R190 on propane


Truck finds of all conditions OLD ADDS WILL BE REMOVED

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Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 1887

Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:40 am

Location: Wichita, Kansas

Post Sat Apr 28, 2018 8:25 am

R190 on propane

Here's a truck that's still in its work clothes-

https://wichita.craigslist.org/cto/d/19 ... 91802.html

Dean
Lifelong Kansan
Grew up with red paint
Moved off the farm 33 years ago.

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 5171

Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:28 pm

Location: Lyman, IA

Post Sat Apr 28, 2018 9:00 am

Re: R190 on propane

I'm guessing it was LP from the get-go, needs a set of gin poles to go with that winch. Likely "worth" the price, but doubt he will find a buyer that will pay it. Too old to be used commercially and hard to find a "home" for large trucks.
I'm thinking it was a repurposed oilfield truck, designed to pull an oilfield "float" with the roller tailboard and recessed 5th wheel.
25 years ago, I would be "all over it" but have to thin the heard and take a realistic view on how much time I would have to restore it.

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

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Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:45 pm

Location: Canada's left Coast

Post Sat Apr 28, 2018 2:08 pm

Re: R190 on propane

My Father used to fuel most of his vehicles with LP. Dad used LP because he was getting the fuel for free from a local LP storage facility. the LP storage facility had five big tanks, each tank held millions of liters of LP so a small percentage loss was more than enough to fuel a fleet of vehicles.
LP fueling systems of the 1950s and 1960s often were undersized for the application and the engines became under-powered. One of our service trucks was a 1969 F250 with a 390 engine. On gasoline this Ford would accelerate like mad and hills were never a problem. Back onto LP and the top speed may have been 60 MPH on the level and back to gasoline for a hill. Fuel economy was terrible because WOT was the only option. Back in those days the winters were cold. It was often cold enough to keep the LP from becoming a gas in the storage tank. No gas, no pressure to push the liquid propane to the evaporator at the engine. I can remember more than a few times when the 390 ran out of LP and I had to switch to gasoline. On one trip the truck I was driving stopped because it was about 40c below zero and one of the bums working for Dad had not filled the gasoline tank. I placed a small propane tank on the still hot engine to help to build pressure so I could fire a Tiger Torch. I got the torch running and placed the flame against the propane tank until I could see pressure on the main tank gauge.
I cannot imagine this Old IHC having any kind of performance.
Unfortunately there are few if any companies willing to keep one of these old POS trucks as kind of a hobby or pet truck. The cost of restoration and safe operation of the LP system may have doomed this truck and many others like it to scrap.
Diesel and Hybrid have totally displaced LP fueled vehicles in this area. Any LP fueled vehicle is not allowed into enclosed loading docks and passenger drop-off and pick-up. The fines are into the thousands of dollars. The delivery and taxi companies had to "thin-the-HERD" and pass everything LP to scrap. LP fueled fork-lifts have to pass daily inspections for indoor operation. My employer had installed fuel leak detection systems and ventilation .
My employer had a few service vehicles fueled with CNG. I thought LP was slow.
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I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
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Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 5171

Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:28 pm

Location: Lyman, IA

Post Sat Apr 28, 2018 2:39 pm

Re: R190 on propane

The big problem with "dual fuel" engines (gasoline and LP) is the compression ratio is too low for LP to give good results. LP is a high "octane" fuel somewhere around 110 octane and does best with C/R around 12.5-13 to 1. It does have less heat at the correct mixture, so power will be a bit less, but if run in a 8:1 engine the power will be way down compared to gasoline.
Engines built from the get-go to run vapor fuel do much better than duel fuel engines. I worked on a fleet of LP buses.
Dean Ashby's house moving DART had a Wauk on "Frost" (LP or Butane) and could out pull anything.
I imagine that this truck was factory LP so should be fairly powerful
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Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

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Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:45 pm

Location: Canada's left Coast

Post Sat Apr 28, 2018 2:58 pm

Re: R190 on propane

Imagine does not make it fact.
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I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
Thinking risks being controversial and possibly being offensive

