Clanger

Somebody thinks differently/likes different things to you, so automatically they are wrong and deserve their legs chopping off?
Bravo, great thread.
 

I hope Dave's family and real world friends understand that Dave brought real light to this international troop of car enthusiasts. Some of us struggle with mental heath issues and it may be that some of us come here to escape the pressures and pains of real life. Dave always went out of his way to make us smile. He made us giggle.
He dragged laughs out of us and made our days better.
 
We are all poorer without him and we were lucky to have him.

RIP Dave.
I wouldn't be in favour of renaming the grumpy thread. If his memory is going to be defined by anything it should be his perseverance and ingenuity. A thread about that would be more appropriate IMO.

Which exact weather does the railway in Britain require to work properly?

I bought this about 4 years ago recently, promptly disassembled it, started working on various bits myself while shipping other parts out to the experts for refurbishment.

I have been working* on it slowly, while trying to remember who has what bits and if I owe them any money.  Here are some pictures showing the current state of play.

All my cars are LHD.  I don't find any problems with it at all

All my cars are LHD.  I don't find any problems with it at all

USPS!
 
I can't believe you didn't go and pick it up - it can't be any more than 700 or 800 miles from you!

Sorry - nearly missed the thread with the title change   and not been home this last week - I see that the Texas branch has stepped in to assist.  Let me know if there's anything in California that you need help with.

Sorry - nearly missed the thread with the title change   and not been home this last week - I see that the Texas branch has stepped in to assist.  Let me know if there's anything in California that you need help with.

Sorry - nearly missed the thread with the title change   and not been home this last week - I see that the Texas branch has stepped in to assist.  Let me know if there's anything in California that you need help with.

If I had a workshop like that I'd deffo be making tube out of sheet steel, sheet out of tube and wine out of water. They clearly love the fabrication just as much as having an end result.

Beat me to it!  I just watched this and realized that breaker's yard would have been my local in Hendon.

Beat me to it!  I just watched this and realized that breaker's yard would have been my local in Hendon.

It's called Garage Squad and it is the same basic idea.

Nah, it's mine forever. 
 
Me and Rover
Sitting in a tree
Never getting an M-O-T
 

Can we expect to see you posting in the "Single and sad" thread now?

It was a bit too close for comfort this afternoon.
I had told my financial consultant that I was buying a car, that it was a 914 but she didn’t realise it was a race car with just one seat, a harness and not really road worthy... that was an interesting conversation!
Think I better find the single and sad thread!

Can you write that again more slowly, I got a bit lost in the middle where an aerospace company made submarine engines.

It never rains in California - you must have the California only wiper delete package...

It never rains in California - you must have the California only wiper delete package...

One’s too many, ten’s not enough!

Is it finished yet?

This is my 2002 Ford Crown Victoria on the dealer's lot in Kansas in 2003 when I broughted it.  It had 777 miles on the clock at the time and the price, including delivery to the westest coast of the US was about half of its new sticker price.

 
The CV is dedicated CNG and is my second natural gas powered Crown Vic.
 
At the time I was driving a fair few miles and I wanted something big and comfy that was cheap to run and allowed me access to the car pool lane with only one occupant.  I don't do that many miles any more, but you will have to pry the Crown Vic out of my cold dead hands as I lurves it.  These days it has 137,000 miles on the clock and is good for at least another couple of hundred thousand.
 
For the first time in my ownership it has started to play up a bit and I am trying to figure out what the problem is and how to fix a car that hasn't been made for years, and when it was it was only made in small numbers resulting in every CNG specific part being made of unobtanium.
 
I changed the oil a couple of months ago, which naturally led to the check engine light coming on... I mean, why wouldn't it?
 
I plugged in the OBDII scanner and came up with PO192 - low fuel rail pressure.  Everything was fine and dandy before I changed the oil and there didn't seem to be any issue that I could feel when I was driving.
 
Using the magic of Dr. Google I was able to find out that fuel pressure should be 125 psi at the rail.  So all I needed was a fuel pressure gauge capable of reading 125+ psi.  I couldn't be arsed to pay the price for a fancy gauge so I bought a cheapo one from Harbor Freight.  It only goes to 100 psi, but I reasoned that if it pinged the needle it was likely pushing out close to the correct psi.
 
Gauge showed a reading of 95 psi, so I figured it must actually be low fuel pressure.  I checked with a local garage who confirmed it was 95 psi at the rail.  This was a good news, bad news kinda deal - good news because the fuel rail pressure sensor is north of $700 if you can find one.  The garage ohmed out the sensor and declared it to be okay (more on that later), bad news because it meant that it was something else that would likely be a) more expensive; b ) harder to find; or c) both.
 
My fuel is stored under high pressure, and I mean really high pressure - 3600 psi high.  So it's not something you really want to fuck around with as it could all go quite badly if not careful.  What this means is, that the high pressure gas must be stepped down from 3600 psi to the fuel rail pressure of 125psi and this is done using a regulator.
 
My next deduction was that the regulator must be bad - otherwise why the low fuel pressure?  I mean the only thing between the fuel in the tanks at 3,600 psi and the fuel rail is the regulator, so logically it must be the culprit.
 
I got really lucky and found a scrap yard that had a CNG CV so I loaded up the tools and headed off.  It was relatively easy to get the regulator off the scrap car as it had no fuel tanks so no fuel pressure to worry about.  Even better is the fact that the scrappy knew the square root of fuck all about CNG cars and sold the regulator to me for $27.  A new one, if available, runs the best part of $2,500 - so WINNAH!  the worst part was lying on my back on gravel in 95 degree weather stripping the part from the CV - the car I got it from was ace though an ex taxi with something like 566,000 miles on the clock.

 
I got the regulator home and cleaned up.  Crown Vic was jacked up and put on 6 ton jack stands - ya can't be too safe...

 
I figured out that I could purge the fuel system by using the schrader valve on the fuel rail leaving me with a fairly easy swap.

 
Everything went back together without a problem.  I flushed the fuel system with injector cleaner and changed out the coalescent filter while I was at it.
 
I buttoned it all up and got the fuel pressure gauge out - pressure at the rail was now pinging off the needle, so well over 100 psi.  The car is smoother and definitely idles better when cold.  I canceled the Check Engine Light with my scanner and went for a test drive. 
 
Three miles into the test drive and the fucking CEL is back on.  WTF?
 
So the current state of play is as follows... fuel pressure is up at the rail, the cold idle is much improved, car drives smoothly and without any noticeable issues.  Fuel consumption has decreased - I haven't driven enough to know for sure but it could be down by about 15% or more.
 
I spoke to another mechanic today and he told me that ohming out the fuel sensor won't tell you if it is breaking down when in operation, so it could still be the sensor.
 
I had been contacted by a guy on the CNG forum offering to sell me one of his spare fuel rail sensors for $125 - this was when we thought they were unobtainable.  He has since emailed me to tell me they can be bought from Ford for about $700, so now he wants $350 - he can go fuck himself, I would rather get raped by the dealer than do business with someone like that.
 
So for now, the car runs and drives without any problems other than the low mpg and CEL.  The only real problem with the CEL is that I can't get it smogged while it's on, and without smog I can't register the car - I don't need registration till April, but I need to figure it all out before then.

That Sierra, I mean Merkur is lovely.
 
From the sounds of it not buying it is proving dangerous to your health. Not buying it would be like being denied treatment and that's just not cool!
 
Get it bought. Tell your other half it's mine if you want pending shipping...
Or can't you park it on the street?