LPG in a 2003 Hijet

Hello friends. I just bought a 2003 Hijet van on petrol this summer (officially called Hijet 1300 VAN). I wonder is it safe to convert it to LPG? Has this been done before by any of you? I phoned a company that builds-in these gas-installations and they say it is possible and save but they advise to add a lubricating system for the valves. The problem is that this company has never worked with this type of car before. Has anybody tried this?

Hi, id guess youd be better off with one ready converted, loads came with lpg as standard. Best bet would to find an lpg one in the scrappies and get the bits off it.

Think it was just UK ones that came with the LPG kit as it was a way to get them round the london congestion charges - not 100% sure on this but a hunch.

The 1.3 with LPG in the uk, sold by daihatsu, does not have a lubrication kit.

Mine did have two badly worn valves when I did the head too, and that was after 30k miles. Don't know how many of those were on LPG. I'd say you'd have to do a hell of a lot of miles to get your money back from fitting a brand new kit.

You don't see many hijets with over 100k on the clock

HighlyJetted wrote:You don't see many hijets with over 100k on the clock

I see one every day....

Ive got LPG and when I got it 4 years ago it was 45p a litre, last time I filled up it was 89p a litre petrol has gone up too but not doubled in price so overall doesn't work out much different to the cost of petrol, next vehicle I'm thinking of trying diesel

I'm paying 67 pence. 89p is a lot have you tried your local calor gas shop? Works out about the equivalent of 55mpg which i'm happy with considering I do a lot of short town trips.

Don't have one! And I have to drive 10 mile to the closest station that sells LPG!

Mine, a 1.0 one, runs well on LPG.
It does about 10-11km/l of LPG, 12-13km/l on petrol.

I convert it this year for 1650€.
Here LPG cost around 0.87€/liter, unleaded fuel is around 1.75€/l.

In about 25'000km the LPG installation was paid.

There is far less energy in a litre of lpg compared to petrol.

LPG = 26MJ/L
Petrol = 32MJ/L
Derv = 35MJ/L

It's why you get more miles out of a derv compared to a petrol.

8bit-ash wrote:Mine did have two badly worn valves when I did the head too, and that was after 30k miles. Don't know how many of those were on LPG.

My lpg one seems to be not quite running right on one of the cylinders on either fuel. It has 80k on the clock.

I'm going to take the head off it this weekend and see what sort of valve damage there is, at the same time as swapping the head gasket.

I have a spared cylinder head so if its got excessive wear i'll just swap bits around instead of getting a valve seat job done on it.

I'm not sure if its overheating still, but I can't be arsed to waste any more trial and error time on it, plus as someone has shoved rad weld in it I think the water jacket in the block will want cleaning out like my pickup was and Daisy's pictures show.

As I'm going to sell it I want it to be a decent runner.

HighlyJetted wrote:There is far less energy in a litre of lpg compared to petrol.

LPG = 26MJ/L
Petrol = 32MJ/L
Derv = 35MJ/L

It's why you get more miles out of a derv compared to a petrol.

I know, pratically on LPG the same engine has a 15% more fuel consumption.