Author Topic: Natural Gas Pickups!  (Read 562 times)

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Offline streak

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Natural Gas Pickups!
« on: March 23, 2012, 11:14:50 AM »
GM and Dodge are coming out with natural gas pickups in the Silverado and Ram configurations.
 But of course this not being a U.S. Gov`t. sponsored idea !  :o :o  There will be no buying incentives attached! ;)
 
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Offline Larry L

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Re: Natural Gas Pickups!
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2012, 03:51:12 PM »
I can only hope folks do their homework before buying one. CNG engines have issues like any other and it's key to understand what some of them are. CNG is mostly methane gas, about 70-80% methane. It burns about twice as hot as gasoline so internal temps will be higher. Because of the heat generated, you need to use an oil that is at least 1% or less ash. Most dual rated diesel oils are in this category or there are special CNG motor oils available. Failure to use these oils can result in glow ignition and the owner may not be able to turn the engine off. CNG engines produce LOTS of water vapor. The exhaust system must be designed for drainage and of rust resistant parts or it won't last long. There have always been issues with cold start up in extreme environments with CNG. The fuel does not want to ignite at temps near zero. Then you have issues with fast fills at cold temps. The issue is not with the vehicle but with the dryer that is in the compressor that delivers the gas. Ice crystals can form and it restricts the fuel from entering the vehicle tank. It can take hours to get a tank full. CNG, while a higher octane rated fuel, produces less combustion energy and fuel mileages are about half that of gasoline and pretty much mirror ethanol in fuel mileage. Depending on the engines, if they bump the compression ratio to at least 10:1 they might get a little better fuel mileage but as a bifuel vehicle, expect issues when running gasoline. The issue is with the unstable gasoline we have today. Then you have the tank capacity has to be near double to get the same distance between fillups as a gasoline engine. The extra weight is probably not going to effect a truck but it may limit the beds useful area. Then you have availability which is getting better but there are some areas you can't drive off into and make it to the next fillup.
There are pluses and most of those are known so I didn't bother with listing any. Until they've worked some of the issues out, I'd avoid them for now. While farmers have been using this fuel for decades and have no issues with it, a soccer mom or a stock broker probably shouldn't even consider one.

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Re: Natural Gas Pickups!
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2012, 05:44:29 PM »
Larry,
 Good information!
 Also cost of these vehicles are supposedly 10-11K more than conventional gas engine trucks!
But at least the trend IMHO is going in the right direction! Our supply of natural gas is unbelieveable and more is coming online as technology advances in oil&gas exploration. Therefore I would see the price of natural gas getting lower as more reserves are discovered. At the present time this is a problem because most exploration companies are only trying to explore for oil reserves with natural gas prices being as low as they are now!
Some major trucking companies are switching over to natural gas engines and installing refuelling systems on some of their routes. So with technology improving on these engines to burn natural gas , I think infrastructure is not far behind.
I am a little surprised at the increase in cost of these engines for natural gas!
There are ways to convert current gas engines to run on CNG for alot less then the 10-11K increase.
But as always once competition gets going on these developments , prices will get lower!
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Offline charles p

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Re: Natural Gas Pickups!
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2012, 07:17:59 AM »
My daughter works for Waste Management in Denver.  Their trucks run on methane and they have extra to sell.  All comes from garbage.

Offline Drilling Man

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Re: Natural Gas Pickups!
« Reply #4 on: April 27, 2012, 07:15:13 AM »
  This is an old post, but i want to add to it.
 
  GM has sold natural gas vans for year and years.  This really isn't something NEW for them, just new to be in a pu.
 
  Years ago i worked at a place that had two 6 cyl. Waukesha motors running on CNG, and one or the other ran 24/7/365.  We never had any oil problems, and we used the same bulk Delo 400 oil that we used in all the auto's and gas trucks we had back then.  There were no other problems either, just an oil change and tune up once in a while, and they ran day and night for years and years!  All on CNG!
 
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