Propane Conversion

Here are some pictures that show the propane conversion of my #2 car, a 1985 AMC Renault Alliance. It was really pretty simple to do. I obtained all the parts from a propane dealer who specializes in propane carburation, Suburban Propane in Portland, Oregon. It took only one afternoon to install all the parts on the car and it ran on the first try. All the carburator parts are Impco Brand, commonly used on fork lifts.

This picture shows an overall view of the engine. The carburator sits on top of the throttle body in place of the injector section, which I removed. I did not remove the lower section that contains the throttle valve. Notice that I had to fabricate a new air cleaner. It is made out of two pieces of 1/4" acrylic with an small air cleaner clamped between them. The two pieces at the bottom of the picture are the propane switch on the right, and the vaporizer on the left. Propane flows from the tank as a liquid and is vaporized by water from the radiator in the vaporizer. I ran the heater hose to the vaporizer and then another hose from the vaporizer to where the heater hose used to attach.

This is a close up of the propane carburator and my home made air cleaner.

Close up of the propane switch on the right and the vaporizer on the left. Heater hoses connect to the vaporizer. The propane switch is activated by vacumn from the throttle body. When you hit the starter, the vacumn open the propane switch allowing gas to flow. Enough vaporizes to start the car. Vaporizaton is enhanced as the water warm up in the system.

Here is the major problem to propane conversion. Where do you put the tank. Someday I will improve on this but not today. The tank is roped and bolted in the trunk and as you can see, takes up most of the room. I can still wiggle the spare tire out of its hiding place and have a little room left for storage.

Law requires that you provide an external filler plug and vent. Extention hoses from the tank to these two devices meet the requirement. The big reward for all this effort is cheaper prices at the station; big chuckles when you watch the reaction of the attendant when you ask him to "fill it up"; and I get to kiss "emmisions testing" and all its headaches good by. Some draw backs? If you ever have a leak in your system, all the propane hisses out. Of course you can hear it and smell it so this is unlikely. There is presently NO propane gauge on the dash, you have to look in the trunk to see it. If you ever run out of gas, you can't trot to the nearest gas station and borrow a can. You have to go home and fetch a converted propane bottle to transport extra propane from a station to your car. The license fee in our state for a propane car is 3 times the normal license fee. This is rather strange because you would think that they would want to encourage the use of alternate fuels....but they don't.