What's an alternative engine to a Perkins Phaser, 4 litre?

[garethj]

A friend of mine has a Renault/Dodge box van with a Perkins Phaser, 4 litre, 4 cylinder motor in it.

 

Unfortunately because he lives in London he'll be hit with a £200 per day emissions charge unless he puts a £2500 particle filter thingy or replace the engine with a more modern one that passes the 2001 Euro III emissions levels.

 

A certificate from VOSA will be needed so you can't just write to TFL and say "it's alright, I've put a Prius motor in there"

 

The Low Emissions Zone skims the inside of the M25 and there are cameras going up the same as the CC cameras in London, they will monitor any vehicle entering the zone and dish out a fine accordingly.

 

A few more details here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/lez/default.aspx

 

So, other than a set of false plates, can anyone recommend an engine that would pass Euro III emissions, has adequate power and is available cheap?

 

Ta

[wuvvum]

Register it abroad. Although the TfL website says that foreign-registered vehicles are liable to be fined in the same way as UK vehicles, there's no way in arse that TfL are going to convince foreign registration authorities to spend time searching for ownership details. In fact I don't think they'll even bother trying.Failing that, the Dodge 50 was available from new with a Chrysler slant 6 petrol, or even with the 2-litre engine from the Chrysler 2-litre. Fit one of those and an LPG kit - should be a lot cheaper than £2500. Or just run it on petrol and swallow hard as the mpg figures are halved... I'm not aware of any 4-pot Euro II compliant diesel engine that would be avaliable for less than the price of converting the Phaser.

[MrRegieRitmo]

  garethj said:

I'm afraid I know nothing about engines, but just wanted to say - your friend has one of my favourite vans! Is it ex waterboard or electricity board?

 

Portsmouth water had loads of these until just a few years ago. All seem to be gone now though.

[wuvvum]

By the way, I think the charge for vans is £100 per day - it's only £200 for buses and HGVs. If I understood the website correctly. That's still £100 too much though.

[Torsten2001]

as a showmans vehicle it would qualify for exemption, write Bills Flea Circus on the side and change the Clasification

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Why are 'showmen' subject to an exemption then? Fuggin gyppos.Perkins will sell you a new Tier-III compliant 1100 series 4-cyl turbo diesel that will slot straight in I think, cost a few grand though! The best one is only 108bhp but it will last for about 2 trillion miles and generate 556 Nm of torque.

[garethj]

Thanks, chaps! I'll pass on the info, especially for getting it reclassed as a flea circus vehicle Gareth

[mk2_craig]

Find a dead Dennis Dart bus with a 4cyl Cummins in, that might drop in and should go like greased rhinoceros poo off a spade.

[bigstraight6]

  wuvvum said:

Register it abroad. Although the TfL website says that foreign-registered vehicles are liable to be fined in the same way as UK vehicles, there's no way in arse that TfL are going to convince foreign registration authorities to spend time searching for ownership details. In fact I don't think they'll even bother trying.

Thats possibly the best solution, some of the Polski registered wrecks I see on the roads seem to be above the law, and as for those lunatic Lithuanian HGV's that have a complete disregard to traffic laws over here giving massive potential to cause carnage wherever they go

[Dead_E23]

Probably cheapest to go petrol/lpg - the charge only applies to diesels. I live just inside the zone and was intending to swap my Land Rover's 28mpg 200 TDi turbodiesel for the 12mpg 3.9 V8 from my rotbox Range Rover. There's no way I was going to stop driving it on the say-so of that pillock Ken, but fortunately the LR turns out to be exempt - possibly because it's a station wagon

[pogweasel]

Watch the price of Volvo wagons go through the roof ;)This has to be the most arse about face bit of policy evAr. My father in law has been moaning about it constantly... as he's basically got to stop taking jobs inside the 25 (and also fixing his Enfield-dwelling daughters boiler free gratis) as it's just not worth the hassle. At 64, it's a bit pointless him forking out to replace his transit van with something 'clean'. Grade-A twattery there, Kenneth.

[Guest]

I registered specifically to whine about this. I too have a Dodge 50, plated at 8.1 tonnes so it can carry my workshop (lathe, miller, welder etc) but still small enough to park on my drive. Now I'm looking at a few options.1) Scrap the Dodge and buy a post 2001 Euro III 7.5 tonner that's so huge, it won't fit on the drive.2) Pay £6000 a month to park it on my drive (like that's going to happen)3) Pay £5k to bring it up to Euro III.4) Bugger of out of London altogether.No.4 is looking VERY attractive at the moment. Those racks of ANPR cameras popping up all over London makes me nervous.And let's not forget all the £70,000 motorhomes that have been imported from the US and are used in the M25, they'll be scrap too, and the horseboxes, and all the old 7.5 tonners that blokes use for ferrying stuff to steam rallies, bike racing, car racing etc.... It's ridiculous that not only is this legislation retrospective, it totally dismisses the possibility that there are average everyday people using HGV classed vehicles for their own enjoyment.

