Anyone had any experience using an LPG/diesel mix ?
I only ever seen 1 wagon with it fitted, but I’ve seen it stocked at some truck stops, so I can only assume it has a market.
Is it any good, or a bit of a red herring ?
The economics would make more sense to me if we just went over to big supercharged spark ignition engines on trucks and ran them on LPG only but then the government would probably just raise the tax on it to diesel levels to protect the rail transport industry interests and keep up their revenues.
Carryfast:
The economics would make more sense to me if we just went over to big supercharged spark ignition engines on trucks and ran them on LPG only but then the government would probably just raise the tax on it to diesel levels to protect the rail transport industry interests and keep up their revenues.
I’d would think the fuel consumption would be horrendous. Wouldnt exactly be a “green” idea to say the least. Though it would do away with the need for ad-blue.
I’ve always dreamed of a nuclear powered steam truck. The ultimate in green power.
I think you’ll find that LPG is for cars/vans only, it’s Liquified Petroleum Gas, trucks run on CNG or LNG, Compressed Natural Gas or Liquified Natural Gas.
I don’t know if any advances have been made in the last 8 or 9 years but back in 01 I tested some LNG/CNG trucks & one that used normal diesel as a pilot ignition source & LNG as the main fuel. The CNG/LNG trucks were either converted diesel engines, Scania & Feather Diesels converted a batch of Safeway 113s to run on LNG, these proved to be troublesome in operation & the idea was shelved, I drove one & it was quieter & more powerful than it’s diesel cousin, more economical too, well until they started breaking down 
The CNG trucks were ERFs with a ■■■■■■■■ CAT or Detroit (can’t remember which) engine, they also had the same benefits & from what I gather were more reliable, I don’t know why they stopped doing them, maybe it was the, then, forthcoming Euro 4/5 regulations, which achieved the same emission levels using much easier to find diesel?
The one truck that had the dual fuel conversion was by Staffordshire CV on a 385 Renault Premium, the conversion used a small injection of diesel to get a bang going & then injected LNG, on paper it made sense, in the real world the cost of the conversion made it uneconomical, the technology came from Venezuela & is very common over there, I must say that I was very impressed with this method, on the 1st test the metering of the fuel mix was out, too much gas was being injected, that little Renault was the fastest truck I’ve ever driven, I picked up a trailer full of bricks from Barry Procter’s yard & headed to the M6 & when I went up the slip road to the M6 northbound I was bouncing off the limiter well before I joined the motorway, the previous day I had been at Scania, playing around in one of the Jordan F1 team 164-580s & that Renault would’ve eaten it for breakfast, when we sorted the mix out, there wasn’t so much power, still more than stock, but it did do what it set out to do, it was slightly cheaper to run, the trouble was it wasn’t significant enough to make it viable. If it had become more popular the conversion costs would’ve dropped & it would’ve made a lot of sense, maybe we’ll see it again one day?
Just a bit off subject but…ITS MA BDAY 
Hmmm now i have to think of something to say about LPG
The Vauxhall job had LNG trucks running up and down between Purfleet and Ellesmere Port, never sure of the weights carried but they seemed to romp on a bit.
Wisemans had a couple on trial, dont know whether they are still running
cleanairpower.com/admin/doc/61.pdf
Happy Burfday removalboy
The Vauxhall ones were the ERFs I mentioned.
Happy birthday RB
Ive thought off something now…I think alternative fuels are the way forward in heavy trucks.
Wheel Nut:
Happy Burfday removalboy
Cheers people,just thought i would mention it. 
newmercman:
I think you’ll find that LPG is for cars/vans only, it’s Liquified Petroleum Gas, trucks run on CNG or LNG, Compressed Natural Gas or Liquified Natural Gas.
You’re partially right there. You can’t run a compression ignition (i.e. diesel) engine purely on LPG but you can use LPG to replace some of the diesel to improve the fuel cost per mile. You do see a few trucks about with LPG tanks, but it is not very common.
See multifuel-technology.co.uk/ for a lot more about it.
Paul
(Edit: I’ve just read the rest of your post and I see you’ve mentioned this type of conversion later on.)
I bet the ■■■■■■ vote against all this diesel replacement crap.
Secretelephant:
Carryfast:
The economics would make more sense to me if we just went over to big supercharged spark ignition engines on trucks and ran them on LPG only but then the government would probably just raise the tax on it to diesel levels to protect the rail transport industry interests and keep up their revenues.I’d would think the fuel consumption would be horrendous. Wouldnt exactly be a “green” idea to say the least. Though it would do away with the need for ad-blue.
.
The fact is that modern day engine technology has cut the differences between spark ignition and compression ignition fuel consumption to the point where an LPG powered truck engine would probably be a lot more economic to run than the diesel at current taxation levels.Maybe we could get some engine designers to come up with a view of the idea.But I’d bet the lower cost of the fuel would outweigh any difference in consumption.
just make sure that tank doesnt get a hole in and you throw your ciggy out the window
Apart from the giveaway of a ■■■■■ transit with a huge bag on the roof to collect the gas, there are other methods.
There is nothing new about using gas to power a vehicle.
The Germans invented a 3 wheeler delivery truck which could run all day on methane.
Well I’ve seen lpg/diesel kits for cars & trucks. They work by mixing in 10% lpg to the diesel. As LPG is around half the price of diesel I’d guess in therory that would be a 5% saving in fuel costs. It’s also supposed to reduce emissions & increase power output of the engine.
It was one of these system I believe was fitted to the truck I was talking about owned by an Egg farm (SPC) just outside Cannock.
