Thread: LPG "jerry can" - are they legal/practical?

I reckon you wont be able to by LPG at the Bowser any more in Country towns in the future. You just have to look at the amount of Prius taxis around now
Had one of those LPG falcons and it was a pain in regional areas
Why do we have to buy LPG and then send Natural gas over seas to prop up China
How many new service stations Have LPG installed
And Belive me its a pain trying to find people to work on LPG equipment out of Brisbane

Originally Posted by sadbenn

I reckon you wont be able to by LPG at the Bowser any more in Country towns in the future. You just have to look at the amount of Prius taxis around now
Had one of those LPG falcons and it was a pain in regional areas
Why do we have to buy LPG and then send Natural gas over seas to prop up China
How many new service stations Have LPG installed
And Belive me its a pain trying to find people to work on LPG equipment out of Brisbane

Outside major cities the Pious has no place, the health services in Dubbo wanted to do their bit for the environment so purchased a number of Pious, of all the cars in the fleet (Toyota Corolla and Ford Focus) the Pious had the worst fuel economy. The reason, once you go not much over 60KPH you are running on petrol with the engine flat out.

If you live in a city with hours of bumper to bumper traffic and the car is used in that traffic every day, in the CBD and rarely gets to go over 70KPH then there's a reason to use a Pious or Camry Hybrid etc.

BTW have you heard about diesel-gas? It's LPG fumigated on top of diesel, many B-Double semis run on the stuff, it makes the diesel burn more efficiently in the combustion chamber, saving money and increasing performance of the truck. If only for that reason I believe we will still find LPG in major regional centres along the major highways.

I've got an old leaflet somewhere that explains why you don't use automotive gas for domestic purposes such as your kitchen stove. Apparently auto gas will give off a gas, ( I think it's carbon monoxide?), whereas domestic gas is of course safe for indoors. Can any experts comment on this one?

Back more on topic, the big question is obviously how much of a risk do you want to take. Refuelling from a jerry-can full of petrol is dodgy enough - it only takes one spark from static electricity to do you in - and with gas you'd really want a perfect system. How would you check it before each use? Personally, I'd be changing my undies after every refill like this.

Originally Posted by Davo

I've got an old leaflet somewhere that explains why you don't use automotive gas for domestic purposes such as your kitchen stove. Apparently auto gas will give off a gas, ( I think it's carbon monoxide?), whereas domestic gas is of course safe for indoors. Can any experts comment on this one?

Back more on topic, the big question is obviously how much of a risk do you want to take. Refuelling from a jerry-can full of petrol is dodgy enough - it only takes one spark from static electricity to do you in - and with gas you'd really want a perfect system. How would you check it before each use? Personally, I'd be changing my undies after every refill like this.

Yes, burning autogas (a mixture of propane and butane) in a domestic stove will cause incomplete combustion as it is not jetted for the different mix. Carbon monoxide results.

In some ways filling LPG is safer than petrol as you make the connection fully before pulling the handle. This way static electricity is already neutralised before you have a potential leak to ignite. Safety is about checking your hoses and valves so that in case of a problem you can easily get to a safe shut-off away from the leaking gas. In the case of a "jerry can" of LPG I would have at least 1.2m of hose to the filler connector and a quick action ball valve at each end. Not hard to organise.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

BTW have you heard about diesel-gas? It's LPG fumigated on top of diesel, many B-Double semis run on the stuff, it makes the diesel burn more efficiently in the combustion chamber, saving money and increasing performance of the truck. If only for that reason I believe we will still find LPG in major regional centres along the major highways.

Not really, that is just marketing BS. You get more power because overall you burn more fuel (in terms of calorific value).

I have never (personally) seen a long distance truck with it fitted.

I am not saying it doesn't have its place, however don't expect broad uptake of diesel-lpg systems by the trucking industry.

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Not really, that is just marketing BS. You get more power because overall you burn more fuel (in terms of calorific value).

I have never (personally) seen a long distance truck with it fitted.

I am not saying it doesn't have its place, however don't expect broad uptake of diesel-lpg systems by the trucking industry.

It is not BS, however the effect is small, too small for some people who have to pay full price for diesel gas systems. Burning around 20% of the total fuel consumption, lower-calorific-value LPG replaces the diesel litre for litre. Also EGT's on dual fuel are lower than for diesel only at a given power output. You may quibble at the percentages but the effect is real.

There are people with diesel gas systems on Discos and Defenders in my club (& on this forum), their comments are that with the diesel gas fitted, their exhaust pipe is light grey rather than black, they don't put out the puffs of blcak smoke when changing under load, their range/endurance is now well over 1000 Km and the cost/distance is lower than diesel only. They also say they can stay in gear longer (before changing down) on D/G than on D alone.

Wishfull thinking I don't know, but I do know the exhaust pipe is white/grey like you see on a well tuned petrol engine.

Untill now it was against design rules for internal pump in a LPG container,this has now changed and i cant see any reason why a small pump system cant be manufactured for service refueling.
I regularly have to refuel diesel plant and these are not cheep.

euro diesels are running up to 50% CNG and these cars sold in australia are running similar amounts of LPG.worked on a few that ran more than 30%

I was parked at a servo on a highway and had a B-double Fox que up to fill a very large gas tank,he stuggled to get into possition with the line up of cars,then when filled he had to be guided out in reverse.the station simply not set up for large vehicles.

lots of good systems.dungog has a good system.
doesnt matter how calorific it is its the cost and emisions that count.
In 1940's 75 000 gasifiers was used inn australia due to shortages of petrol.

prius.several around here.government indentities has a mandatory purchase quota for alt powered vehicles not based on any rational thought.its like QLD with the number of cyl tax.victoria has a compulsary hybred deal for taxi lience,also not based on any ration idea.mate has a plug in version--this will definatly never pay for itself.

Its like a gas falcon-they have built it but dont provide any service network or infrastructure.too busy trying to do deals that have ended up in a second rate product that its hard to keep on the road.
they realy dont sell products that the market might want in case they dont and dont try incase they do undestand it.

Ive had 4 factory falcons.they have that unfinish product feel.I loved the japanese bluebird gas vehicles,I wanted a 200B GAS but find hard to get one locally that not rusted,the reason they didnt sell,they didnt build enough,and why would you print service and parts material that called the tank a bomb.
Then they cant understand why they dont sell more.