[wuvvum]

Yup, I have to agree. Moving out of London is the way to go. That smarmy twunt has turned the capital into an unliveable shitehole.Either that or buy a Chrysler slant-6 petrol from a dead Dodge Aries or something - should fit straight into a 50 as they were an option from new. If it was me though I'd be getting the f*ck out of Red Ken's evil domain as fast as that fume-belching Phaser could carry me.

[wilko]

  torsten said:

as a showmans vehicle it would qualify for exemption, write Bills Flea Circus on the side and change the Clasification

Sadly, they have even pulled that loophole tighter than a nun's knicker elastic - you have to prove that the modifications that make it a "showman" vehicle make it prohibitive to fit the emmisions kit...Zanx - lots of big 70's & 80's yank motorhomes weighing several tons were petrol powered - either 350 small block or 454 big block chevy lumps were the most common, but also seen dodge & ford engined ones... The TH400 autobox commonly found hanging off the back of big block chevys will cope with the weight... Could be a wicked conversion project for the dodge 50 with a gas conversion kit?

[andrewp]

How about........cheap BMW TDS + industrial / plant trailer with van box bolted to it.........just a thought.

[wilko]

Probably more practical than my suggestion, but to tow the weight he's talking about you'd have to plump for something bigger than a beemer to tow with - I'm pretty sure the newer towing regs now mean the trailer weight cannot exceed the unladen weight of the tow vehicle.

[wuvvum]

  wilko said:

Zanx - lots of big 70's & 80's yank motorhomes weighing several tons were petrol powered - either 350 small block or 454 big block chevy lumps were the most common, but also seen dodge & ford engined ones...

The late '70s Dodge Ram vans used basically the same cab as the Dodge 50, so presumably it wouldn't be too much of a job to swap the Ram mechanicals into the Dodge engine bay. Then you'd have a 5.2 or 5.9 V8 to play with - thirsty, but a heckuva lot quicker than a Phaser, and there's always LPG if the fuel bills get too much.

[Guest]

Some nice solutions here but I'll be sticking with the Perkins because of the excellent economy, it's about 30mpg if I take it easy, that's 20mpg better than my last van, a V8 LDV ambulance.The point we are missing here is the actual reason behind it all. Ken/Labour want ANPR cameras tracking every part of the UK right, now just slapping them up would cause an uproar, so what they've done is picked a relatively small section of the motoring public (owners of big old trucks) and used them as an excuse to plaster London with ANPR cameras. Now think about it, are there REALLY so many old vans on the road that it warrants spending MILLIONS on installing and maintaining numerous ANPR cameras? Are there REALLY going to be that many people happy to pay £200 a day for the honour of driving though London? I think not. The real issue here is that Labour have been gagging to get ANPR in as many places as possible for "terrorism" reasons, this is just a back door, now they are up, it will be just as easy to ban any group of vehicles, pre 1973, classic, 4x4, anything they like at any time.THAT'S why they started all this, they're just hiding behind the pollution issue.

[wuvvum]

  Zanx said:

Some nice solutions here but I'll be sticking with the Perkins because of the excellent economy, it's about 30mpg if I take it easy, that's 20mpg better than my last van, a V8 LDV ambulance.The point we are missing here is the actual reason behind it all. Ken/Labour want ANPR cameras tracking every part of the UK right, now just slapping them up would cause an uproar, so what they've done is picked a relatively small section of the motoring public (owners of big old trucks) and used them as an excuse to plaster London with ANPR cameras. Now think about it, are there REALLY so many old vans on the road that it warrants spending MILLIONS on installing and maintaining numerous ANPR cameras? Are there REALLY going to be that many people happy to pay £200 a day for the honour of driving though London? I think not. The reall issue here is that Labour have been gagging to get ANPR in as many places as possible for "terrorism" reasons, this is just a back door, now they are up, it will be just as easy to ban any group of vehicles, pre 1973, classic, 4x4, anything they like at any time.THAT'S why they started all this, they're just hiding behind the pollution issue.

Easy way round that - register all your vehicles in false names. It's what I'm going to start doing if and when ANPR starts going up round here. Mind you, from what I've seen from watching the monitors at my local Tesco petrol station, ANPR cameras have a margin of error of about 65%...

[Guest]

  wuvvum said:

  Zanx said:

Some nice solutions here but I'll be sticking with the Perkins because of the excellent economy, it's about 30mpg if I take it easy, that's 20mpg better than my last van, a V8 LDV ambulance.The point we are missing here is the actual reason behind it all. Ken/Labour want ANPR cameras tracking every part of the UK right, now just slapping them up would cause an uproar, so what they've done is picked a relatively small section of the motoring public (owners of big old trucks) and used them as an excuse to plaster London with ANPR cameras. Now think about it, are there REALLY so many old vans on the road that it warrants spending MILLIONS on installing and maintaining numerous ANPR cameras? Are there REALLY going to be that many people happy to pay £200 a day for the honour of driving though London? I think not. The reall issue here is that Labour have been gagging to get ANPR in as many places as possible for "terrorism" reasons, this is just a back door, now they are up, it will be just as easy to ban any group of vehicles, pre 1973, classic, 4x4, anything they like at any time.THAT'S why they started all this, they're just hiding behind the pollution issue.

