On Thu, September 29, 2005 1:05 pm, jon@dakota-truck.net said:
>
> One possible glitch with the propane conversion; some areas
> have restrictions on vehicles that run on propane,
Well, it would just be for my '95. It never does anything other than
commuter car duty any more, except for the occasional moving of furniture
or other things too large to go under the hard-shell tonneau on the 2001.
No tunnels or garages anywhere on my route :-). Propane and CNG are
pretty popular up here, especially for fleet vehicles. Not only are there
plenty of places to fuel up, but I'd have to think they aren't too severly
restricted, otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them.
I did a quick Google search, and found some references to the conversion
cost being between $1500 - $2500. I haven't found any actual kits yet, so
I'm not sure how much of that expense is for parts, labor, or bureaucratic
overhead of registering it. Apparently some areas have tax incentives for
using alternative fuels, but I have no idea if I live in one of those
areas.
It looks like this is turning out just like all of my other hair-brained
ideas. From a pure economic standpoint, it would work out cheaper to put
that money in to buying a used econobox. The advantage of a conversion
would be that I would still get to keep my truck and wouldn't have to
suffer the indignity of driving a tiny car, but it would take a while for
the fuel savings to pay for the up-front cost (and there's no guarantee
that the cost of propane isn't going to skyrocket as well). But, since I
don't have that kind of money to begin with, it's all academic anyway.
-- Jason Bleazard http://drazaelb.blogspot.com Burlington, Ontario his: '95 Dakota Sport 4x4, 3.9 V6, 5spd, Reg. Cab, white hers: '01 Dakota Sport 4x4, 4.7 V8, Auto, Quad Cab, black
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