Are there natural gas tractors?

[coffeeman]

Hi all.

Just wondering if if anyone in this country uses natural gas tractors. I have heard UPS is adding natural gas tractors to it's fleet. I see natural gas busses in my area.
I am guessing they must be saving some $$. Of course, the big company may be getting some kind of government bonus.

Just wondering........Cheers to all.......Coffeeman

 

[brasco426]

Never heard of it myself. I work for a propane and heating fuel delivery company in New Hampshire and we run all of our service trucks on a gasoline and propane fuel system, only one at a time. I can tell you we can run this fleet far cheaper on propane than on gas and no lack of power. I'm sure it's coming, or might be a viable fuel option at some point, but probably not the average consumer. Donnie

 

[Gary Fowler]

Never heard of it myself. I work for a propane and heating fuel delivery company in New Hampshire and we run all of our service trucks on a gasoline and propane fuel system, only one at a time. I can tell you we can run this fleet far cheaper on propane than on gas and no lack of power. I'm sure it's coming, or might be a viable fuel option at some point, but probably not the average consumer. Donnie

I have never seen a natural gas tractor but have seen them on propane many years ago. It is too expensive now to be economical compared to diesel. I also ran my Chevy truck with 350 CI engine on propane/gasoline (one or the other) but it really sucked the propane. When I first got it on propane it would get 19 MPG on gas but only about 12 on propane. It carried a 80 gallon propane tank in back. Something happened to the engine after about 50K miles and it would only get about 4 MPG and no power. Several mechanics worked on it including a new carb but none were ever able to fix it. Ended up practically giving it away.

 

[coffeeman]

I have never seen a natural gas tractor but have seen them on propane many years ago. It is too expensive now to be economical compared to diesel. I also ran my Chevy truck with 350 CI engine on propane/gasoline (one or the other) but it really sucked the propane. When I first got it on propane it would get 19 MPG on gas but only about 12 on propane. It carried a 80 gallon propane tank in back. Something happened to the engine after about 50K miles and it would only get about 4 MPG and no power. Several mechanics worked on it including a new carb but none were ever able to fix it. Ended up practically giving it away.

I have a propane furnace at my office. I've been told way less economical over heating fuel. I often wondered why the previous owners didn't use oil.
I have a 1000 gallon propane tank. Building used to be a foundry. I thought there might be a reason because of foundry.

Honda, I believe , had a pump that would compress house gas from gas company. Just pull gas from house nat gas line. Fill up Honda over nite. But, I remember the compressor was expensive to repair. Had regular maintain. Thus, maintenance was a knock out for filling your own cars? I wonder if anyone has any experience with such animal.

In past, a guy near me, had an experimental compressor to fill his vehicles. Gas right out of house. Filling car one nite, he had an explosion.
NO ONE GOT HURT. Lucky. He had two of the homemade fillers. The one that still worked was for sale.

UPS trucks are a slam dunk. The trucks go from terminal to terminal. Fueling up easy. I will guess it's cheaper for them somehow.

Cheers....Coffeeman

 

[brasco426]

I can tell you from experience and day to day use the propane is way cheaper than gas. The specific heat for heating fuels is higher than propane but that's a topic of a different discussion.

 

[BHD]

Propane would be a much simpler fuel to use, with a wet leg in a standard propane tank one can transfer with out a pump or any thing special, and the pressures are much lower, thus safer, and the propane liquefies, not just compresses, thus a much smaller tank, would be needed, most LP tanks, are filled to 80%, so if you have a 50 gallon tank one could put in 40 gallons of fuel, in the tank, some say you uses more propane than gasoline as the BTU content is less, so one may use some more or less (gallons per mile), but it is usually with in 10%,

if wanting to go to a vapor fuel I would suggest propane over NG,

and depending on the carburetor set up one can run gasoline as well as propane (separately), but do or could have a choice of two fuels,

(guessing one can have a choice of two fuels (gas and NG)), as the carberator system is very similar.

 

[Copperhead]

Some tractors from days gone by used propane. Haven't seen a tractor the last few decades that had a propane or NG option. As for vehicles, there are lots of third parties that will do propane conversions.

 

[orezok]

The school district I worked for before retirement has been running CNG busses for over 20 years. They have their own compressor station with storage and can quick fill a vehicle when needed. Normally, the busses are connected to a slow fill at their parking spot and are full in the morning. The on vehicle tanks are large enough for several hundred miles a day. Enough for a school bus.

Engines are lasting a lot longer than the diesel units.

The best part is that currently there is no road fuel tax on CNG and they are able to make CNG for about $1.00 per gallon.

 

[Big Barn]

Hi all.

Just wondering if if anyone in this country uses natural gas tractors. I have heard UPS is adding natural gas tractors to it's fleet. I see natural gas busses in my area.
I am guessing they must be saving some $$. Of course, the big company may be getting some kind of government bonus.

Just wondering........Cheers to all.......Coffeeman

You realize they are talking about UPS's over the road truck tractors?

And you are wondering about "farm" tractors?

 

[Handloader109]

Lng is used in some commercial vehicles, but no tractors. Dad had two propane tractors, my brother still has and uses them. Clean burning, never changed plugs, oil once every couple of years. Would stay clean for the longest time, as long as you filled it up, everything worked good. Was a pain to refill if you ran out in the field.