johnb80

dg, If you're going to use a wet system (Glen I'm not trying to divert potential customers away) I can thoroughly recommend the polypipe system. You lay castleated interlocking plastic sheets down on the floor. Clip the pipe into them in whatever layout you want. 50mm screed on top, job done, it works really well. No matter whether you go Wet or Electric, stay with underfloor it's brilliant. Regards - JB

Hi Glen I've actually gone a few stages further, most of my heating system is PC controlled via X10 network so I know whats going on. I have written programs that do optimum start using a condensing boiler for most of the heating, as I said I have both electric and wet underfloor heating as well as rads in various locations. I accept 100% that underfloor is the way to go, no doubt and I didn't beleive for one minute it would be as effective as it's turned out to be. With my system I know how much each zone takes heat wise, it's split bathrooms,landing and hall on one zone, ground floor on another zone, conservatory on it's own zone, downstairs floor on a zone and finally granny flat and workshop on a zone. I have PT100 temp sensors on flow and return from each zone (these actually highlighted a useful phenoenum, when the sun is out, if I run the pump I can heat my domestic hot water from the conservatory underfloor heating! In 9 years time I plan to build a house near a river, it's my intention to use the current in the river to generate power and run a heat pump, I'm going to use a coil in the river to extract heat from the water (more efficient than air) to heat the house and domestic hot water. I am intersted in a sort of self sufficiency but not the whole thing :huh: You're absolutely correct about it reducing running costs where I'm a real sceptic is in the prices suggested, if the system was really that good and it's my beleif that it really can't be, you would have no need to advertise it, people would be beating your door down and there would be a huge queue, you would be a millionaire and you'd be living it up somewhere warm! If I were to throw down the gauntlet and say fine on the prices quoted come and fit it BUT if it doesn't work as you have stated you have to give me a refund +

If I could even start to believe these figures I would buy it and it would revolutionise home heating. 90p per day for a three bedroomed semi:- Number of rooms 3 bedrooms + 1 Bathroom + 1 Living Room + 1 Kitchen (miss out the hallway). So thats 6 rooms in total. So were talking about an average of 15p per room for 9 hours heating (taking the shortest time you specifiy). 15p/9hours = 1.6p per hour. With electricity costing around 12p per unit that means that the average heating on this system is around 130w. Call me sceptical, I can't see that working unless you have incredible insulation. Losses through a normal window would be greater than that. Electricity is 100% at creating heat, all other systems less so BUT you still need to get the heat in there to raise the temperature. My ensuite room is around 5 sq mtrs and that has 500w of underfloor electric heating AND a heated towel rail that gives out 2.2Kw from the central heating system. I have cavity wall and 300 mm of loft insulation, that amount of heat input to my ensuite is about right in the depths of winter. It wouldn't cope with the underfloor only and I personally find it very hard to beleive that this system could. Regards JB

Is it just my imagination or has the forum got back to it's normal self now we have the problems sorted i.e. people are posting again ?

Hi Glen, I have to take you to task on a couple of points here. From an experience point of view I have both types of underfloor heating in my home, wet and electric. Installation Costs Electric system is dead easy and relatively cheap to install, wet system more expensive and can be a pain in the backside to install. Flow temps on the wet system have to be kept below 60 deg C with a mixing unit. Running Costs Electricity will NEVER in this current day and age be cheaper than gas, the numbers simply dont add up. As the previous poster mention you can't regard electricity as a renewable energy source either with the majority of power in the UK generated from Coal and Gas. Efficiency This is an interesting area and I have monitored the wet system in my conservatory for some time now. It's a huge area and I have fitted an underfloor wet system as well as 11Kw of heatpump / aircon units. When using the airconditioners to do the heating the room temperature had to be around 24 deg C to feel comfortable. Thats okay, the aircon for every 1Kw of electrical input produces between 2.8 and 5.5Kw of heat output. When I commisioned the underfloor Wet system it was apparent that a) it was slow to respond (tiled floor) but that was predicatable because the concrete slab also had to warm up. B) This one was quite a suprise. The room temp didn't have to be anywhere near as high to feel comfortable. We now have a room temp of 17 deg C, everyone who comes into our conservatory comments how warm it is (I'm in here now, outside -1.2 inside 16 deg C and its great). So the running costs will be lower because less heat is escaping through the roof due to the lower temp. Convection / Radiation I would have thought that underfloor was convection heating rather than radiated heating i.e. warm air rising not infra red radiation. Regards - JB

The sequence for connecting up is +ve'e first then negative, disconnecting is the opposite. It doesn't matter electrically, it makes it slightly safer, if you connect negative first and then drop the positive lead accidentally, if it drops on to a metal part of the car you have a potential fir situation. I doubt very much that jump starting caused the failure of the coil pack. Regards - JB

The left hand item circled is a butterfly valve thats operated by the LPG ECU. It enables the LPG system to run closed loop and have a lambda sensor adjust the fuelling on LPG. The message relating to the LPG dizzy I don't think are relevant here because looking at the pipework it isn't a multipoint LPG injection system. Regards - JB

If you're confident at soldering it's easy. Get yourself some heat shrink sleeving, cable, solder and a mug of tea. Open up the loom, cut our the bad section of cable ONE AT A TIME, solder the new one in and sleeve the joint. I did our Scorpio and it took about 50 minutes from start to finish. If you're not happy about doing it yourself take it to a autoelectrician NOT a Ford dealer. Regards - JB

sniff, sniff, .......... yep,............ thats it,................ PURE BULLSHIT again from a mechanic. Don't listen to him, the ECU will respond to the signals if they're there. It's not told about components like MAF's etc, only what to do with the signal. Regards - JB

