LPG Installation Requirements

Found some older propane systems and thinking about converting my 38 at some point.

I am getting alot of conflicting answers about age of tanks, inspections of systems, installations and the whole 9 yards.

Any experts out there or somebody just get one done? Basically it'll be an old system on an old car not previously propane. Anybody????

 

Contact this guy. He is a straight shooter and knows this business in Canada. In the U.S., there's not much regulation of the privately installed stuff. Commercial installers have plenty of hoops to jump through.

http://www.propaneguy.com/

 

Thanks, I just sent him an email.

 

how much is Propane ?
I know my friend in Holland had a late 80s full size Chevy van converted to LPG , but kept the gasoline set-up too,
it really lost a lot of power on LPG , but at the time LPG was 35% the cost of gasoline in Holland,

Just wondering if it really pays off......

 

Your friend lost power because he ran a dual fuel system with a motor that was obviously optimized to run gasoline. If he ran only LPG and optimized the motor for LPG, he likely would get a lot better power and mileage on the LPG. LPG engines are similar to gas, but can utilize more compression and spark advance due to higher octane and when built for that re-coupe the lost hp and performance for the most part, yet still use cheaper $/gallon fuel and burn way cleaner to boot.

Here in the US, LPG doesn't tend to be that much cheaper than gasoline because it is largely supplied and controlled by the same companies as the gasoline and they make sure to keep it that way for a reason we can all probably guess.

LPG conversion on older, non-electronic intensive motors is actually pretty easy, but the learning curve to figure it out can be the hardest part as not many people to tell you what is best and need to scrounge around for the parts and fab. up stuff. Just getting all the correct parts is not as easy as it should be. For the new people with little experience with it, it is all a bit hard to summarize - kind of like explaining e-mail to someone who has never used a computer. Do a hamb search. It has been covered a couple of times before.

Plenty of forklifts still are made to run on LPG and they don't do it because it is hard or expensive. They do it because it is a cheap easy way to have a clean burning combustion motor for people who don't want an electric one. And you can buy LPG minus the added road taxes, but harder to buy gasoline without the taxes for offroad use. LPG minus the taxes is quite a bit cheaper than typical gasoline.

 

As a guy who use to deliver LPG for forklifts , I couldnt of explained it any better myself! Although one thing I would add, is that I wouldnt reccomend running LPG in a vehicle if you live in a climate where its very cold and humid the majority of the time, again thats my opinion..

 

just wondering if you guys in the states are runnin liquid petroleom gas.in youre rod or daily driver forgive me for my ignorance but i just dont know.i am paying 62.00 cents per litre for lpg as of today. if you run gas how does this compare

 

Are you talking about Propane, or LP gas?

 

Around my way, they are considered one in the same. I see conversion kits to convert from gasoline to LPG, but do not know anyone who has. Where I work we have a fleet of cars that have switchable power from gasoline to CNG (compressed natural gas). Only problem is finding a re-fueling station for the CNG, not many around.

 

We have some farmall model M tractors two are gasoline one is LP. the LP is good in that a engine will last forever and you dont ever have to clean the carb also you can leave it anywhere and nobody will steal the gas. But the down fall is that you lose over 1/3 of the power that gas has. That will compute to more than 1/3 less fuel milage. Most conversion kits that i have seen installed on cars have a propane carb that fits over the gas carb, thus making them dual fuel units. OldWolf

 

looking at LPG for my daily...here it's 54p a litre (gas is £1.20 ish a litre and remember it's close to $2 to £1 so your looking at $10 a gal). A mate has done his daily (Chrysler Grand Voyager) Ok not HAMB friendly but he saves £50 (around $100) a week over gas.....the conversion is around £1000 with a guarantee...sounds worth it to me!

 

i have friends with old tractors and they run on propane and have never mentioned a loss of performance. no old gas to mess with is one issue they really like as tractors sit most of the time. propane and a pertronix module combined with 12v conversion make them fun to use.

 

If you have Propane Co. set a tank at your house for heating or farm vehicles, you also save road tax.

 

We ran propane in our cruisers for a little over a year. The only complaint was that, in the winter the engine ran so cool you couldn't get the heater to defrost the windows let alone warm the p***enger area.

 

i have run it on a one ton car hauler for years.you have to remember to run your gasoline every now and then,or the carb will dry up and not run when you need to run gasoline. one big advantage is the octane. i could put that truck in 4th gear and pull off from a dead stop with no detonation. i do not think it has the same btu rating as gas i.e., a little less horse power. i could get away with 6000 mile oil changes easy. i would go for it. just set it up to run gasoline also.

