tugga Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 Coming back from Smeaton Lakes a week ago, we stopped at the BP garage near the Black Cat round-a-bout to fill up with gas as we were almost out. When we were at the Peterborough Show, it was approx 2 or 3 degrees in the morning and our gas would not work. We have checked the cylinders and they still have gas so we don't have a leak. We can only presume we have a faulty regulator (Fullers fitted it new before we picked our MH up) or the mixture of Butane to Propane was more on the Butane side so it lost its pressure in the cold. Anyone had similar experiences, especially if you have filled up at the same BP garage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 I’m guessing that your gas system worked for a while after you had filled up at the BP garage and I’m assuming that it no longer works at all (ie. the system did not work one morning at the Peterborough show and has not worked since). ‘Autogas’ in the UK is near-enough 100% propane, so a a high-butane content should not be the cause of your problem. It’s possible (though the chances are pretty small) that you picked up some contaminated gas from the BP garage, so it might be worth you checking with that garage if anyone else has reported problems to them. If you’ve got plenty of 'good-quality’ gas in your cylinders, the gas cylinders’ outlet-valves are open, a gas stop-valve within the motorhome has not been turned off inadvertently and the regulator is functioning correctly, gas should be reaching the motorhome’s gas appliances and should ignite. To check if gas is passing through the regulator and reaching the appliances just turn on all the hob burners. If gas is reaching the burners you should be able to hear the hiss as it emerges and the smell of the gas should be very evident. If that is the case but the gas won’t ignite, you’ve picked up contaminated gas. If no (or very little gas) emerges from the hob burners, it’s a fair bet that the regulator is the culprit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 what regulator was fitted ..if a Trauma (spelling intentional) that most probably the culprit. Get rid and fit something more reliable. in Europe LPG is a mix in UK its propane so nothing wrong that end.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartO Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 tugga - 2015-04-20 10:39 PM ....We can only presume we have a faulty regulator (Fullers fitted it new before we picked our MH up) or the mixture of Butane to Propane was more on the Butane side so it lost its pressure in the cold. Anyone had similar experiences, especially if you have filled up at the same BP garage. It's so unlikely that you got contaminated gas that i would discount that idea completely. On the other hand regulators are known to fail, including by getting bunged up with stuff, especially of they are not installed ideally. I suggest you need to get that checked out first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tugga Posted April 21, 2015 Author Share Posted April 21, 2015 We got back to our dealer today and spoke to Wayne the Service Manager, nice chap. He said that it is likely our regulator that is at fault (it is the push button variety) and he has added it to our snagging list to change it when we take her back for the work. David Fuller Leisure are a nice company to deal with, both for sales and after sales. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 Shame we did not meet at Peterborough Cheryl as I have always carried and not needed (yet) a spare regulator ever since being let down by a failed regulator a few years ago and I would have been happy for you to borrow it, and even helped you fit it if needed! I agree about David Fullers, they were very fair with us a few years back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will86 Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 Stand a cylinder in the sun to increase the temperature may work. Years ago in our cold workshops we actually heated the gas cylinders so causing them to function correctly. Will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tugga Posted April 22, 2015 Author Share Posted April 22, 2015 Tracker - 2015-04-21 8:51 PM Shame we did not meet at Peterborough Cheryl as I have always carried and not needed (yet) a spare regulator ever since being let down by a failed regulator a few years ago and I would have been happy for you to borrow it, and even helped you fit it if needed! I agree about David Fullers, they were very fair with us a few years back. Thanks for that Tracker, we wasn't sure of the problem at Peterborough though, nice to have it confirmed now. Just hope we don't have a problem in France as we cannot get mh in for snagging until we get back. Will use mainly sites so we will have EHU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 Why not ask Fullers to post you a regulator that you can take with you and fit it if you need it rather than risk it? Fullers are generally very accommodating and removing and refitting a regulator is a really easy job - when you have the part! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will86 Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 Tugga, Did you warm the cylinder or buy another part. No good salesman is going to suggest warming the bottle ... but ... the physics of expansion depend on temperature. You mentioned 2-3 degrees, it could have been much less overnight ! You say the service man was a 'nice chap' of course he was he just made a sale but you had no proof of the problem other than his word and his smile. Will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 It was quite close to freezing at night at Peterborough but Autogas is primarily designed for road vehicle use as a result of which it is mainly propane and usually works well below freezing - unlike the old butane bottles we used to use! The problem was then how do you get enough hot water to fill a hot water bottle to place in the gas locker to get enough gas to boil a kettle to get hot water? Answer - vacuum flasks before you go to bed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will86 Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 I'm not at all familiar with these bottles but I believe they are a mixture of two gases. With Propane being the lighter it would evaporate before the Butane unless vigorously shaken at each use to stir it up. The van movement would suffice most of the time but under critical situations such as the cold