Hi, I'm Rachel & my truck is a gasaholic...

[rachel8272]

As soon as Honda (or another company) comes out with a fuel efficient vehicle that can pull a 4-horse gooseneck trailer I'm on it.... but till then, *sigh* I'll keep feeding my hard earned cash into the '96 F250 (yep, with the 460 motor) gas pig. Figure my husband's '96 Civic DX makes up for my poor fuel ecomomy... sort of.

I've been doing lots of research lately (& stumbled on this site) on either converting the truck to a dual fuel LPG or adding hydrogen to the gas/air mix. Hydrogen seems to be the more viable option, so I'm looking for someone who has experience with water electrolysis & who knows how to hook up the electrical/gas to the engine correctly. Don't want a big explosion, truck bits flying everywhere, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[philmcneal]

what's your reason to pulling the trailer everyday? ANd how heavy is the trailer itself?

Welcome to the forum! There' a few hydrogen pros that I know off, quite a few under the hood people and those who get the best out of what they got through the mind and hand

Good luck.

[Matt Timion]

Welcome Rachel.

The jury is still out on the hydrogen injection. initial reports really don't look that promising. We had a poster on this forum from Turkey who had one of these units installed and noticed zero net gain in fuel economy. Where did that guy go anyway?

Back on topic...

You might want to look into a diesel truck if you're pulling that much weight all of the time. You'll definately get better mileage with a diesel, and you can always switch to biodiesel if you so desire.

Anyway, it's 3:30am and I have NO idea why I'm still awake. I need to sleep now.

[GasSavers_DaX]

Originally Posted by Matt Timion

We had a poster on this forum from Turkey who had one of these units installed and noticed zero net gain in fuel economy. Where did that guy go anyway?

He blew himself up playing with Hydrogen, didn't you know?

j/k...

Welcome Rachel!

[Silveredwings]

Originally Posted by rachel8272

Don't want a big explosion, truck bits flying everywhere, etc.

Don't do that, it'll scare the horses.

Anyway, welcome. Let us know how your story evolves.

[rh77]

Welcome Rachel...

The 460 -- ouch. A few questions: how often do you use the Ford? If it's occasional, then it might pay to get an older, fuel efficient car to use as a daily driver. If you tow daily, this adds to "Gassavers" challenge. We've been doing a lot of coasting and engine-off experiments, which would be quite dangerous with a 5th-wheel trailer hooked up. Tell us a little more about your truck -- is it an automatic? If not, then some shifting tricks might help a little. The most promising idea would be the dual-LPG conversion. Also, if you do a lot of high-speed driving, maybe a wind-deflector could help with drag at higher speeds (like the one's on tractor-trailers...they make them for pickups too). Keep us posted, and good luck!

[GasSavers_Ryland]

when you take a horse for a ride, most people are refering to sitting on the horse, not driving it around, horse's are pretty flexable in what bio-fuels you can use.
I've been told that if you are going to have a truck, that a GMC Duramax Diesel is the way to go, that is if you have the option of buying a new truck.
I would say switch to full synthetic fluids, engine, tranny, and rear end, your Ford is a 1996, so you can get a scangauge to help you keep an eye on your real time fuel useage and improve your driving habbits, and with that much weight, better driving habbits can make a big differnce.
it can make sence to keep close track of the number of miles you drive with the truck fully loaded and with the trailer, and then figure out how many miles you drive with an empty truck, and figure out your real cost per mile to drive the truck, this would be vehicle cost, insurance, tires, oil changes, to do this I have small notebook that I make a note of every time I spend money on my car, once you know your cost per mile, and your unloaded miles driven, you can tell if you it would be cost effective to buy another more efficent vehicle, or if lets say, you drive to horse shows, and are there for a few days but want to be able to travle around the area, it might make sence, insted of driving your truck at 12mpg, or whatever you are getting, to get a small motorcycle that gets 80mpg to take short trips, it will save you the time of unhooking the trailer, save the wear on the truck, and save the money of truck tires, gas, oil, parking.

[Murat]

Originally Posted by DaX

He blew himself up playing with Hydrogen, didn't you know?

j/k...

Welcome Rachel!

Hehehe that is exactly why I replaced him... "Merhaba" (hello) from Istanbul...

Converting from gasoline to natural or buthane/propane gas has been banned here after a couple of terrible accidents where the cars literally blew themselves up. Now it is strictly controlled and only a couple of licensed workshops were left after almost all of them failed the audits...

Hydrogen conversion is not even spoken of here; there should be a misunderstanding somewhere...(??)

Gas does not give you a single mile in addition. It is only cheaper by unit rate over a liter... Otherwise you burn even more because the vehicle loses a whole lot of power. As for a huge F250 Ford, if you were in Turkey, you' d burn the same and even more while you decrease your tank fill up cost by some 20%... And to tow that trailer of yours would have become a nightmare with all the loss of power...

I'd mount a 1.9 or 2.5 diesel engine (Mitsubishi L200 or Hyundai Santa Fe / Tucson / Trajet or Kia Sportage / Sorento engine) But from my days in the US, I remember that diesel fuel is ultra low quality with a very poor setane number. You may end up in wearing out the engine all too soon. But a Kia or Hyundai engine is very cheap and second hand, it should be even dirt cheap to buy and replace / maintain...

But watch out for the compression loss and engine braking the gasoline engine delivers. A diesel will not do that for you and literally freewheel while going downhill and it may prove dangerous when going downhill with the trailer hooked up behind you...