[AT] Mileage with an older V-8 engine

[Cecil Bearden]

Early this year I bought a grain truck.  1974 IHC 1700 Loadstar series, 
with 16ft Omaha Bed, Schwartz hoist fitted for external hydraulic drill 
fill auger, Shur-Co tarp,  345V-8, 5spd trans, and 2 spd axle.  The 
truck has been converted to run on propane only.  I made a recent trip 
to my other farm at Chickasha.  It is a 130mi round trip.  The truck was 
driven about 5 miles in the vicinity.  It has about 3500 lbs of grain 
when it left my home and arrived back with about 3000lbs.   The 135 mile 
trip was made with only 11 gallons of propane!!

At one time I had over 13 IHC trucks that ran almost daily, from the 
Scout to a Semi .  Fuel was cheap back then and we did not pay a lot of 
attention to mileage.  We ran the trucks on propane and gasoline.  My 
solution to the problem of ethanol gasoline and carbureted engines is to 
convert them to propane.    Propane does not go bad sitting in the tank, 
it does not require a lengthy warm up to keep from dying out, and it is 
cheaper than gasoline.  The only real problem is the availability of 
fueling stations.  I have fuel tanks at both places I run between, so 
with large enough tanks it works fine for me..
Cecil