Propane or natural-gas conversion kits!

[blackjackel]

They can range from 100-200 for do-it-your-selfers to 1400 for a pre-made complete kit, and then you can have a switch to go back and forth between regular gasoline and gas....

My question is, what is the cost of propane or natural gas? I have no clue...

[tjts1]

Wow I would like to see some of those $100-200 kits.

[wikityler]

where I live autogas is $0.89/L, compared to regular which recently dropped to $1.429/L.
But remember that one L of autogas won't get you as far as a L of regular.

Where are these 'cheap' conversion kits you refer too?

[SatanicMechanic]

Auto Propane is usually a few cents higher than regular gasoline. When I was in high school, I used to drive a propane powered truck for a rental company. The company sold propane, so when we filled up the truck, it was charged as heating propane. Heating propane is cheaper because it does not have the state and federal fuel taxes.
If you convert over a vehicle to propane, rent or buy a very large tank, tell the propane people that is for a water heater and refuel your vehicle at your house.

Sometime I will tell you guys about the propane powered pickup my friend bought and how he used to steal proane from neighborhood BBQ's.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by wikityler

where I live autogas is $0.89/L, compared to regular which recently dropped to $1.429/L.
But remember that one L of autogas won't get you as far as a L of regular.

Where are these 'cheap' conversion kits you refer too?

And considering we're in Victoria, that's going to be a hell of a lot higher than most other places in North America. (I did a double-take when I saw what you said the price recently went down to because it seemed quite familiar!)

[rmay635703]

To chime in here, in the good OL USA you need a registered, licensed installer to do an CNG conversion which is over $10k for most plus the pumping costs.

Generally however equivalent to a gallon of gasoline CNG here in the us including pumping costs goes from $.90 a gallon in Utah and out west (gas equiv) to about $2.50 depending on where you live.

Sadly the $800 including installation Mexican conversion specials are illegal here in the states except I have noticed that the law specifically saws a registered installer on all OBDII (whatever that thing is) vehicles so does that mean I can use a non-registered installer on old carburated crapola I have laying around?

[frodus]

I was gonna say the same thing rmay...

gotta have a licensed installer AND you have to have an emissions approved conversion kit for your specific vehicle.... sounds like lots of red tape.... wonder why?

Well, at least the infrastructure is here. 90+% of all the NG in the US is FROM THE US! thats great. It'l be nice in a few years, when gas starts to run out, we tap into NG and convert existing cars.

Its got a great output per gallon too.

[MPaulHolmes]

I like the idea of SatanicMechanic of getting a bunch of CNG for "home use". So, It's expensive to install just a big tank at your house? And can you just transfer from the big tank to the car's tank pretty safely? Why would anyone mention that a car is CNG powered? My EV is just a "regular car" as far as the insurance in concerned, and no-one seems to know the difference.

Is it hard to convert an old car to CNG? That way, there may be no emissions requirement. But where I live there aren't any emissions issues anyway. I had no idea that a regular car could be so easily converted to CNG. I thought it would be a major engine change.

[SuperTrooper]

Transfer of CNG or propane requires a compressor.

When my in-laws owned a campground they had a propane refill station. F-I-L installed a propane conversion kit on his new 1978 Chevy C20 that could be swapped from gas to propane with a switch and a couple of valves. Once gas got cheap again he stopped using the propane. I don't know what happened to the truck.

[SatanicMechanic]

SuperTrooper is correct about the compressor, but if the propane tank on the vehicle is empty, the larger source tank will fill it depending on how full the source is. Tank equalization.
Let me tell you guys about my friend with the propane powered truck in high school. In the back of his truck he had a bike. If he ran out of propane, which he did usually at night, he would go combing the neighborhood for gas grills. When he found one, he would take the 5 gallon tank, connect it to the empty tank and take out as much as he could. He would take the empty 5 gallon tank and throw it back on yard of where he found it. Sometimes he would slip $5 with the tank but a lot of times he didn't.
He could not do this trick in winter since propane doesn't want to flow when it is freezing. One trick his dad found out was if you turned the 5 gallon tank upside down, wrapped a warm towel around it and it will flow.