Okay, here is kind of a subject to chew on that may or may not go anywhere.

I have a 77 F250 2wd auto., gasonline, 460 with 2 fuel tanks.. It's the Camper Special. It is showing signs of engine wear. Slight overheating, oil leak. Low oil pressure after it's good and warmed up. My mechanic tells me it's going to need a new engine.

I'd be interested in getting a natural gas engine for it if it can be done for the same dough. Any possiblity of that? And then, where does a person get the fuel?

 

Natural gas outlets for autobile is quite rare at this time.


I would suggest looking in the FTE Fuel delivery forum for info as the year of truck means nothing regarding this conversion.

It is a FUEL ...Gasoline to N.Gas topic.

You don't say where you are so, maybe check the yellow pages.

 

When you say natural gas, do you mean methane (can't remember which is what)? I would think that something like propane would be a lot easier to get, but can't imagine the conversion being too much different. Fuel is def. a better place to find out though.

 

Natural Gas, what a furnace and water heater run on .

http://www.atcogas.com/About_NG/NGV/NG_Vehicles.asp

 

You can get it from the same place that your furnace and water heater get it, but you need a pump to compress it. You have to keep it under really high compression to carry enough, which means a heavy tank, and no tank will hold it for long- it leaks out like hydrogen. I think that propane might be a better solution.

 

I have seen brand new Ford fleet pickups that have a decal on them saying that they burn natural gas. That's where I got the idea. But, I get it-the fuel is problematic and propane conversion is probably closer to a reality.

 

The place I used to work has a 74' or 75' 302ci generator that runs on natural gas. They use it as back-up power to operate the boilers electrical systems. The think is identical to the 302 in my 74' F-100 besides the carburetor set-up. The boiler run on natural gas so its an obvious choice to have the generator run on natural gas too. They can be set-up to run on LP as well.

I think you'd be better off running LP over natural gas in an auto.

 

My cousin in Arizona has a Ford Expedition that was converted to natural gas at the dealership. It's kind of a cool system. He has the regular gas tank and then (2) cylinder tanks that sit where the spare tire is suppose to be. He says he can get about 300 miles out of the natural gas tanks, and 300+ out of the regular gas tank. So a distance of 600+ miles between file-ups. From what he was telling me the Expedition when started uses gasoline for about 10-15 secs. and then switches to propane. When the propane drops to certain level it will automatically switch to running on gas. He also has a switch inside to run it only on gasoline. It's a neat system since when he parks it at night he plugs it into a box on the wall and it is a mini filling station. I think he said if the tanks are empty it will take about 8 hrs to fill it at home. Otherwise there are stations scatered around the Phoenix area that sell it, and they only take a couple mins to fill.

When he purchased the vehicle the state of Arizona was giving out tax rebates of over 50% of the cost of the vehicle (or something close to that) and they also paid for the conversion to natural gas or LP. He did have to buy and have the station put into his house, but like he said for the cost savings on the vehicle it was worth it. Plus being a alternative gas vehicle he can now drive in the HOV lane by himself durning rush hour.

By the way, after a year or 2 of those incentives the Arizona government removed all or most of the tax brakes. A lot of people where buying expensive vehicles and having them converted and only putting in 2-5 gallon tanks, and never using them. That way they could get the tax breaks, the HOV break, and get the vehicle at a significant cost reduction.

If anyone from Arizona sees something that I screwed up, let me know.

 

Ok theirs some miss-imformation here. Lets start with this, nat. gas and propane are very diffrent. Propane is low pressure and nat gas is high pressure.
I am a fleet mech for the largest nat. gas co. in the USs and we have many trucks that run on nat. gas.
The new systems compress the gas to 3600lbs. This is done to get enough fuel load to make the system worth while.
The system and home fueling station described in the above post is nat. gas not propane. Propane liquefies at a low pressure so you can carry more fuel at a lower pressure. The only way to get nat. gas to liquefy is to freeze it and then you you dont have to compress it as much to get the fuel load required. Their are systems that do this but you have to keep it frozen or it expands as it heats up and it has to go some where. So you have to have a referation tank.
The system above is a bi-fuel system because it runs on nat. gas or gasoline. This system uses a piggy back computer that taps in to the factory computer and uses the factory sensors to make the car run.
Older systems that have a carb. have a silonode that shuts the fuel off from the fuel pump to the carb. and you run the carb dry, then with a cable arrangement you ingauge a gas mixer located on top of the carb or through a tube feeding the carb all while going down the road.
The only down side to to the home fueling station talked about in the above post is you have a compressor running for 8hrs to compress the gas. So if power is expensive where you live than nat. gas isent such a cheep option.
Nat. gas isent taxed like gasoline is one of the benifets. One of the down sides is the fueling stations are few and far between.
You can buy a lot of gasoline by the time you outfit a vehicle and buy a home fueling station but if its a bi-fuel vehicle once filled with nat. gas and gasoline you could double your fuel range.
Leadmic