Work at a fleet shop in NE Ga and my boss went to State Surplus down in Atl not too long ago. Came across 2 1996 vans that ran off natural gas. Up at the shop here we have 2 vans both with 351W's in them that are both pushing 260,000 miles . We were wanted to know what it would take to convert the two natural gas vans to gasoline using the parts off our 2 vans. We would like to take things such as the injector rails, injectors, oxygen sensors, and fuel tanks off of the 351 vans and put those onto the natural gas vans to make them run of gasoline. What all components would we have to take from our vans to make the 2 surplus vans run off gasoline? Any info would be appreciated!!

 

Has anyone ever attempted this?? Does anyone know anything at all about this?

 

Sounds like a good buy. Those engines run for ever on Nat. Gas. Oil stays clean and no combustion deposits. I would seriously look into keeping them Nat. gas and find a refuel station to keep them fueled.

 

well thats the whole reason we wanna change them to gasoline. We don't have any natural gas satations up here in NE GA and besides these would be transportation vans that a different joe smoe would drive every day. I don't want to have to give directions to natural gas stations to 500 people when i could just convert the vans and stay on the same page as the others. Do you know about converting these? Would we just have to convert the fuel system (tank,lines,pump,injectors,rails,regulator) and different spark plugs or is it more of a hassle than that??? Does anyone know the mechanical difference between natural gas vans and gasoline vans?

 

I have not done one, but if you have doner vans that are gas should be straight forward. As you said tanks, lines, pumps. You may need to change injectors and plugs but again if you have the doner van you could compare them. Worst part is they are vans with the motor under the dash not in the open like a truck.

If you need to change injectors due to different spray pattern you may want to buy new ones due to fact of the high miles on old engines, I would think the nat. gas injectors would be plenty high flow because you need more fuel with nat. gas than with gasoline.

My brother inlaw has an F150 that was run on propane before he got it and all they did to change back to gas was tank, lines and pumps.

One thing for sure though as I said in other post. The engines will be like new. NAt. gas burns super clean, they should have very little wear and no deposits.

 

By the way if your business uses nat. gas for hot water or heat, you can purchase refuel stations so that they could be fueled right on the property. Down side is they are slow to fill and you would need the tank capacity to make it back to shop each day with out filling during the day.

 

ya thats the issue with them being trans vehicles b/c they go out in the summer for 3 to 4 weeks at a time...no time for music majors to be looking for natural gas stations!!thanks again for the info!