Gas tank discussion

So, I'm just opening a new thread, not to spoil the other thread.

TwentyOneThirtyFive wrote:

Yes, I saw the spare wheel ones, would be a good solution.  But what will you do with the spare?  But then I guess the tyre size you have won't fit in there anyway?

Yeah I want a full size spare, so that is 225/75R16, which doesn't fit without rubbing the leaf spring bolt or sitting 10cm lower, actually both.
I'm planning on a nice custom made carrier for that, but that needs further planning.

Quote :

I misread your earlier comment and didn't notice this bit.  I thought LPG (propane, essentially) was liquid when compressed at the pressures used in these cylinders, no matter whether it was for automotive or domestic use?  It's liquid in a campinggaz cylinder (propane/butane mix).

The difference would be the regulator?

It has to do with how the gas is supplied, either liquid to the motor, or as vapor to your cooking stove or other appliances.
The vapor tanks are what you need for cooking etc, they are usually red.
The black tanks are for storing it as liquid, and delivering it as liquid.

Now, some will say that it is easy to modify a black tank to work as a vapor tank, but I think the conclusion is that it is very dangerous when you make some kind of error. You can imagine the consequences.

Indeed, the black tanks are found easily in ring shapes, but are no use for cooking.
However, I learned now that there are new red vapor tanks available in the round shape, so you can replace the spare wheel with it.

I think it was 60cm diameter and 23 cm high. 55 liter capacity. Actually, to be honest, for just cooking it is total overkill. For cooking only I would suggest the smallest one, 20 liter. With 20cm diameter (long cilinder) it would also fit there or perhaps somewhere else under the car.
However, 55 liter capacity opens the possibility for other stuff. Like doing the (air) heating on gas. Because that takes the most amount of gas.
Also a tiny oven in there with a 55 liter tank means you don't have to worry about draining the bottle.
And these portable water heaters (although the portable ones have to be used outside)

thanks for the explaination, that makes sense.

The spare wheel tanks are available here: http://www.gasit.co.uk/spare-wheel-shaped-vapour-tanks.html. 55 and 58L capacities.

I agree that is probably overkill for just running the stove, plus there is the weight to consider. I was thinking somewhere in the region of 20-25L would be more than sufficient. 3 weeks in Scotland I think we used around 2.5kg of campinggaz, not sure how that maps to Litres. A stove burns around 200g/h on max.

I do like those water heaters, cold showers are not my idea of fun!

Interesting idea. If one carries a decent puncture kit a spare wheel tank could perhaps be used for veg. oil with a switch over valve for more economical motoring with diesels.

Not sure how one would do the return and filler but it's a lot of storage space and would dramatically increase the range too.

TwentyOneThirtyFive wrote:

thanks for the explaination, that makes sense.  

The spare wheel tanks are available here: http://www.gasit.co.uk/spare-wheel-shaped-vapour-tanks.html.  55 and 58L capacities.  

I agree that is probably overkill for just running the stove, plus there is the weight to consider.  I was thinking somewhere in the region of 20-25L would be more than sufficient.  3 weeks in Scotland I think we used around 2.5kg of campinggaz, not sure how that maps to Litres.  A stove burns around 200g/h on max.

I do like those water heaters, cold showers are not my idea of fun!

Cold showers are very healthy

But yeah, these portable shower heaters are nice for the bushcamps. I can take a cold shower, but not for our kids.
Even still, that doesn't take that much energy to need a 55 liter tank.
But having a 20 L tank would be nice. You just fill up for every holiday and cooking + hot shower is no issue.

What takes a lot of energy is the heating. I was thinking about a diesel heater, but these ring tanks make me doubt it.
Such a big tank could make me decide to do everything with gas.

Weight is an issue yes. I heard that the 20L tank is around 17kg. That isn't much more than if you would choose a 12 L bottle that is fillable at the gas station.

I'm not expecting the 55L tank to way much more to be honest. Filling it would make it weigh much more, but for shorter trips you don't have to completely fill it.

GPW wrote:

Interesting idea. If one carries a decent puncture kit a spare wheel tank could perhaps be used for veg. oil with a switch over valve for more economical motoring with diesels.

Not sure how one would do the return and filler but it's a lot of storage space and would dramatically increase the range too.

Well I have seen 44L tanks suitable for fuel, but the filler is not on the side. So that is annoying.
I'm gonna stick with a 20L jerrycan on the back (not mounted yet)

I do like a full spare wheel, but I guess you could do without when not offroading.
If you have a very common tire size you should get it anywhere in Europe.

A useful guide to tank weights here: http://www.gasit.co.uk/gas-it-vapour-tanks-size-weight-guide.html

A 20L tank weighs 16kg. At 80% it holds 16L of gas. 16L of gas weighs 8.15kg. Which is about 3 times the amount of gas I carry at the moment in a 907 cylinder.

No experience of propex heaters, but I know they are popular. The original Eberspacher in my Westy was good, but eventually died. I replaced it with a modern Eber Airtronic and it was awesome

I have Webasto in the Hiace, but wasn't impressed with the heat output. It has since stopped working (do you see a pattern in my life?). I think it's the overheat sensor given the symptoms, but it's a part which wasn't available when I last looked, but even so, it was quite an expensive part. Not sure what to do yet, but tempted to replace it with another Eber. Need to strip the Webasto down first.

Regarding veg oil - are the Toyota (Denso?) pumps okay on veg? It was a popular choice ont he T4s, but even then I think most people got the seals changed on the pumps. The Hiace could certainly do with an extention of range - I get about 515km before the little orange light of doom comes on, which is not very far! Speedo not very accurate though, so range will be equally inaccurate

The whole veg oil discussion is interesting, but it is a different discussion, and somebody just opened a topic for it so maybe continue that here?
https://hiace-super-custom.forumotion.com/t3157-veg-oil

And yes, I do see a pattern
My pattern is that I can never take something as it is and I always need to change it. In my view I would be improving it, but not everybody agrees on that haha.

Those tank weights are useful. The round one is listed elsewhere as being 30kg. It would then store 44L which is 22kg of LPG. But I don't always have to do that. For the average holiday I could put in 10kg.
The current bottle ways like 6kg empty, 11kg filled. That is much lighter, but only suitable for cooking and perhaps the hot shower, on regular holidays.

The ringtank makes it quite a bit heavier, but would make it possible to heat with gas.

I do like the Webasto or Eberspacher diesel heaters, and was thinking to go for that. But yes, they get clogged and stop working in a lot of times. Also because they are not being used often enough.
A gas heater should have much less issues with that. I would expect you can fire it up after 3 years without any issue, because the chance of it getting clogged is much lower.

So I haven't decided yet.

So I was thinking about this, I think I should keep it simple.
The smallest bottle is comparable to what we have now, but then refillable.
For most trips with cooking and showering it will be okay, and easy to refill in Europe.
For a longer trip it may be challenging, but then I could buy a smaller cilinder for that trip

The 12L 6kg capacity bottle is the smallest refillable one.



23cm diameter, 44cm height. 9.6kg weight empty. I guess there isn't much need to make it more complicated with under body tanks.
I still don't like the idea of the underbody tanks with the 4x4 driving. Driving on the rocky roads it would be easy to smash it. It probably can take a lot of beating, also with some protection plate around it, but I don't like to worry about it.

If it would be a regular van without the 4x4 driving it would be a good idea. But it would still require more plumbing under the call