Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Keith D]

[split from the bedford tk thread]

With the price of petrol in the UK, I am surprised that LPG is not used by everybody with a large petrol engine.

My wife and I drive Mitsubishi Magnas as our everyday drivers. Hers is 1998 3 litre V6 and mine is 2003 3.5 litre V6. Both are injected and we have LPG conversions on both of them, fitted early in 2008.

Our conversion is the "cheap" one that squirts gas into the aircleaner. We have had no problems at all, despite all sorts of "prophets of doom" predictions, both cars run equally well on gas as they do on petrol. At less than half the cost. I have not noticed any loss of power and if they use more gas, then it really is marginal. Provided that you can get it OK in the UK, I would not hesitate.

Just a comment however, we were told to run for a day on petrol after we had burned a tankful of gas to keep the petrol lines and injectors clean. A friend of mine runs an older Holden with a carby on gas and he has no problems at all. (The old Holdens would have a very similar engine to a bedford truck - same family!)

The only downside is that the 68 litre tank takes up about a third of my boot space! This would not be a problem on a truck; you could loose it underneath somewhere!

Keith D

[Rick]

I did hear that LPG burns hotter and drier than petrol, if this is true then I'd think twice about using it on an older engine. Saying that I know someone who had a 60s Chevy pickup (with a rebuilt engine in it) and he had no problems. My latest daily driver is on LPG but that is fairly modern.

R
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[Ray the rocker]

With the advent of LPG,it was seen as a welcome addition for many reasons---the major being cleaner burning an a cheaper alternative to petrol.The problem however---not enough petrol stations cater for gas.
Huge press releases said it would help the greenhouse gases problem virtually overnight! The petrol companies did not offer sufficient outlets to generate sales.There are only two garages in my area offering LPG.
They know the downside of fewer petrol sales---so give the gas idea the elbow.Also, the cost of installing is hard to offset against the running costs unless you keep the vehicle for at least 10 years or more.
If we all changed to LPG---taxes would double the same as diesel did in the nineties.Gordon will end up having his slice of the pie..

Cheers--Ray the Rocker...

[Keith D]

One of the problems of contributing to a forum located in another country, is that many local conditions are unkown to a "foreigner"!

Our LPG gas conversions cost $3000 each. (About 1200 pounds) The Australian Federal Government paid $2000 and the Western Australian Government paid the other $1000. These grants are freely available. Each person can claim the grant once every 3 years. When I posted earlier, I didn't stop to consider that you may have to pay the whole installation cost. Sorry!!!

LPG is available at most petrol stations in West Oz.

Keith D

[Rick]

I might split this LPG talk into its own topic, it'd be worth it I think.

I've taken on dad's car, and that has a twin LPG setup on it with a large tank in the back. Shopping around for gas has shown wild variations in price - an outlet out in the sticks 10 miles from here was charging a whopping 65.9p per litre (although he said after the next delivery this would come down to around 56p or so). A few miles in the other direction and it can be bought for 47.9p per litre.

Rick
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[Rick]

[ukdave2002]

I had a Vaxhall Omega converted to lpg, when it was nearly new, it was one of the simple carburettor / mixer kits with a manual lpg/ petrol switch, so the same as you would fit in an older car. I did 150,000 mile in it of which 90% must have been lpg, I very rarely could not find a lpg station, and you got to know where they were on common routes.

The engine ran perfectly after 150,000 miles, the only additional maintenance I had was the plugs had to be changed more often at every 12,000 miles, and I once had a backfire through the induction system (caused by using plugs that had done about 15,000 miles!! ) which took the hot wire air mass meter out, didn't affect running on lpg as the system wasn't connected to the cars electronic management system.

As for LPG in France I'm sure its more popular than in the UK.

My kit cost about £1200 fitted, no grants in the UK as it wasn't a factory approved kit (which were about 3x the cost and you only got 50% back) I would only do it again if doing a high mileage, I would say I halved my fuel costs, I rekon I saved about £5-£6000 in fuel costs over the 150,000 miles with a £1200 invistment and probably an additional £100 in plugs and £50 for an air mass meter from the local breakers yard!, so well worth it.

Dave

[Keith D]

Dave,

The point you mentioned about spark plugs is a very good one. I was told at the time of our conversions that I must make sure that the cars electrics were maintained in top condition, because LPG reqiures 60% more electrical power for good ignition.

My Magna engine is a V6, east-west mounted. The back bank of plugs cannot be easily reached. (I think the injectors have to be removed to get to plugs and leads) Consequently the back bank are platinum plugs that are only replaced every 100,000km. My car has currently travelled 94,000km and I am not having any problems. (Yet!!!)

Because our cars are both pre 2004 we can have the "cheap" installation. This is probably the same system as you had in your Vauxhall. Newer cars must have the "greener" method of separate injection to each cylinder. My son had his 2004 Holden Rodeo converted and he had to pay almost $2000 over and above his $3000 grant.

Keith D

[Jim.Walker]

It would be interesting to ask all these LPG users, particularly with older engines, whether they have suffered valve problems.

LPG is an unleaded fuel like modern petrols. It might put to bed for all time the worries about using unleaded petrol in older engines.

I can't remember where, but there is a thread elsewhere in the Forum about this.

There is a comment further up mentioning the "advent" of LPG. As far back as the early 1970s I was an approved Calor Gas installer of LPG conversions ( I hesitate to us the word "certified"). At that time we operated at least 10 converted cars at any instance. Our main problem then, was that with no rich mixture device (choke), starting could be very difficult in cold weather like now.
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Quote from my late Dad:- You only need a woman and a car and you have all the problems you
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[buzzy bee]

Hi

I am planning on converting the van I am planning to buy to LPG, I have seen Kits for 2 or 3 hundred pounds, and will probably get one slightly cheaper.

The costs of conversions is nearly all labour costs.

Rick, have you tried Morrisons at Crewe, they do LPG, and used to be fairly cheap.

Cheers

Dave

[buzzy bee]

[Rick]

Yeah I'd not use LPG in anything that didn't have hardened valve seats at the very least. LPG would make running the Dodge (one day) a little more financially appealing in terms of fuel costs, but long term I think it would do more harm than good. So that one will stick with u/leaded or better (£££) proper leaded 4 star, which is still available a few miles from here.

RJ
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[Rick]

[buzzy bee]

[Jim.Walker]

I think the point was missed! Valve problems with unleaded are mostly a lot of hot air during the normal life of an engine! Those cars we ran in the 70s were mainly Austin/Morris 'Land Crabs' and Ford Cortinas with cast iron valve seats. We had no valve trouble, so I am certain we would have had no trouble running on un-leaded petrol either if it had been available.

I was just trying to shoot down the myth about problems if you use unleaded in vehicles not designed for it. With at least 10 cars averaging over 60,000 mile per year each over about 10 years I am talking from a standpoint of millions of miles of experience.

In no way am I daft enough to think anyone is likely to convert any classic or vintage vehicle to LPG and save money!

By the way, we reckoned we saved 1p (old money) per mile on LPG. If you do the maths you will see why we did it. But remember the answer you get is 1970s £s, not 2008 £s.
_________________
Quote from my late Dad:- You only need a woman and a car and you have all the problems you
are ever likely to want". Computers had not been invented then!