you can remove and fit the tank, all the lines and all the components....

you just cant legally hook it all together or certify it.

take it to the place that you're going to get to commission the new tanks, ask them nicely to decommission and disconnect the lines so you can drive it home on petrol then mount the new tank and the lines before coming back pay them to do the hook up and commissioning.

If you get anything wrong they will tell you and either not hook it up or certify it or they'll offer to fix it for the appropraite fee.