A little help with my new Windy please

[Dave_Snelson]

I took delivery of my (new to me) Windy early on Saturday morning and we craned her in. Messed about on her all day waiting for the afternoon tide. Then we took her from Porthmadog to Pwllheli to fuel up with LPG.

Wow!! She's lovely to drive. Both motors ran beautifully and she just loped along. All this in fabulous weather to boot!

There are a couple of maintenance things that need sorting though and I thought I would ask my friends here some advise.

1) Making small or slow movements with the power steering, the steering wheel feels to move in "notches" or "clicks". If you are moving the wheel a great amount then it moves smoothly. Any ideas?

2) I found it difficult to get it to run on gas. The motors are 2 x Volvo 4.3L V6 Petrols (1999) with an LPG conversion. Having warmed the motors up and drained the petrol out of the carbs, I swithed over to LPG and had difficulty restarting and when I got both motors running, they wouldn't idle properly. I eventually (for the sake of time) motored back on petrol. Any ideas?

3) While motoring back on petrol, I cleared Pwllheli Fairway and opened her up. At 3000rpm she was fine and came up onto the plane quickly and delivered 35kts at those revs. I then pushed the throttles down for more revs and both motors just died simultaneously. I throttled back and they both picked up again. I then eased the throttles forward gently and she would take up to 3500rpm, then started spluttering on both motors and I had to ease back. It felt like fuel starvation to me and back on the quayside a mechanic said I should check the petrol filter for blockage or water. Any ideas?

The gas side of things I will have checked by an authorised LPG mechanic.

Other than that - she's ACE!! and I'm really pleased with her.

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[DavidJ]

Item 3
Very interesting that both engines died exactly the same time. This is key to finding the solution. Sounds like fuel starvation but I find it hard to believe that both filters are exactly blocked. You probably have two separate fuel systems but check that the link tap has not been switched on to link them. If it has then make the two sides independant and try again, only one will fail thia time.
Having said all that it's sensible to change both filters anyway.

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[tcm]

Yes, both motors at the same time sonds more like settings and less like fuel starvation, which even if only one pipe (like mine) one engine will go before the other, and even carb settings wouldn't both kick in at exaccerly same time. What abt ignition timing? Have they had to retard it for the LPG or suchlike? If it isn't advancing propely, then spluteery spluter as the ignition isn't early enuf for higher revs.

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[DavidJ]

yes tcm I've got a lot of sympathy for the ignition setting argument.
I'm surprised that you don't have two totally independant fuel systems on your Leopard.
David

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