I also used to drive Gas powered buses years ago at Travel WM in Walsall. These were developed as an experiment in conjunction with British Gas & were said to run on Natural Gas, as in what your cooker burns.
They were converted Volvos. The engines ran hotter their diesel equivalents, used a lot more fuel, but were smoother, more powerful & quieter to drive. I liked 'em.
As these buses were developed 20 years ago, I dare say if one were introduced today the fuel economy would be a lot better. I can only assume the overall gas powered bus experiment was a bit of a flop because Travel WM never ordered any more than the original fleet, & AFAIK they were never introduced to there other depots. I guess the only folks who have the actual reasons will be National Express, who own Travel WM.
One thing that must be considered is the cost factor, at the moment there would need to be a huge investment in filling sites, that would cost the oil/gas companies millions, possibly billions to do, I think you’ll also find that the cost of refining crude oil for fuel & the cost of storing/transporting the gas wouldn’t be too far apart, so the oil companies have no incentive to do it, until oil stocks run out anyway. The fact that the fuel is cheaper at the pumps bears no relation to the amount the oil companies are charging, in fact the two fuels are probably around the same price per equivalent unit, the cost differential comes from the taxation levels and you can bet that they would soon change if we all switched to running on gas, within a very short space of time you would be spending the same amount of money whichever fuel you used 
newmercman:
One thing that must be considered is the cost factor, at the moment there would need to be a huge investment in filling sites, that would cost the oil/gas companies millions, possibly billions to do, I think you’ll also find that the cost of refining crude oil for fuel & the cost of storing/transporting the gas wouldn’t be too far apart, so the oil companies have no incentive to do it, until oil stocks run out anyway. The fact that the fuel is cheaper at the pumps bears no relation to the amount the oil companies are charging, in fact the two fuels are probably around the same price per equivalent unit, the cost differential comes from the taxation levels and you can bet that they would soon change if we all switched to running on gas, within a very short space of time you would be spending the same amount of money whichever fuel you used
LPG is actually much cheaper for the oil companies to produce because it does’nt need much refining it’s just the stuff that’s burnt off at the rigs on those big flaming torch towers adding to the non existent ‘global warming’ as all of those frozen yanks and Canadians will know during the next few months.You’re right though it is a taxation issue (here) but the price of red diesel as opposed to untaxed LPG (23p per Litre last time I checked)shows the difference which the oil companies charge for the 2 types.But they can’t dip the tank of an LPG powered truck like one powered by red diesel.So I’m thinking of buying an old Centurian tank for it’s Meteor engine to put in a DAF but with a supercharger on it.
Carryfast:
newmercman:
One thing that must be considered is the cost factor, at the moment there would need to be a huge investment in filling sites, that would cost the oil/gas companies millions, possibly billions to do, I think you’ll also find that the cost of refining crude oil for fuel & the cost of storing/transporting the gas wouldn’t be too far apart, so the oil companies have no incentive to do it, until oil stocks run out anyway. The fact that the fuel is cheaper at the pumps bears no relation to the amount the oil companies are charging, in fact the two fuels are probably around the same price per equivalent unit, the cost differential comes from the taxation levels and you can bet that they would soon change if we all switched to running on gas, within a very short space of time you would be spending the same amount of money whichever fuel you usedLPG is actually much cheaper for the oil companies to produce because it does’nt need much refining it’s just the stuff that’s burnt off at the rigs on those big flaming torch towers adding to the non existent ‘global warming’ as all of those frozen yanks and Canadians will know during the next few months.You’re right though it is a taxation issue (here) but the price of red diesel as opposed to untaxed LPG (23p per Litre last time I checked)shows the difference which the oil companies charge for the 2 types.But they can’t dip the tank of an LPG powered truck like one powered by red diesel.So I’m thinking of buying an old Centurian tank for it’s Meteor engine to put in a DAF but with a supercharger on it.
You really need to get out more
newmercman:
Carryfast:
newmercman:
One thing that must be considered is the cost factor, at the moment there would need to be a huge investment in filling sites, that would cost the oil/gas companies millions, possibly billions to do, I think you’ll also find that the cost of refining crude oil for fuel & the cost of storing/transporting the gas wouldn’t be too far apart, so the oil companies have no incentive to do it, until oil stocks run out anyway. The fact that the fuel is cheaper at the pumps bears no relation to the amount the oil companies are charging, in fact the two fuels are probably around the same price per equivalent unit, the cost differential comes from the taxation levels and you can bet that they would soon change if we all switched to running on gas, within a very short space of time you would be spending the same amount of money whichever fuel you usedLPG is actually much cheaper for the oil companies to produce because it does’nt need much refining it’s just the stuff that’s burnt off at the rigs on those big flaming torch towers adding to the non existent ‘global warming’ as all of those frozen yanks and Canadians will know during the next few months.You’re right though it is a taxation issue (here) but the price of red diesel as opposed to untaxed LPG (23p per Litre last time I checked)shows the difference which the oil companies charge for the 2 types.But they can’t dip the tank of an LPG powered truck like one powered by red diesel.So I’m thinking of buying an old Centurian tank for it’s Meteor engine to put in a DAF but with a supercharger on it.
You really need to get out more
You’re right but I’m having a better laugh at the expense of batman the vatman and the customs and excise than I can buy paying them even more down the pub.But I forgot to say that there’s loads of garages which stock LPG here and all over Europe and every motorway services has it.But they want 60p per litre not 23p but that’s still a lot better than paying almost same price for red diesel.