If the airflow meter is not making any difference then there's something wrong with the airflow meter, wiring or ecu. Usually, especially on diesels, if the airflow meter is u/s unplugging it improves the performance. It's possible you may have issues with blocked cat or egr stuck open which will give similar problems. Regards - JB

Thats not quite right. The ABS system checks the signals from all of the sensors at the start of the journey at around 15mph. It will then indicate a fault if the signals are not within tolerance. I also think that it would get confused if you jack up the car and run the front wheels, it will be expecting signals from the back wheels. The pickups are inductive coils and thus have no electrical connection so dirt isn't a problem. Broken wires, bad connections and faulty sensors are most likely causes of this problem. Regards - JB

It's likely just disturbing the wiring under the cover has made it ok at the moment, I'm sure if you don't sort that wiring, it'll be back. Regards - JB

I'll second that, well done you 3. Regards - JB

Take the Ford DOHC cover off and all will be revealled. On wifeys 2.3 Scorpio the low tension wiring was cracked and broken under the cover. Splice new cable in and all was well, you may have the same problem. Regards - John

I think on the 2.3 you have 2 coils (no distributor) so if one has failed you'll be down to possibly 2 cylinders. The 2.3 isn't unknown for having low tension wiring problems, the fact that your runs better on petrol suggests HT problems. Follow the lead from the plug and you should find the coil attached to it. It's possible that either it will have another HT lead going to another plug or that indeed there's one coil per cylinder i.e. 4. I'm pretty sure it will be two coils on yours. Get another or double check the wiring / coil condition. Run the engine in the dark and see if you can see sparks jumping. If the coil is cracked, scrape along the crack with a knife to remove carbon, degrease it thoroughly, put in a domestic oven at 100 deg for a couple of hours to make sure it's dry and paint some epoxy resin such as araldite into the crack. Refit, run and test, make yourself a cuppa!

Come on guys, chill. Virtual group hug time :P

Gentlemen, Mumof4 has done her best and help wherever she can. She has welcomed new people, tried to lift spirits when things are getting members down and generally been a good sport and a good laugh. Her technical expertise maybe isn't top notch BUT SHE TRIES so we shouldn't have a go. Many people are happy just to get a reply even if it doesn't solve the problem. Why is it such a big deal if she does answer many posts? doesn't exactly slow the process down that much, we're not downloading the content. Give her a break, she's doing ok in my book, I'd rather have mumof4 on here than some of the foul mouthed and arrogant members that thankfully have had their wings clipped. Regards - JB P.S. mumof4 no reply needed :P

No problem. I had very similar problems with a Cosworth powered 2.9 Scorpio, it drove me mad and was a devil of a job to find. There are no error codes recorded because the system simply thinks you are not calling for power. My cossie had a 0-60 time of around 13 seconds until the fault was cured it then dropped to 7.9 seconds. I knew I'd found the fault! it took about 7 weeks and

EGR = Exhaust Gas Recirculation. Modern engines run very lean, this results in very high combustion temperatures. When the engine management detects the max combustion temp it needs to reduce it. It does this by dropping some of the exhaust gas back into the inlet manifold. This effectively is a gas that contains little or no oxygen, the net result of that is the capacity of the cylinder and thus the engine has been reduced. Fuelling is reduced by the lamda sensor because the mixture goes rich. In the end, all of this is the same as you reducing throttle which in turn lowers the temp. If it sticks open, it can have dramatic results in performance. It can stick open mechanically or the solenoid that opens the valve can stick. You will find it as a small pipe that goes from the exhaust manifold to the inlet manifold with a fairly large disc on top of it with small pipe(s) attached. They are quite difficult to fault find, often replacement is the best bet. Regards _ John

If it runs better on petrol than lpg this would suggest an ignition problem. LPG stresses the ignition system much more than petrol, it needs a much higher voltage to jump the same gap on the spark plug. I would suggest you look very closely around the coils and HT leads etc. I would also suggest you avoid driving it on petrol whilst misfiring because you will be killing the catalytic converter due to flooding it with unburned fuel. Regards - John

I think a real classic seatkid comment IS required as a final parting gesture for VR6 who will be sadly missed. Nice to see you back seatkid, where have you been, I hope you've brought a note to cover your unauthorised absence. :P Regards - JB

Blocked CAT or EGR valve stuck open. Regards - JB

GSF (German Swedish and French) will have them at better prices than main dealer.

I have to say your avatar is just a 'tad' OTT my boy BUT, I'm not a moderator so thats ok :P Regards - JB P.S. The 999 call I got when we were in chat was to a VR6 gal on it's side in a ditch with mum, grandma and 3 kids on board. Galaxy doors are incredibly heavy when it's on it's side, the bloody tailgate wouldn't open, air bags everywhere.

Remove coil pack from No.1 and examine it closely, often you will see a crack on the failed coil pack. Scrape along the crack to remove any carbon traces, degrease it, put it in the oven at around 100 degC for a hour or so to make sure it's dry and then fill the crack with epoxy resin such as araldite. Did this on my mates gold 18 months ago and it's been fine ever since. Regards - John