Alternate Fuels

[Bill]

Since I have experience with alternate fuels I was asked by a few members to post my experiences with it. I have forgotten most of the technical characteristics of gaseous vs. gasoline. I was certified and installed it over 20 years ago so my memory isn’t the greatest. Most of the natural gas conversions I did where a dual fuel setup.

This is part one of my storey.

Italy was one of the first countries to adopt natural gas for use in cars and trucks and when I became certified it was against the law to drive in major cities in Italy on gasoline. I guess there was a lot of pollution there.

Back in 1989 I worked in a small 4 bay shop of an oil company here in Canada. We were approached to perform natural gas conversions by the local utility. The price of gasoline was sky rocketing and natural gas was cheap. They also wanted to install a compressor and a dispenser on the pump island. Some of the city busses had already been converted to NGV and they wanted an alternative filling station in case theirs broke down which as I found out that was within a short period of time. Damn compressor was always breaking down. The busses had converted diesel engines. I never heard a diesel run so quiet.

I went for training and became a certified installer. We gathered all the equipment we needed but were lacking a chassis dynamometer to set fuel mixtures at full throttle and load.

My first conversion was a G.M. 1 ton tow truck. I had a lot of questions about different issues but I bumbled along until I finally fired it up on natural gas for the first time. The engine was carbureted and you had to empty the carb bowl before you switched to natural gas. It used a cable and a fuel shut off solenoid to accomplish this.

Since we didn’t have a dyno I had to go to another shop who did have one. The owner was a little Dutchman with miserable expression on his face. I guess he didn’t like competition from another shop. I was impressed by his knowledge and accuracy. When he was done I drove back to our shop. I was amazed with this truck running on Natural Gas instead of gasoline.

After doing a couple more conversions and the NG. utility was selling natural gas conversions like crazy and was approached by the little Dutchman to come and work for him. This job was all I wanted to do at the time so I went doing conversions full time. The utility had a rebate system set up with the Ontario Government that was so good the cost to the consumer was next to nothing to convert and the price of the fuel was half the cost of gasoline.

The NG utility had a rental program for the tanks and that’s where they made their money.

Those tanks came in several capacities but the largest only held about 10 gallons of gasoline equivalent. Since a full fill of NG was 3000 to 3200 psi pressure the tanks were specially built and were about an inch thick. Needless to say they were heavy, bout 180 lbs for the largest cylinder (hell, I was only 130 lbs at the time). If you installed 3 or 4 tanks in the bed of a pickup truck it was a lot of weight to carry around 24/7/365. They also came in 9 12 and 14 in. diameters. There where very specific installation criteria as you can only imagine.
I had to learn to become a welder real quick as sometimes the brackets had to be welded and bolted to the frame of the truck.

We used 2 kinds of equipment. A California based company called IMPCO and an Italian company, Landi Renzo. The Impco system was actually fork lift components and was positive pressure and the Italian system was made for cars and trucks and was a negative pressure system. The Impco system use a regulator to drop the pressure from 3000+ lbs to 100 psi but other components dropped the pressure to about 2 or 3 psi. The Italian system was all self contained into 1 unit. Both needed to sense engine vacuum and electrical connections before it would let fuel flow.

The worst problem with the Italian system was the mixer ring. It was full of small holes to introduce the NG into the carburetor venturies. If the engine had an intake backfire it would light the mixer ring on fire just like an old gas stove and melt the carburetor into a big lump. Yeah!
When running on gasoline there was a negative pressure on the carburetor that made the car run like crap. I devised a disc and with an A/C compressor clutch coil that lifted the disc while running on gasoline. It worked great. I should have patented it or sold the idea to the Italians but what the hell did I know?

Those who are into geography will know about the Niagara Escarpment. If not just google it. It runs from Niagara Falls past lake Ontario until almost Toronto somewhere. (My geography is terrible) The city I live in has 2 levels the lower city and the upper which is about 400 ft above sea level. On top of the escarpment.

I worked in the lower city and when I was finished adjusting the idle mixture on the Italian system I would take the car for a spin to check for drivebilty issues. As long as I stayed in the lower city the car ran fine. If I drove to the top of the escarpment the car would stall at every stop. If I adjusted the idle mixture in the upper city and drove to the lower city it would stall at every stop. We installed that system on over 100 cabs. Try and explain that problem to a cab driver. We just showed them how to adjust it and most were fine with that.

Now the whole deal gets more complicated as fuel injected vehicles became more popular for conversions. The utility had a technical guy who was a real NERD in the true sense of the word. We really didn’t get along, I guess cuz he had a Bachelor of Science degree and I didn’t. There were problems with both of our attitudes anyway and we usually butted heads without even saying gooday to each other.
But the guy had technical info that was very useful. Wiring diagrams were a must as we had to shut off the fuel injectors while running on natural gas. If you shut the fuel pump down the fuel in the rails and injectors would turn to molasses. The fuel pump kept the gasoline cool and circulating.

We also had to install electronic devices to trick the engine computer into thinking the car was running on gasoline when running on NG. If you didn’t use these devices the fuel trims would go crazy rich and when switching back to gasoline the car would run poorly until it corrected.
Since Natural Gas is 130 octane and burns slower than gasoline you had to start the burn early to make power. Electronic devices were added to advance the ignition timing an additional 15 degrees BTDC. We had to know which PCM wires to tap into to make it all work. Nobody told us or supplied instructions. We had to figure it own on our own. Trial and error sometimes.

I remember pulling an all nighter to find the correct wires to tap into on a Ford van. FUN, WoW.
I didn’t care cuz I was fascinated by the whole deal. After performing over 1000 conversions I was still fascinated watching the car drive away on Natural gas.

