Topic: What did you do to your non-motorcycle vehicle today?

[Don R]

The last I knew real deal steel was 4 months out on building me a new 69 firebird body...

Hey Don - what is "real deal steel"??   We had no problem finding body parts for the '69 Goat we are restoring.  What do you need?

Are you familiar with Firebird Central?

https://www.firebirdcentral.com/FIREBIRD_SHEET_METAL_PARTS_s/254.htm

  Real Deal Steel builds the entire body. I was going to get one made less the floors and wheel tubs. My body guy said the cost was about the same. I just didn't want to piece in around the rusty window channels and rain gutters and then have rust pop out a couple years after a $10K paint job.
  I'm pretty much a one-man band here, none of my current friends do any real car work,  my race car fab partner moved to Indianapolis.
  So far, I assembled the front and rear subframes to the floor with the floor pans, mounted the old unibody to the new frame and floors by myself and built the subframe connectors because I didn't like 2x3 tube welded to flat plate. I haven't welded the chassis and floor pans to the old body yet, it's just zip screws holding the body in place at the pinch welds.
  I'm going to visit a local car shop to see how far out his work is, he wants to paint the floor pans and do a show car, I want a bad ass driver. I'm thinking the 400 needs a crank and pistons to make a 462.

[Terry in Australia]

Terry, can the engine be operated on straight propane instead of "dedicated gas"?

I think it can Scott, but there’s no facility for filling my 80 litre tank from the BBQ bottles at some gas stations. I can convert it to “Dual fuel”,  one fuel tank and one gas tank and a switch between the two.

Car gas isn’t supposed to be phased out until 2040, but the gas stations are pulling their tanks out in some states already, so I can’t do any interstate road trips to pick up bikes etc if I can’t get gas whenever I need it. It sucks, because it’s way cheaper than petrol and better for the planet, apparently. I just like it because it’s cheap, and I can drive 400 miles to visit my Ma for around $40 USD.

[Kelly E]

I've been resurrecting an 01' Honda TRX 350 Rancher. Instead of spending money on rebuilding the stock front drum brakes I bought a disc brake conversion kit for the same amount. It's a nice kit but they didn't really address the fact that the drum brake lines attached to the front of the backing plate. The calipers are mounted at the back and the lines aren't happy with the reroute, they want to rub on the wheels.
Last night I woke up with the idea of bending some metal rod and ziptie them to the brake lines as they leave the calipers so they don't rub. Today I cut off two 5" pieces of old oven rack and bent them around a caliper piston. I used 6 zipties to attach the rods to the lines starting at the crimp. Now the lines don't rub the wheels and only touch the tie rod at full lock.

[RAFster122s]

Hydrogen conversions are coming down in price. Saw a truck conversion by some company that they did in 6 hours time. The hydrogen fuel cell conversion was contained in a truck box fitted to the bed of the vehicle and it was installed on a new Ford 350.

[Terry in Australia]

BMW had a hydrogen option for their internal combustion engine cars a few years ago but I think the advent of the electric cars killed off that technology, or at least shelved it until the world realises that electric cars aren’t the answer. I’m in no rush to get an EV.

[spotty]

Toyota are still quietly working away at hydrogen, they have a fleet of company cars with a filling station at their main facility in Altona. never seen one outside there though

[RAFster122s]

Crazy thing about this conversation was I got the impression they were using electrolysis to create the hydrogen by splitting the Oxygen off. Usually an energy intense operation. But, maybe they have it down to inexpensive science now. I haven't read up or kept up with hydrogen but I can assure you that electric cars are not the answer and won't be as popular in 10 years. A hybrid system maybe used but not a pure EV. the power generation and infrastructure isn't there for a huge switch to EVs and would take more than 10 years and billions in investments to make it happen.
Wind power generation in its current for isn't a solution either as the costs and the lack of recycle or turbine blades as well as the huge investment in resources to put up wind turbines is ignored. If it were a profitable alternative the current oil and gas companies would be all over it to maximize their profits.

But your truck will do nicely with its petrol conversion and I think you will find the next 5-10 years the mandates and talk of abandoned petrol is going to change. Toyota has some kick ass hydrogen power solutions they have developed with others and it will be interesting to see how things develop if I'm around to see it.