and a spell being static the mixture would be unbalanced and mainly Butane ... hence no lift in the cold. That salesman is making a fortune flogging replacement parts. I bet he smiles. Will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgnbuk Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 "Autogas is primarily designed for road vehicle use as a result of which it is mainly propane and usually works well below freezing" Autogas "mixtures" can and do vary considerably. What the mixture is, and it's "natural" vaporising temperature, is largely irrelevant to LPG vehicles as the LPG is supplied as a liquid to a heated vapouriser (plumbed into the vehicle cooling circuit) rather than just boiling off the top of the tank as in a motorhome habitation tank. This is why most LPG vehicles start on petrol & don't change to LPG until the coolant has reached a pre-set temperature (40 degrees C on my car) to ensure that the vapouriser does not freeze up. I am currently on my second LPG converted car & have found over the last 130,000 LPG fuelled miles that the "quality" of gas can vary substantially. This has not manifested itself in worse performance, as the car electronics vary the amount of gas injected to keep the fuel/air mixture where it needs to be, but consumption can vary substantially from supplier to supplier, or even from the same supplier at different times - worst so far has been on my last car, with a reduction from the "usual" 300-ish miles to the tank to under 250 miles when filling at a particular motorway services. That this happened twice from the same services, with subsequent fillups from different stations returning consumption to normal. Mentioning this to the LPG converter caused no suprise - he said it was well known that the composition of Autogas varied and caused variations in consumption as a result. I have had no problems with "dirty" gas from branded forecourts. There is a vapour filter between the vapouriser, pressure regulator & injectors, and my last car had done 70,000 miles on it's original filter. I asked about changing it after about 25,000 miles, but was advised that I would notice a drop-off in performance if it started to get clogged & not to bother changing it until then - it was not changed in my ownership. My current car has about 60,000 miles on the conversion & it is still on the original filter - a quick calculation suggests that it has had around 9250 litres of LPG though it ! As the filter is small (the housing is only around 70mm diameter & not much longer), that would suggest there is nothing much in the way of physical impurities in forecourt Autogas. I was "warned off" getting cheap gas from bulk industrial suppliers, though, as some bulk "propane" sold to the likes of road re-surfacing machine operators is apparently quite "dirty" & liable to clog the filter quickly or (much more expensive !) cause injector problems. As the local bulk supplier was not much cheaper than forecourt prices, I have not been tempted to find out if this is actually the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted April 23, 2015 Share Posted April 23, 2015 This 2012 forum thread may be worth referring back to: http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/Motorhomes/Hints-and-Tips/Propane-Butane-mixture-at-low-temperatures/29229/ Even when an autogas mixture has more butane in it than propane (not the case in the UK) it will not behave as Will85 suggests. The mixture of liquified gases will no more separate into liquified propane and liquified butane in a gas bottle/tank and need shaking up to remix the gases than alcohol will separate from water in beer barrel that would then need shaking to remix the constituents. Liquified propane will continue to vaporise down to -42°C, whereas the boiling point of liquified butane is -1°C. As Brambles explains in the 2012 discussion, if butane and propane are mixed the boiling point of the mixture will depend on the percentage of each gas in the mixture. The higher the propane content the lower the mixture’s boiling point temperature: the higher the butane content the higher the mixture’s boiling point temperature. As I understand it (based on tugga’s last posting) although the Carthago motorhome’s gas system faiiled to function in the morning at the Peterborough Show, the system returned to full working order later and is now functioning OK. UK autogas, because of its high propane content, should fuel a motorhome’s gas appliances perfectly well at an ambient temperature significantly below 0°C. Regulators that fail, or show symptoms of impending failure, are unlikely to return spontaneously to full health. Similarly, if the autogas from the BP garage had been contaminated (unlikely, though I was told of one instance where autogas put in a motohome owner’s user-refillable gas-bottle proved to be non-flammable) it would be very peculiar for tugga’s gas system to work properly until the system had been purged. This leaves water freezing in the regulator as a possible cause of the problem, as this could produce a temporary blockage of the gas supply that cleared when the ambient temperature rose. To counter this phenomenon Truma offers the “EisEx” system that warms that the regulator electrically. EisEx is advertised here http://www.truma.com/int/en/gas-supply/accessories-gas-pressure-regulators.php and Truma explains its purpose as follows "At temperatures of around 0°C, the traces of water occurring in liquid gas can lead to the formation of minute droplets of ice or propane hydrate in the regulator. This reduces or can even stop the gas supply. Truma's EisEx regulator de-icing system provides a supply of electrical heat to prevent fragments of ice from forming. The EisEx can ensure a trouble-free gas supply even in wintry conditions." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will86 Posted April 23, 2015 Share Posted April 23, 2015 Two very interesting posts, thankyou, my knowledge is only handling and using industrial gases and where everyday common sense has to be applied instantly to a problem as it arises. A sort of trouble shooting occupation to produce a result. Ref Derek's last but one paragraph ... I believe this was the cause of an aircraft coming down short of the runway last year. In my vans I've only ever used propane or butane, never a mixture which I now tend to mistrust, although I presume the number of faults that occur are small. Will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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