propane???

Is anybody running propane??? Do you like it and are there any drawbacks?? This may be the fuel of the future, natural gas, methane (uh oh, I'm low on fuel, quick everybody eat beans!)!

Opinions? price, availabilaty, power and stuff like that!?!

Thanks, Dale

 

I just finished mine up this past week. I'm sure many will echo all the "drawbacks" they have heard, but I think it's a pretty good way to go.

I put it on a Jeep 1973 258, that previously had a Weber 32/36, and has HEI ignition. I used an Impco CA125 mixer, but based on displacement and RPM's, I should have used a 200, and a larger regulator. But I got a great deal on the 125 brand-new, so decided to give it a shot.

Long story short, I like it, and don't think the smaller mixer will give any problems. Just fine off-road, and did fine today on the highway at about 55-60mph. Playing around on a dirt hill, a couple of times where I thought I lost it...I just bumped the gas pedal and it came back to life...in testing, I was able to turn the idle down to 250 RPM and it kept running (the propane goes in as a vapor, and stays a vapor, so it's very efficent at getting thru the intake and to the cylinders). I've set idle at 500RPM now.

If you try propane, you'll find that there's nothing better, except i'd say factory multiport fuel injection. (and with propane, you got no computers, etc to screw you up or cost you money down the road). I'm pulling out my gas tank tomorrow -- I don't think I'll be going back to it.

I decided to go propane due to problems I was having on steep inclines and side hills...either flooding out, or running the bowl dry. I was running a regulator on the Weber, tried everything from .5psi to 5 psi, and got it going about as good as you could with a carb...but it still wasn't good enough.

I had one guy telling me today that it would never work on a car motor, that i'd come to hate propane, that it won't work at all below 40 degrees, etc....told me all this fancy stuff about molecular properties of 'pane, flashpoints, etc....and that I had to be putting everybody on, and the thing had to still be running on gas. An educated idiot, I guess...he didn't seem to care that it works on tens of thousands of forklifts...and Jeeps, cars, trucks, etc.

If you have any specific questions about it, let me know...I am going to try and get some pics of my setup soon and post it up.

 

Oh...general consensus is that you'll get about 10% less miles per gallon from 'pane than gasoline. (A gallon of 'pane weighs 4.25 lbs, most common forklift tank is 33#).

I pay 17.79 for a 33# tank fill. (w/o road taxes...offroad use only). I figure to go thru about 1 to 1.5 tanks per day, so I set up for two tanks on the Jeep (both vertical, right behind the seats). I have 7 tanks total, where I might be camping and wheeling for several days. The offroad trailer I'm building now will have brackets for 2 additional tanks for multi-day trips.

We got like maybe a dozen different places in town (not-so-big town) that will fill the forklift tanks. Not all of them are set up to collect the highway use tax if you are going to be on-road.

I am going to add a large propane tank at the house for gas logs and shop heat, and will put a wet leg on the tank, so I can refill my cylinders. No pump ($$$), so it will feed slower, especially on hot days. That should get me under $2 per gallon.

 

He was almost right...propane won't vaporize below 44*F. But that's 44* BELOW ZERO R) . If the temperature drops below -44* then you're out of luck...it just stays a liquid. If you're driving a Jeep in an ambient temperature lower than that...well, you've probably got other problems anyway . One of the reasons so many people use it as a fuel to heat their homes is the fact that it still works in very cold temps. I thought about doing a conversion on my old truck, but it was one of those projects that didn't happen before I sold it.

 

Just did a search here on propane, got some new sites to explore and good info.

Seems that an increase in compression is in order, at least 10:1 if not a little more!

The mileage may be a little less than gasoline and if I read this right propane burns hotter than gas so attention to good cooling is in order!!! Is that correct??

Thanks, Dale