[Terry in Australia]

Some EV’s use hydrogen to power their batteries David, the only benefit I can see is that it’s quicker to refuel them than plugging them in to a charger and waiting hours before you can continue your journey.

If  the extant hydrogen pumps will be used to fill IC vehicles then there’s already a network of them in some countries, but I’m not in a rush to buy a new car, I’ve only ever owned one new car, and while it was nice, I’m not in a hurry to blow a good percentage of my retirement savings on one, and apart from a new V8 Mustang, nothing else really appeals anyway.

And of course I love my ute, so I’ll either convert it to gasoline, or just buy a V8 ute of the same era. I can pick up a really nice one for around $10K (USD) which should last me for the rest of my life, or until gasoline disappears, whichever comes first. Personally I don’t think we’ll see gasoline disappear anytime soon.

[scottly]

My good friend Clare put together a hydrogen powered car, using a Datsun. He had to chop the back end out of the car to fit the large high-pressure tank, then re-attached the removed parts. He used a standard propane conversion carb to meter the gas, instead of trying to use EFI injectors like others. It worked well enough, but had a very limited range, similar to the electric conversions at the time with lead acid batteries, and the only fueling station was at the University of Arizona. The car died an untimely death in a traffic accident, unrelated to the fuel.
Why would they want to remove propane from the market, Terry? Lots of folks around here rely on it for their heating needs, and there are 3 places nearby that could refuel your ute from their large tanks.

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Scott, they’re only phasing out the propane/butane mix car gas, so we still have gas for domestic use. Propane on its own doesn’t have enough power to allow the cars to run well, or else I’d tap it off my house if I could figure out how to compress it into the trucks tank.

The annoying thing is that prior to the current EV fad, car gas was considered the cleanest energy for vehicles and 30 years ago you could get a big rebate on gas conversion from the federal government. Since EV’s started landing here the taxi industry (the biggest user of car gas) has moved across to EV’s, hybrids etc, and with Ford and GM leaving our shores there are no new dedicated gas vehicles being produced apart from fork lift trucks etc.

it’s madness, dedicated gas vehicles produce way less pollution and carbon than gasoline cars and apart from being much cheaper to run, the engines run so much cleaner and it’s not uncommon to find some with half a million miles on the engine with no major surgery. The problem I have is that I want to have a truck for road trips to collect bikes and parts, but as the big oil companies have jumped the gun and are phasing out their gas pumps I can’t drive it too far from metropolitan Melbourne as I don’t know where I can buy it, and as it’s a “Gas only” vehicle I can’t, just switch across to gasoline until I find a gas station that sells car gas. I think I’m going to have to buy another truck when I retire at the end of the year.

[grcamna2]

Thanks Scott, they’re only phasing out the propane/butane mix car gas, so we still have gas for domestic use. Propane on its own doesn’t have enough power to allow the cars to run well, or else I’d tap it off my house if I could figure out how to compress it into the trucks tank.

The annoying thing is that prior to the current EV fad, car gas was considered the cleanest energy for vehicles and 30 years ago you could get a big rebate on gas conversion from the federal government. Since EV’s started landing here the taxi industry (the biggest user of car gas) has moved across to EV’s, hybrids etc, and with Ford and GM leaving our shores there are no new dedicated gas vehicles being produced apart from fork lift trucks etc.

it’s madness, dedicated gas vehicles produce way less pollution and carbon than gasoline cars and apart from being much cheaper to run, the engines run so much cleaner and it’s not uncommon to find some with half a million miles on the engine with no major surgery. The problem I have is that I want to have a truck for road trips to collect bikes and parts, but as the big oil companies have jumped the gun and are phasing out their gas pumps I can’t drive it too far from metropolitan Melbourne as I don’t know where I can buy it, and as it’s a “Gas only” vehicle I can’t, just switch across to gasoline until I find a gas station that sells car gas. I think I’m going to have to buy another truck when I retire at the end of the year.

Terry, will you convert your 'Gas Only' truck over to gasoline at some point ?