http://home.comcast.net/~Mercurial76/Courier/

Take a look at some initial pix. The truck is a 1979 Courier powered by a 2.3L engine mated to a 5-speed stock tranny. Truck had 40k showing on odometer when it was bought. Previous life as a partial use fleet vehicle in Arizona. Sat for a little while in Oregon before I picked it up.

It runs on Propane. You might notice the lack of emissions components in the engine bay. It sports a 50 gallon tank in the bed to give an average range in the 900 mile range. It was a conversion, as the stock fuel tank and lines were intact. For simplicity, I removed these.

The Propane system is from Impco. I rebuilt the VFF-30 Lockoff and Model "J" Convertor/regulator myself. The Carb (or more properly "Mixer") is an Impco CA125.

I was getting 18mpg average (22 gas equivalent) when I started restoration. Now I'm expecting at least 22mpg (29 gas equiv) with the latest mod.

I installed a Safe Controls 5958 Fuel controller more commonly found in FORKLIFTS . This entailed installing a 4-wire oxygen sensor in the exhaust pipe just behind the header. The fuel contoller analyses the mixture to manipulate a solenoid air valve which attaches to the convertor. The solenoid allows a small amount of vacuum to be applied to the convertor, which tricks the convertor into sensing an increase in relative air pressure, essentially leaning out a rich mixture. Because of this, a rich (feedback) diaphragm had to be installed in the CA125 Mixer. The rich mix gives the Fuel controller a rich-bias mixture to lean out on the fly, keeping the fuel-air mixture consistently near the 15.7:1 stiochiometric ideal ratio.

As originally designed the fuel controller is marketed for forklifts and other LPG-powered vehicles that have to live indoors and operate around people. Needless to say this mod increased HP, torque, economy, and emissions. Anyone converting or thinking of converting should consider this mod NON-OPTIONAL. Otherwise the stock gas-calibrated engineering of the engine will most likely push lots of propane out the tailpipe.

The problem I'm attempting to work out now is a "loping" idle. The system will run rich, and then the computer will lean it out, over and over, representing a 100 rpm cycle unless the idle is set ridiculously high, like over 1000. Very annoying. I am en route to eliminating all other possibilites (rather quickly with such a simple system) and will be talking to the folks at Safe Controls (part of the "MSD" ignition umbrella).

Other than that its a "POS" ford courier. I don't know if the engine has 40 or 140 or 240k on it, all I know is that it pushes a rock-steady 22 inches Hg of vacuum and after 2000 miles of driving the syntec 5w-50 is still clear!

List of work done:
All hoses, Plugs, wires, Rad soldering, added overflow tank, Accel Supercoil, 55/60W Halogen conversion (stock wiring corroded- went with inline blade fuses and Hella relays) Fabricated turn signal housings and wiring (disintigrating), Removed fuel tank and associated equipment, Retopped dashcap, replaced leaking windshield gasket, door seals, refurb and swap in better stock bench seat, radio, installed soundproofing, realigned hood and replaced hood hinge, fixed hood stay, removed stock towing mirrors, patched holes and resurfaced, installed smaller OEM mirrors, M+S radials.....

 

Welcome to FTE. Wow ... thats quite the Intro! You might check into the forum for alternative fuels to see if anyone else has propane power and what they did. In any case ...

Please make sure to read the forum guidelines and the READ FIRST notes in each forum. They will make finding info and using the site much easier. Also, scan the entire list of forums...FTE is huge and has forums specific to many aspects of maintaining your Ford Truck.

 

Thanks... I've done some initial searching for other people running dedicated propane applications in the forums but haven't turned up much.

 

Good luck. Propane is not the most popular fuel used, but I'm sure someone here has worked with it. I have a couple questions in to Admin about this. When I get more info, I'll move this thread to a better forum to see if you can get some assistance. If it gets moved I'll try to let you know where it is.

 

Whoa, sounds impressive.

That would have to be the cheapest car to run EVER.
In Australia, Propane is quite a popular fuel (it is btwn. 1/2 and 1/4 the price of gas) pretty much all taxis in Oz run on Propane...

I should be able to provide some more info on propane systems (I know a guy that does the conversions) and I will ask them what they think would be causing it...

 

Slick looking little pickup no matter what its running on. Love seeing older unmolested vehicles on the road.

 

Nice looking truck!

 

Nice looking Beetle in the background!!!

 

We have an "Alternative Fuels" forum that handles propane conversions etc. You will find yourself at home there...

Mechanically the little pickup is an orphan here. They were re-badged Mazda pickups in the early days. A few people here know about them in the Ranger forum and there are a few Mazda sites that have info.