 

I have been thinking of running LPG or CNG, for a long time. Talkin to guys at work just drew blank stares, they really didn,t get it? I think we all should start lookin at this gas price thing! Its our wakeup call. CNG is hooked up to almost everybody,s house. They have systems that you can use right at home, for fueling your cars with NATURAL GAS. AND OUR CARS AND RODS WILL RUN ON IT. It has less power than gas but its like a very high octane, sooo we know how to use blowers/turbos to take car of that. Of course the powers that be will jack up the price on that too. You are aware that our president is an oil guy, so now we are hearing the 'pitch ' we are going to pay these prices and more, so we better start thinking about this.

 

I agree the dual system was the problem ,

BUT you have to do it if you plan on traveling far from home....

In Europe Holland and Belgium have LPG everywhere , but not much in Germany (also were not open 24/7)

Even in the states you would have to make a plan to travel cross country,

 

heres a home CNG fueling appliance


Are there any home refueling options for CNG?
A home refueling appliance named ÒPhillÓ has been released in California in 2005 from FuelMaker Corporation. With this device, CNG vehicle owners can now refuel their vehicles overnight in their own home, from their household natural gas line.For more information on this appliance, visit the FuelMaker website at www.myphill.com

 

SOMETHING TO PONDER

Will I save money on fuel by converting my car or truck to propane?
A: Yes, but the amount of savings is dependent on many factors. The following are important points to consider when deciding how cost effective the conversion would be.


<DIR><DIR>-The cost of the conversion. Currently this is about $2000.00 plus $500.00 for the fuel tank.
-The price of propane versus the price of gasoline. Current prices are about $4.00 per gallon of gasoline and about $3.00 per gallon of propane. A savings of $1.00 per gallon. This price differential appears to be consistent regardless of the increase in the price of gasoline. This looks attractive.
-Current miles per gallon rating of your vehicle. Due to the chemical makeup of propane you can expect a 10% to 20% reduction in fuel economy.
-Age and mileage of vehicle to be converted. You must be able to drive the vehicle long enough to offset the expense of the conversion. If you average 12,000 miles per year, and average 15 miles per gallon, you will use 800 gallons of propane per year at a cost of $2,400.00. If you average 12,000 miles per year, and average 17 miles per gallon, you will use 705 gallons of gasoline per year at a cost of $2,820.00. This represents a savings of $420.00 per year. At this rate it will take approximately 6 years or 72,000 miles to break even.
-Of course all of these variables change depending on current prices, your vehicle and the amount of time you spend on the road. If you have an economical vehicle, drive more than 12,000 miles annually, or the gasoline to propane differential widens, it may be a good choice for you. If your vehicle already has poor fuel economy and / or high mileage, you drive 12,000 or less annually, or gasoline and propane prices move in tandem, you may want to reconsider.


</DIR></DIR>

 

Damn math majors......

thats always the problem getting reality in the way of dreams !

You will also not save $$$$$ buying a new car that gets 40 mpg ,
you will just transfer the money you spend to higher car payments, higher registation fees and higher insurance, and be stuck driving an ugly cookie cutter car......

Beaulieu

 

remember when diesel was so cheep? and you could get all you wanted? well diesel is into the $5 range now and gas isnt far behind! Do you think gas is going to go down? we were buying it at $3 without a blink. Its gonna go to $5 [it already has someplaces] the benchmark has been set. we are in a global mkt now. look at what they are paying. The powers that be have tried us on 2 fronts. first they shut off our gas supply [1973]. [the gov didnt tell us that, they said we caused it, buying gas guzzling cars, not enuff refiniries etc.] they never said the arabs shut us down! They found out we didnt care HOW MUCH it cost, we would stand in lines at 3 AM to get gas. and now they just raise the price to see what we will do. If they shut us down again we wont care what it costs to use our cars. what did they say about history? ok im done sorry for the rant. gggg

 

i run propane , its common in canada .. even tho its a byproduct of gas refinery its still moving up the same as gas... less power, less convineient,little less money...also have to plug it in when starting for the winter as propane freezes easily when it moves,... so i also pay for electrical power...by the way its $.78/litre here ...so $3.12 a gallon..

 

I haven't run it but took apart a 70s 460 ford that had 150K+ fleet miles, propane from new. Thing looked awesome inside, even the bearings were in good shape. You'd have guessed maybe 30K from internal wear. The plan was to rebuild, but it looked so good it ended up as re***embly. Ran great for years on gas before my friend sold the truck.

I think propane has a lot less carbon per energy unit and doesn't pollute the oil to the same extent as gas. Have also heard it's burn characteristics are less prone to pushing gases past the rings.

