Cub on propane

[tomjan357]

Does anyone have a cub that has been converted to propane?
Fuel problems seem to be common. I have ben told that propane
will eliminate my fuel problems. No rust in gas tank, no stopped
fuel bowls or stuck floats. Clean burning and high octane. It sounds
too good to be true. What do you think.

[Jim Hudson]

I think if you make your fuel tank, filter's and lines and carb. like new it will work fine for less money. Water, rust, trash and 50 years, and folks beating on and taking carb's apart and over tighting screws is the cause of all the fuel trouble.

[Lurker Carl]

Jim is right, 50 years of neglect and abuse will cause fuel problems that can readily repaired. Just like guys rushing to convert the 6V system to 12V when the problem is actually bad wires. Cub is a low compression engine so you don't need a high octane fuel, it was designed to run on 80 octane gasoline. Propane has fewer BTUs than gasoline so power will go way down.

[Kevin]

I agree with keeping it a gas running cub. But propane is actually higher in octane than gas. Unfortunately I worked at a gas company few years back and remember the carburator to run propane was extremely expensive.
Remember what your fuel cap tells you BUY CLEAN FUEL AND KEEP IT CLEAN

[beaconlight]

I have the book on the 60 cu inch power unit. There is an option to run it on propane but you loose horse power.

Bill

[Gene Chestnutt]

I have ran a JD 70LP tractor for the past 5 seasons. The JD manual list it at a little more horsepower than the gasoline model. Something like 52HP on the factory propane and 48 on the gasoline.

[Jim Becker]

A propane engine may make more power if the compression is raised enough to make use of the higher octane. If all else is kept the same, higher octane rating will only change the power output if it eliminates detonation.

[George Willer]

A couple of my engines have been run on Natural gas. I bought them from a guy who had used converted 50-T balers to pump oil wells. When everything was going well, he would bring a hose from the well head and introduce it to the intake. Then he would shut off the fuel and they would keep running on gas that would have otherwise been wasted.

I understand that he has now bought a compressor so he can run his dual fuel car on gasolene and LNG.

[Matt Kirsch]

Yep, I remember reading that if you wanted REAL power out of your old gasoline 4-cylinder Farmall, install a propane head. That'll jack up the compression pretty high.

Perhaps just installing the domed aluminum pistons, and shaving the head a little would be enough? Dunno.

All I know is that it's not as simple as running a hose from the grill tank to the air intake if you want the tractor to be functional.

[George Willer]

Yep, I remember reading that if you wanted REAL power out of your old gasoline 4-cylinder Farmall, install a propane head. That'll jack up the compression pretty high.

Perhaps just installing the domed aluminum pistons, and shaving the head a little would be enough? Dunno.

All I know is that it's not as simple as running a hose from the grill tank to the air intake if you want the tractor to be functional.

Matt,

You'd have a difficult time convincing Bill that his C-60 engines weren't functional... especially considering that they were doing their job without any fuel cost whatsoever!.

[WKPoor]

Yep, I remember reading that if you wanted REAL power out of your old gasoline 4-cylinder Farmall, install a propane head. That'll jack up the compression pretty high.

Perhaps just installing the domed aluminum pistons, and shaving the head a little would be enough? Dunno.

Matt-I have a living example of what you just mentioned. Believe me when I say that seriously uping the compression can spell trouble. Good trouble but trouble non-the-less. If you've followed any of my previous posts early this year you'll know what I mean. Everything has a trade off or a price to pay. Unless you want to tinker a lot I wouldn't go there.

[Matt Kirsch]

You'd have a difficult time convincing Bill that his C-60 engines weren't functional... especially considering that they were doing their job without any fuel cost whatsoever!.

Yeah, but I'm betting that running the balerpumps only required a fraction of the horsepower the engine produces on gasoline. This was fine because the engine only produces a fraction of the horsepower on propane unless you seriously jack up the compression.

Try running a mower deck on propane without modifying the engine internals... Try plowing... That's what I mean. The tractor would be a museum piece, something to drive in parades. In other words, not a functional tractor.

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

The thing aobut running the pump engines with natural gas was they ran at the same speed all the time. Without a need for speed changes and power at different rpms, controlling the fuel flow with a simple valve would be easy.