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 5171

Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:28 pm

Location: Lyman, IA

Post Sat Apr 28, 2018 4:27 pm

Re: R190 on propane

All I was saying was: IHC used different c/r pistons on factory LP engines than they did on gasoline built engines, it make a big difference on how much the engine is "derated" on LP. I agree it will be less powerful than a the same engine optimized for gasoline, but not nearly as much as a gasoline engine that is run on LP.
The timing is different on LP, the spark plug gap is different on LP, there are a lot of small things that all contribute to making a LP only engine much more powerful than a duel fuel.
A 190 could have anything up to a 501, with the 450 being more likely. For its day, it would be a fairly powerful truck.
A RD450 on gasoline was 175 hp, on propane was 153, neither are going to "light up the tires" torque is 396@1400 for gas and 364 @ 800 for LP. LP producing the torque much lower in the band.
Plug gap is .016 for LP vs. .030 for Gasoline
Static timing is 5 deg BTDC for gas and 10 BTDC for LP.
The RD has a larger open combustion chamber in the head, limiting how much pistons alone can change the Compression ratio. If IHC had made a LP head for it those numbers would be even higher.

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 8938

Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:45 pm

Location: Canada's left Coast

Post Sat Apr 28, 2018 7:27 pm

Re: R190 on propane

The most stupid combination I have seen at work was the "K: Car on CNG. The company used the "K" Cr station wagons with the CNG inside. These cars could not pull the skin off a hot glass of milk. There was a fire and that was the end of that nonsense.
I have often thought that you, CB89, should be teaching in a technical school. It is s a shame that so many young persons entering a trade will miss what you know.
I got a CNG high pressure tank when I bought the contents of a shop that had been wasting a government grant on BS. The tank is about 25 gallons and made of titanium then wrapped in carbon fiber and resin. I will be using the tank as air storage for the air direct to cylinder start on my 640 cubic inch Rustin Hornsby single cylinder Diesel. The tank test is 10 times higher than the required start PSI.
I would rather have tools I do not need than to need tools I do not have
Thinking risks being controversial and possibly being offensive

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 5171

Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:28 pm

Location: Lyman, IA

Post Sun Apr 29, 2018 9:31 am

Re: R190 on propane

Many trucks ( and farm tractors) in the south, back in the day when gasoline ruled, were set up to burn vapor fuel, Butane was the preferred choice because it was cheaper than propane and had slightly more heat per volume. Dean Ashby remembers when you could go to the refinery and get Butane for free if you had your own tank and took more than 100 gal at a shot!
The dis advantage to Butane is it liquefies at a much higher temp than Propane making it almost useless below freezing
Natural Gas has about 1/2 the heat/volume (heat content varies widely in NG) of Propane, so no surprise those K cars couldn't get out of their own way.
Much of the LP sold where I live is a mix of Propane and Butane, so in the warm weather I run my tank out to burn off the butane that liquefied in over the winter and didn't get burned. During the warmer weather it is a gas and will have enough vapor pressure to propel itself to the water heater.
Shwann's home delivery (a company that sells and delivers groceries off a truck to homes) used to run an all propane fleet. I don't know if they still are. They used ammonia cycle refrigeration so by using propane to fire the refrigeration and the engine just made sense. It required no outside power to keep the insulated section of the truck cold.
All of the propane delivery trucks used to be LP powered but now they are all diesel.

Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee

Posts: 5171

Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:28 pm

Location: Lyman, IA

Post Sun Apr 29, 2018 9:50 am

Re: R190 on propane

yeah, it is only recently that NG and H2 have been pushed in mobile applications, It is very hard to store enough safely on a vehicle. Very high pressure lead to permeability losses in the tank, basically, the molecules of the gases stored are so small they can fit between the molecules of the tank holding them. Not only do you loose some gas, but it can effect the metal (hydrogen embrittlement) so exotic metals and methods are needed, and the pressures are very high.
Natural gas is a fine fuel for stationary application where fuel is piped in and the size and weight of the engine is not a factor. You can compensate for the low output by building the engine bigger to make up the difference.
I don't see N/G ever having a big share of mobile fuel, and H2 takes more energy to produce than you get back, so isn't practical.

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