"Lieutenant Scott" wrote in message
newsp.wdo3etk2ytk5n5@i7-940...
On Wed, 02 May 2012 19:29:46 +0100, John Williamson
wrote:

Lieutenant Scott wrote:

Well the tow bar is still on the car.

Shrug So you got away with it this time. You've still stressed the
structure well beyond its design limits, and this may cause problems
later.
I'm thinking of the steel tubes which run from the towbar itself to the
chassis, they're pretty thick.

They're fastened to 1mm thick metal, which is why most towbar
installation kits come with load spreading plates or are designed to
attach to specified load bearing points on the car. If they're tubes,
then the walls will be 2 or 3mm thick, generally. If you're lucky, it'll
be drawn tube, otherwise it'll be flat plate rolled into a cylinder and
the edges butt welded.

I can't believe those are fastened to metal 1mm thick, that would bend
with the weight of the towbar, and definitely if you for example stood
on the towbar, which simply doesn't happen.

It's not a flat sheet, it's shaped for strength, often into a box
section, and if you don't believe me, go and have a close look at your
car's structure somewhere like a scrapyard, where all the bits are
visible. The bits where the bolts go through the bodywork are often
doubled or have captive nuts welded to the inside, so may look thicker
than 1mm, but the doubling is only for a few square centimetres.

I've worked on many cars over the last 40 years or so, and I've yet to
see any metal thicker than 1/16" anywhere on the bodywork or chassis on
a normal saloon or estate without a seperate chassis. I've seen some
1/8" thick metal on a Land Rover chassis, but even lorry chassis are
only made of 3 or 4 mm plate, formed to shape for strength.

So all those "shaped for strength" things make it strong enough. As
evidenced by me getting 10 stumps out without losing a towbar.

Luckily, I live somewhere your car will never be sold.

Are you sure? I sold a Honda CRV to a guy in London.

Still safe. I left London a decade ago. London's also big enough that
you can always find a fool who'll buy anything you want to sell. ;-)

It had LPG conversion. Don't. Petrol engines were not designed to use
LPG, and shouldn't be made to do so.

LPG conversions of petrol engines that can run on unleaded petrol are
not uncommon, and are usually as reliable as the same engines run on
petrol. Ask your local taxi firms if you want confirmation. If you're
referring to the 30 to 50% increase in fuel consumption, that is
inevitable due to the lower available energy per litre of LPG compared
to petrol. They're still cheaper to run than petrol engines, though, as
LPG is cheaper than petrol. They're not quite as cheap as diesel to run,
but they're often cheaper to buy and convert.

The problem I had was the higher burning temperature of LPG wore out the
valve seats (or something like that). The fitter warned me about it and
said it would be ok if I used "Valve Saver" fluid. But the mechanism that
fed the stuff in wasn't too reliable, so I think that may have worn the
engine out. The engine eventually sounded like it was running on 3
cylinders. A Range Rover I bought already converted also sounded the same
(it sounded like it was firing on 6 out of the 8 cylinders), and
eventually wouldn't start at all.

Doesn't happen with our taxis.