Easy way round that - register all your vehicles in false names. It's what I'm going to start doing if and when ANPR starts going up round here. Mind you, from what I've seen from watching the monitors at my local Tesco petrol station, ANPR cameras have a margin of error of about 65%...

That's fine till an ANPR equipped plodwagon sticks the nee-naws on behind you. The only way I'd even escape on the Dodge is in one of those USA style efforts where the perp (usually filmed from the sky) chunders along at 55mph crashing though flimsy american houses and kitten sanctuaries before driving off a cliff.Annoying thing is that my 40,000 mile Perkins is clean as a whistle, doesn't even smoke on start up and is MUCH cleaner than loads of the skanky old people carriers I see belching black smoke round Ilford on a daily basis.

[wilko]

If you could get something doing around 15mpg on an LPG converted petrol lump, that should equal 30mpg on derv in cost? I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments though.The deepest irony of the congestion charge and the LEZ is that whilst both have been implemented by a labour government and a supposedly socialist Mayor, they limit the use of a publically owned and paid for facility (i.e. a road) entirely on the grounds of ability to pay! Rich people are completely unimpeeded by both measures, helped in fact, as the roads are cleared of us peasants in the name of the environment, leaving them to make better headway in their 18mpg X5... It will probably please quite a few of you but this "initiative" has ended full contact banger racing at Wimbledon Stadium, which was without doubt the finest and most historic stadium for the sport in the country - I wonder how many other people's harmless leisure activities have been effectively ruined or forced outside the capital too?

[r.welfare]

I hadn't realised this was the death's knell for Wimbledon.On a banger tilt, I hear that Paices' Hill near Aldermaston is opening up again, will trundle down to watch if it does.

[pandamonium]

I'm by no means a fan of banger racing, but then I'm not a fan of darts, boxing or rugby. However, any law that inhibits our rights as humans to enjoy whatever sport we watch/take part in, is an absolute pisstake and we should rise up in revolt and run over the mayors head in the oiliest diesel we can find!! On a more controversial note, how does this law affect military vehicles??

[Guest]

  wilko said:

If you could get something doing around 15mpg on an LPG converted petrol lump, that should equal 30mpg on derv in cost? I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments though.The deepest irony of the congestion charge and the LEZ is that whilst both have been implemented by a labour government and a supposedly socialist Mayor, they limit the use of a publically owned and paid for facility (i.e. a road) entirely on the grounds of ability to pay! Rich people are completely unimpeeded by both measures, helped in fact, as the roads are cleared of us peasants in the name of the environment, leaving them to make better headway in their 18mpg X5... It will probably please quite a few of you but this "initiative" has ended full contact banger racing at Wimbledon Stadium, which was without doubt the finest and most historic stadium for the sport in the country - I wonder how many other people's harmless leisure activities have been effectively ruined or forced outside the capital too?

There's the stupidity of all this, it's fine to drive something that sups fuel like it's 10p a gallon as long as it doesn't pollute. For any of this to actually make sense, pollution should not be measured statically by revving the engine, but on a rolling road and measured over a fixed distance. Even more ridiculous is that because of emissions, Royal Enfield don't import their 200mpg Diesel Bullet into this country. That is just off the stupid scale.

[MrRegieRitmo]

  Zanx said:

pollution should not be measured statically by revving the engine, but on a rolling road and measured over a fixed distance.

Can't be done like that in London though, too much traffic!

[DodgeRover]

With the interest in Mr B's Dodge I wondered what became of the vehicles in this thread.

It's amazing how many petrol* 7.5t I see running about in the zone still.

[Junkman]

[Felly Magic]

Hmmm Deltic, they make the air very chewy LOL, I'd deffo be on the look out for a Cummins ISBe4 lump from a very dead Dennis Dart, try the Barnsley bus breakers like Trevor Wigley for prices. I've noticed even the Barnsley yards have LEZ compliant wreckers these days, with modern MAN & DAF gear

[lesapandre]

The LEZ is to be replaced by the ULEZ in 2019. Tighter controls on older vehicles - however don't panic yet....

 

The March 2019 phase only covers the Congestion Charge Zone bounded by the inner ring road - so outside that its business as usual. In 2021 the ULEZ will extend to the LEZ-charge zone and be very problematic for a lot of older diesels including mine.

 

Details here:

 

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone

 

I think you can check by vehicle. It may include older petrol vehicles...

 

The best answer to this is to this is to get a pre-'72 vehicle which is exempt. Not practical for many.

[lesapandre]

Or just avoid London. M25 will be exempt but inside that charging will occur - but you have till 2021 to adapt. Its a bummer and is going to put a lot of small garages and others out of business.