Another bloody hijet but this time on LPG gas

Graphics? I use the one I linked to, yes, you need the wee book, not exactly life threatening to look up the code
Itll do all except the graphics and data storage but I find I can still remember a number long enough to look it up

Liked the look of HJ's scanner but noticed it said 'not vans'. Any idea what the difference is and have you used it on a Hijet?

Not used on personally on a hijet, and when it says not vans thats a pretty generic barely truthful statement. Have used it on other vehicles with a similar engine management system though.

Commercial vehicles did not have to comply with the OBD2 standards until around 2008, and even then some did not.

The sprinter and LT35 both work on the canbus protocol from memory even as early as year 2000, but you need an adapter lead to plug it in because it has a big round plug on the van, which the adapter sometimes works with various models of scanner. Mine works on those OK.

The later hijet is an obd2 compliant vehicle so it works with any decent obd2 scanner.

I love my scanner, on the grand scale of stuff its cheap, but you can spend much less. Mine has a library of built in code definitions, so you plug it in, get it to connect, pick what brand of vehicle it is on the scanner screen, then it gives you the actual code number and the meaning from its little library.

Done some remedial work on the red lpg hijet.

Bottom of the radiator was leaking.

Pipe to the hexagon plug thing at the back of the cylinder head was heavily leaking.

New replacement thermostat was sticky to open.

Test it all over again!

So after the remedial work, it wouldn't stop foaming and purging all the water out.

I've ordered another head gasket kit for it, and I will strip it all down again this weekend.


This really does teach me, and thee, a lesson.

A lesson I have ranted about a few times, but not took my own medicine!

Those little spring clips are use once, and should all be replaced with jubilee clips.

I left one crap spring clip, and that is where it's lost all the water.

My mate kept driving it home "in the red" on the temp gauge, it's now f***ed it all over again.

Try again! Another gasket, skim job, 7 hours labour, coolant, oil.........

Right, here goes the head job again...

Head is off, and looks warped.

Just console yourself with the knowledge that each time you do it you should get slightly quicker at it.

Been a relaxed afternoon, working in the sun, phone rang a few times.

1 and half hours would be pretty easy work.

Build back up takes a bit longer though. Especially having to get the timing right on the cam belt.

Heads going for a skim in the morning, going to take the water pump off it while I wait to get the head back in the afternoon.

Here's a little trick I learnt this afternoon, on the gearbox end of the cylinder head there is a little metal plate with two bolts that hold it to the head. If you take it off it lets all the water drain out of the head, so you barely spill any down the bores and oil returns. That keeps the job a bit cleaner and avoids oil/water contamination.

Another little handy hint:-

To take the cylinder head off, if you get everything out of the way, and remove the little cable/hose tidies off the inlet manifold, you can cable tie it up to the support beam like this and the head and manifold studs clear the inlet manifold. It even better than having a mate hold it for you, picture isn't to great as it's just so damn sunny here today:-



Just waiting on getting the head back now from the skim shop, here's my cleaned up block face:-

Pretty much all back together except for fitting the rear engine cover, the seats, the handbrake and centre support.

All ready to fill it with coolant and oil in the morning.

One thing I have noticed is the radweld product used by the last owner has really coated everything, like the coolant sensor had a big crusty build up which really wont help its accuracy so I've cleaned it all off with wire wool. The water pump looks almost new, and this time I have sealed the new rocker cover gasket in with instant gasket as it leaked a bit last time onto the exhaust manifold.

Wish it some good luck!

Good luck

Cheers big ears

Another idea I would suggest, is when you fit the head gasket to the block locator pins on the van, you will find it sort of hangs a little bit low due to gravity and the holes being a little bit big. Were talking about 1.5mm too low.

This makes it not quite sit perfect on the cylinder liners, so if you put the head on loosely with just two bolts, you can lean the head away a little and push it up to its highest point which makes it sit perfectly on the bore liners.

And according to the machining guy where I took my head, it was banana shaped and twisted like a propeller. Good service from this guy - turned over my head in about 3 hours. Chemically cleaned, skimmed, pressure tested, and the valves vacuum tested - plus he stripped off the exhaust manifold and rocker assembly for me and refitted just the rockers.

Some phone pictures:-

Thats looking good HJ

HighlyJetted wrote:and this time I have sealed the new rocker cover gasket in with instant gasket as it leaked a bit last time onto the exhaust manifold.

Turns out this tiny oil leak is caused by a hair line fracture in the rocker cover near the screw lug...

So I've emptied all the junk/stuff out of the spares/scrap van, taken the rocker cover off that, hardcore cleaned it inside and out - and now about to swap it over with the red one.

So far from my 2 x warm up, cool down cycles, the van is holding coolant properly, and is almost fully burped of air. Sure a little more will come out when it's drove.

No more foam, no more purging the coolant into the bottle - truth is in some proper road tests thought.

Also jet washed and shampoo'd the rear carpet out and the van's roof - tomorrow its getting a t-cut and auto-glym super resin polish.

You are an inspiration to us all, HJ. I can't do a thing outside the warm house in this weather!

What you on about, it's pretty nice here in crewe, we've had sun all day for the last good few days.

2 degrees here, and I'm not talking about my education. Brrrr

fingers crossed itll work fine now, i think you only put pics up to show off that you had sun tho, it snowed here on wed!!

Not to be an arse, we have had glorious weather up here for days and days not. Blue skies and sunshine for just over a week. I saw a guy wearing shorts the other day.

For the last 3 hours me and my mate have been bombing round the peak district in the Red LPG hijet on a good thrashing road test.

It was fully burped of air locally over the last couple of days ready for this testing session.

Today it's seen hills that you can barely get up in 2nd gear, it's had some seriously hard work over the last couple of hours. Most of a tank of fuel has gone through it, and a little LPG.

Now I wait until its cool to see where the coolant level and air locking is at.... fingers crossed.