I’ll be back later with part 2 of the adventure.

Part 2

The thing I enjoyed most was that you had to pick and choose your components to install. You had to pick the carburation with the correct air flow (calculated by engine size) and the correct electronics for the vehicle. I had to make all my own wire harnesses. Everything had to be soldered and shrink tubed as well as protected with wire loom to make it all look neat and tidy. You had to find room for all the components and that wasn’t easy sometimes.
I was working 10 to 14 hour days and I loved it. The job provided a real sense of accomplishment. Everything you did had your signature on it and it made you proud to see it all come together.

The next 2 years were all the same. Work and more work. The job didn’t really pay that well but my employer was great to work for. He treated me real well. I received an award from the utility for my dedication and was very proud of it.

We finally outgrew the building we were in. I was converting one vehicle a day by this time I had a helper installing the tanks and stainless steel line. There were always cars in various stages of completion and we ran out of room.

The new facility had loads of room, enough that we could easily convert fleets of vehicles to natural gas. It was a three man assembly line.

About 2 years later things began to slow down. I think the market was getting saturated and the Government rebate program was soon coming to an end.
The utility politics began to surface and wanted us to cut our conversion prices. My boss had a real bad blow out with them and decided he didn’t want to kiss their butts anymore.

We closed the doors in the middle of that day and I was unemployed. I felt like Family and was an emotional time for all of us. We were doing something unique and satisfying and it just ended.

Word spread like wild fire as we were well known in the industry and within a week I was working at another shop in a suburb of the city. This was a full service shop with a fleet of tow trucks. The owner turned out to be the biggest JERK I ever worked for. There was a revolving door where employees went in got chewed up and spit out the door. I lasted for nine years. The towing dispatcher was the only employee who was there longer than me. She had been there for ten years. I lost count of the people that worked and then left there. Everyone hated the man. He sure wasn’t my best pal either but I just stayed out of his way most times. I’m sure I made him money too.

The conversion business kind of leveled off but I kept busy. Eight hour days were kind of a relief too. I went for training to be able to perform propane conversions. There are several similarities between natural gas and propane except natural gas is a vapor and propane is a liquid that boils at 230f degrees below zero so we use the vapor that boils off, same as our Barby-Q. It expands 280 times when it boils from a liquid to a vapor.

Both fuels have no odor when refined and the odor is added for safety reasons. The chemical name is bout 30 characters long but for short I call it methel-ethal-mercaptan. I’m sure everyone has smelled it before. Smells like a skunk with the shits. Propane is heavier than air and collects in the lowest spot thus making it potentially dangerous. I respect the stuff with all of my being. Natural gas is lighter than air and just blows away like a fart inna windstorm. Not to say it’s not dangerous but it takes a very specific concentration before it will clean the hair off of your head. I used to crack open natural gas lines with a smoke in my mouth. Anyone who saw me told me I was crazy and ran like hell. LMAO! With propane my smokes would not even be in my pocket. It can be BAD stuff.

Anyway I began doing a few propane conversions. Today there isn’t a cab in Toronto that burns gasoline. It’s too expensive. Most of the technical problems were the same for both fuels.

If you remember the NERD from the natural gas utility. WELL, it turns out that he was the brother-in-law of my boss, OUCH!!! We still didn’t see eye to eye but we tolerated each other and we always bounced ideas off of each other it either of us had a problem.

As time went on conversions were getting more complicated. It was getting much harder to trick engine controls into believing cars were running on gasoline when running on an alternate fuel.

Research money began to dry up as well as technical support. I spent hours on a conference call with the electronics company with the circuit board in front of me trying to find out if they installed the right components for the vehicle I was converting. We didn’t get paid for that B.S. Trying to manipulate computerized timing controls was just stupid. I converted a 3.5 Chrysler Intrepid that misfired and ran terrible when trying to accelerate. I got pissed and frustrated and floored the car and at bout 5000rpm it backfired and blew the whole air intake ducting to very small pieces. I thought the hood was coming off. I think I pulled out most of my hair out and my ears half off and never did make that timing box work. The car had ample power without it anyway.

As stated, natural gas is lighter than air so when you turned the car off the fuel in the intake went to the top. When you restarted the car it would sometimes backfire from a lean condition and blow the plastic air filter housing to pieces. Worse than that on a 4.6/5.4 ford it would blow the plastic plenum in the valley to pieces. Fortunately Ford has an aluminum replacement. Backfire was kinda a harsh word so I called it rapid dismantlement.

On top of everything we were getting customers returning with engine problems. Because alternate fuels are dry there is no valve seat lubrication. On a dedicated Propane engine we used to disable the exhaust valve rotators. It helped some but was not a cure. Some engines were more prone to problems than others. A 3.0lt. Mitsubishi engine in a Dodge Caravan would eat valves in as little as 50000Mi.
A 305/350 G.M. would seem to go forever without a valve problem.

I have many more stories and frustrations with installing gaseous fuels on a gasoline engine but I would have to wright a book and I don’t think Eric would like me doing that here. Besides, it’s time to hit the sheets.

Most of the systems today are injected. I drove a Dodge van with injected propane installed and it ran the same as gasoline. I’m sure injected systems have a new crop of problems however. A the age I am now I don’t think my body would take it.

If anyone has questions please ask.

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[Lorrin Barth]

This is a great story, very interesting.

I remember that we had propane powered dump trucks at a place where I used to work. There was a propane tank across the lot from the truck bays. Then one day, for some reason that I don’t remember, we had to send a truck across the state, a several hundred mile journey. Well, even though the tanks looked big the range was short and we had to find places where the truck could refuel.

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