 

Huh? Everybody knew the Arabs shut us down. It was even called "the Arab oil crisis".

And this current thing is caused by speculators driving the price up, not by increase in demand (as the Bush administration claims). Everybody says it, even the speculators.

And opening drilling in Alaska won't help anybody but the oil companies.

 

also where are you going to put the LPG-Propane

to get any range it will have to be a pretty big tank .

Propane or LPG work great for Fleets as they can fill up everynight ,

Anyone know what it takes to run natural gas from your house ?
whats the cost per gallon compared to gasoline or propane ?

I know some cars are set up that way , but it requires a pump / compressor as the natural gas to your house is very low pressure and it needs to be compressed into a tank,,,,,,

 

i moved into a house years ago and abandoned in the driveway was a 1978 cadillac eldorado brougham barritz. under the dash was a switch.flipped to the left it said gas, and to the right it said LPG. in the trunk was a giant propane tank.i got the car to run(on five cylinders), but was never able to get it to run on the propane. the lpg tank was real nice and had a cadillac emblem on it, i wish i woulda kept that when i moved out. probably shouldnt have had the cadillac crushed either, but hindsight is 20/20. this thing had everything, electric seats, an altimeter onthe drivers mirror, power everything, an 8-track player with a CB position and cadillac CB handset, and the longest hood i ever had the pleasure to peer over. oh and a stainless steel roof. though it was junk at the time...really wish ida kep it. woulda made a nice vegas car. sorry to ramble on bout a late 70's cadillac, but i just got me wisdom teeth pulled and am on medication right now and its making me real talkitive.......sorry

 

NOW NOW Frank there is a name for that>>>>.

 

I had a 67 Falcon down here on LPG a bunch of years ago, with a 4.1 from a 87 or so falcon in it, was a dual fuel system and 3 on the tree so not the most economical, only ever had it running on LPG and it turned similar $ per KM as the old mans 87 Subaru auto.
For my money its good stuff, particularly if you are not paying for the conversion, seems to be Falcons and Holdens here on factory LPG. Not too sure about the sums above I thaught LPG was higher octane then the **** they sell as gas these days.

 

My hot rodder buddy in Argentina runs his cars on CNG. It's 28 cents per cubic liter. Diesel is $2.44 per gallon and gasoline is about $3.50. He says only the Mercedes, BMW, SUV drivers (i.e. the wealthy) use gasoline.

You can buy CNG at fuel stations on the street there.

 

Absolutely true - 100&#37;. The biggest, and honestly only real problem with running propane is filling up when you need to. Finding the auto fuel refill stations is no easy convenient task. But, they are out there, just need to find them and they aren't usually 24/7 by any means either. Mostly just at the actual Propane supplier locations.

You can just get and run BBQ propane, same exact stuff, just different filling fittings and tank requirements. Which is mostly all about making sure you pay your road taxes when it goes into a road vehicle. I do believe you can also purchase non-taxed LPG and then pay the taxes yourself manually if you want to do it all legally as they will make you do if you get caught.

I have a 29 gal LPG for my pickup and I also have a forklift tank and a hose that can connect the 2 in an emergency if I were to run out. You can also do the same thing with a simple BBQ tank or even a little propane torch cylinder if you wanted and just needed to get off the side of the road and maybe down a mile or 2. I don't drive too far out of town because my truck is an old 50's farm truck and not good for long trips anyway. But, I do have to remember to get a fill up 8-5 M-F only or hope I have enough for the weekend if I forget.

If they just had more propane tanks at gas stations, it would be not much of a concern. Chicken/egg problem though. Not enough demand because too much of a pain to fill up therefore not enough suppliers willing to invest in the few $'s and space for a tank and effort to deal with the few LPG wackos who just can't go along with the program. Again, keep in mind, the gas companies also supply LPG as it is largely produced as a by-product of gasoline refining. So, you would think it wouldn't be that hard to promote and distribute something you already make anyway.

But, with that said, LPG is not a magic cure all and held down by conspiracy. Since it is a by-product of gasoline refinement, you still need to refine a lot of gas to get a lot of LPG. So, you can't just have all LPG and then little demand for the gas. Ideally you sell exactly all the LPG and other products you make and there isn't any extra supply to hold down prices on any of it. When LPG was in much lower demand years ago, they use to just burn it offs as just total waste. That is what the flames were mostly at the top of the refining towers. You don't really see those any more for environmental reason too - at least in the US anyway. They probably still do it where they can and don't want to be bothered with dealing with the "waste" gases.