LPG Converter?

[zookwithdreams]

I had been having a few issues with my 90s Prado starting on LPG and then it progressed to occasionally stalling when swapping over to LPG to now it wont run at all on LPG so I took it to the local lpg place where upon hearing this and then seeing that the system is about 4 years old said that it would be the converter without looking at anything else. Cost to replace would $660 (reccomended) or could rebuild it for about $450. Converter is an Airod one and while I cant see a model number I think its an AE40C11.
Does this sound like the likely culprit and a reasonable price?
Is a converters life span only a few years?
are there other things like the filter I should be ruling out first before forking out for a new one?
is it worth an almost 50% extra for the new over rebuilding?

cheers,

Tim

[GUtripper]

Without professing to be a LPG expert, I'd say replace it outright, although only 4 years seems a short lifespan.
I had similar issues with a gas set up on a ford V8, i split the converter and apart from a scungy waxy build up, it was heavily corroded inside, both on the coolant side and the gas side. Rebuilding it with new diaphram etc would only delay the inevitible.
Check prices at other gas places if in doubt, or see if you can buy off the net (Fleabay etc). A lot of gas components are made in Italy IIRC so you may have better luck with Euro Ebay than US or Aus.

[date]

Going back about 5 years, I had a problem with the gas mixture going incredibly rich. I switched to petrol and took it to a place in Sydney (I was there at the time) and the guy spent about 2 hours chasing the problem. Eventually, he found it - a part of the intake air resonator had come loose and when I revved the engine, it lifted up and blocked the main air intake. Up to the time he eventually found the problem, he had eventually concluded that it must have been the gas converter, so I agreed to him installing a new one. Alltold, including the 2 hours chasing the problem, he charged me $475, so I think that you may be taken to the cleaners with your pricing. OK, this was 5 years ago, but labour rates haven't gone up that much since then. The original converter was in perfect condition, except for where the guy broke a hot water elbow in getting it off.

You can dismantle the converters and see if they are corroded or blocked up with wax. I doubt that yours would be corroded because you SHOULD have been checking/changing the coolant regularly. Certainly neither of my gas converters (i have 2 cars on gas, both over 11 years old) show any signs of corrosion. You probably have picked up a bad batch of gas and got a lot of sludge, which has probably blocked the idle jet. Note that the idle jet also contributes a fair bit to low throttle operation of the system. You actually have 2 jets in parallel - the idle and the main jet. As you increase gas flow, more gas comes from the main jet.

I would try to find someone to dismantle the converter if you are unsure of doing it yourself. Then you can see if a new one is justified.

[stock 4runner]

The one thing with a car this age is the type of gas system on it. I rebuilt my converter last week. Cost me $60 instead of $300 for a new one but if you have gas injection I could see things being a lot dearer.

[stock 4runner]

Just had a look where I got my rebuild kit from $48 + freight out of Victoria if you want to have a go

[zookwithdreams]

Just had a look where I got my rebuild kit from $48 + freight out of Victoria if you want to have a go

so whats this place called and how hard was the rebuild? it doesnt look like there would be too much to it.

[stock 4runner]

It's on eBay just search airod and just slowly pull it down and place things in order. But it will need a tune afterwards but that shouldn't be too much.

[zookwithdreams]

I just pulled the converter apart and had a look at everything inside and it was alot cleaner than I had expected, the filter looks almost like new, apart from a slight build up of what looked like baked on oil there was hardly any gunk. Upon taking it for a test drive I remembered something else that was happening beforehand and that is that after trying to start or run on gas it didn’t want to start when flicked back to petrol, but after running it on petrol it will start again on petrol without any issues. does this bring the solenoids into play as a possible source of the issue?
Also is there anything I need to do because of the air that is now where the coolant was in the converter?

Two other things I discovered were a bit of rust on the back of item 3 in the in the ebay piccy and what could be item 7 or 8 floating around in the side where the balancer tube is but no obvious place where they might have come from.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/LPG-CONVERTO ... 4aa7297811" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[date]

Probably the reason for not starting on petrol after running on gas is that it is too rich - you have both gas and petrol being fed to the engine (Gas/Neutral/Petrol). Go to the neutral position to use up the gas then switch to petrol before the beast stops. Once the converter is primed with gas, you have to purge it before it will run properly on petrol. If you only have a 2 position switch, you have to rev the engine before changing over to petrol so that the momentum of the engine will be enough to suck all the available gas from the system.

[stock 4runner]

7&8 should push into little cups which controle the gas. So that will be your problem I'm guessing. Find where they come from and you should be all good.