Propane for fuel in flattie

Back in the 80's I had a dual fuel F-150. It was a satisfactory way to run the truck, no problems. I did not experience rough idle when the engine was cold. One switch and away you go. I was in a business that used a lot of propane, and it made economic sense because I got it at a good rate. I really did not notice that much of a power loss on propane, nor was the mileage that much less.

One side benefit was teasing/aggravating my dates. Lots of times I would run almost dead empty on gasoline and of course the gauge showed empty or maybe below empty.

It never failed when a girl got in the truck, eventually she would notice the empty gauge and make some remark about "don't you need to get gas?", to which I would say "no, this truck will run a long while with the gas gauge on empty" - which was literally true because the truck was running on propane.

As the evening progressed the girl would get more squirmy about the empty gas gauge, but I just would keep repeating that it was OK, not to worry. Strung some of them along for a long time.

If propane was readily available I'd consider switching, but around here it's not; only a couple of places, not convenient.
 
We have a $2,000 (USD2,119) Gov't subsidy to convert from petrol (gas) to LPG. In NSW we have most old cars on 'Club Registration' which is a lot cheaper than full rego, so it is unlikely that such cars would qualify for the subsidy. However if a car was on full rego it might be able to get the subsidy.

A nice little earner we have going on here at the moment is; you buy an LPG set up from a wrecker (usually off a taxi), take it to your LPG licenced installer, he inspects and installs your parts and claims the subsidy, he takes his fee and hands his customer the balance. Nice work if you can get it.

I don't know about LPG reserves in the States but in Oz we have absolutley huge amounts of the stuff, it won't be long before most vehicles will be using it.

coupe5w36, I would be most interested to know why a flattie is more prone to engine failure than any other type of engine. When I had my business we ran 2 or 3 forklifts with flatties all day every day on LPG with never any fuel related problems.
 
Back in the late 80's when I was a Police Officer in Albany NY--The city of Albany converted their fleet of Dodge ASPENS(yes Aspens) to run on both propane and gas. The propane bottles were located in the trunk along with the radio power equipment and the gas tank located just below the trunk area. Car ran like sh@# and were always in for engine repair. We were advised not to smoke in the car,
 
Fe26, I'm not necessarily saying flatties are "prone to failure", just repeating what I was told by Early Ford V8 Club members. I had planned to run my '36 on lpg but was strongly advised not to (unless I ran dual fuel & alternated with petrol). The '46 Merc was built by Colin Bates to a very high standard & I suspect surprised many when it let go. The owner took great care of the car (ie no abuse) & was devastated. Previously I assumed that an 8BA would have been fine on lpg but wasn't game to try it in the end. Interesting that your forks had no issues.
 
I was going to suggest OzRodders or even the regular Australian Ford Forums for some additional information, but we seem to have a good representation of our Australian friends on the site, and I think they know more than anyone on the subject.

There are a few builds on the OzRodders site that are using LPG in their builds.
 
Doesn't propane need higher compression

Never had a propane car but I do have a propane John Deere 620 mixed in with all the gas & all-fuel types . These only have two BIG pistons and the LP tractor has special pistons { higher compression } for LP . John Deere wasn't into using special parts unless it was absolutely needed . My question is a flathead with relatively low compression may not perform right on propane ? Another thing about the LP 620 is it won't lug down as far as a gas one . A gas one will lug down to the point it will actually spin backwards . Not so with the LP . If it lugs down far enough it makes a strange gurgling sound and quits . Yeah this is a ford site but I would think some of this applies . The motor folks can better explain the need for more compression with LP . I do know LP is relatively high octane . E-nuff rambling but I am curious bout dis :D . David J
 
90% of the propane produced in the US is made into fertilizer for corn production to make ethanol fuel for cars and trucks. This brilliant idea has raised the cost of home heating when using propane. Burning propane directly in the car is a more efficient use of propane than to grow corn to make ethanol. The process of making propane into fertilizer requires energy too.

This is a stupid program and we may all be walking when some insect, drought or flood destroy the corn fields. We need people in office that understand basic science instead of campaign contributors and good friends.

The only cars and trucks that use propane in this area are the propane distributors.
 
coupe5w36 said:
Fe26, I'm not necessarily saying flatties are "prone to failure", just repeating what I was told by Early Ford V8 Club members. I had planned to run my '36 on lpg but was strongly advised not to (unless I ran dual fuel & alternated with petrol). The '46 Merc was built by Colin Bates to a very high standard & I suspect surprised many when it let go. The owner took great care of the car (ie no abuse) & was devastated. Previously I assumed that an 8BA would have been fine on lpg but wasn't game to try it in the end. Interesting that your forks had no issues.
Click to expand...

I guess ignorance is bliss, one of the men who worked for me was a mechanic and licensed LPG fitter, he kept the vehicles running. I had never thought there would be any issues as I know the old flatties can run on just about any fuel, even kerosene. Now you've got me worried as I am thinking about converting my '36' pickup to LPG.

I wonder if there is any difference re: fuel between industrial engines and motor vehicle engines.
 
FE26, I can't say about a difference Down Under, but here Stateside, there's a hefty road tax as the only difference.
 
Fe26,
We fill our fork gas tank from the same bowser that we fill our Ford Courier shop ute. No problems. The fork has a side wacker Continental 6 in it that has about a gizzlion hours on it but it still runs as sweet as a nut. Touch wood!!!
 
Ain't this the funny thing, I spend a bit of time tinkering with my V8 road car engines, to keep them running sweet. We used to spend virtually no time at all on the flatties in the forklifts, and we used to run 'em reasonably hard.

Ahhhh, tax free LPG, we used to decant from the Industrial Tank we had to run the furnaces. I might have to start up another Blacksmith shop in order to get tax free fuel to run my two pickups and one car, once they are converted to LPG.
 
FE 26,do you have onfo on conversion kits..for petro to LPG..??is it available in your country..you mentioned utes running on LPG.sooo there must be a vendor that has put together a kit for them??..TIA for sharing info..
 
krackerjack1951 said:
FE 26,do you have onfo on conversion kits..for petro to LPG..??is it available in your country..you mentioned utes running on LPG.sooo there must be a vendor that has put together a kit for them??..TIA for sharing info..
Click to expand...


Krackerjack, look further up the post, I gave an website address for Technocarb, they are in Canada and produce kits for most cars.
 
Where I live in Central Queensland in Australia they are building the biggest LNG plants known to man,the first one is under construction at a cost of $22 billion,there are two more on the go,all the gas is for export to china, all the taxis run on LPG ,mostly Ford falcons.
Falcons are avail new to run on LPG.
Lawrie
 
Hi krackerjack, I don't know specifically of anyone making kits for Ford SV V8 engines over here.

All I'll be doing is going to a wrecker and finding a car with a similar engine displacement to a SV flathead and installing that system on my car.

I will most likely need to make an adaptor between the LPG carby and the flathead intake manifold, and find the best place to mount the fuel tank and make a skid plate for the tank, the rest should be a relatively easy 'bolt this here, screw that there' type of installation.

Or I could simply hand the parts to a licensed installer...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top