Jacklegg

New User
I'm new to the forum and new to tractors in general. I'm beginning to do some research on what Case tractor I want to restore so I can put it in parades. The first question that I have is. I've come across a couple of tractors that use Propane. Was this standard or was this a conversion someone put on? If it was a conversion, whats the difficulty to revert it back to diesel. Thanks for informing me. Looking forward to the usage of all the knowledge here. Jack
 
Propane could be either factory or a conversion kit. You would have to do some research to figure out which for a particular tractor. For instance, Case offered factory optioned D series tractors with propane, also kits to convert gas engines to propane (exactly the same parts) and outside companies offered their own kits to convert. To the best of my knowledge, propane would only be used on gasoline engines. Don
 
From what I remember the first factory lp Case tractors came out in 52. If you see an earlier model with lp it was a retrofit.
 
Ideally you would get the special head (#6128 for D series) that would increase compression with a smaller combustion chamber. In my somewhat limited experience with Case LP tractors, my observation is that many conversions did not replace the gasoline head. That is one dead giveaway that it is not factory installed. I am curious as to how that affected performance-or if the cheap LP fuel was used and that was considered good enough. I asked the people at Pounds Motor Company in Winter Haven, FL why there were so many LP tractors down there and the answer was in 1953 gas was 18 cents/gallon and LP was 6 cents/gallon. Don
 
Back in the 1970 and 80's there was a lot of the 366 and 427 chevy C-65 truck's around here, a lot of the guys got the big idea to switch them to L.P. Well long story short they couldn't get them switched back, soon enough, Less compression,less BTU's, less power. I didnt want to say to much, didnt want the L.P. dealer to be upset with me, but could of saved them a lot trouble !
 
My son has a DC that the previous owners son told us that his Dad had the tractor converted to LP. It was a factory conversion kit which included the higher compression head. Can't tell it from a factory LP tractor.
 
Hi; Old Proud Vet, First of all let me thank you for what u did for this country, that had to have been hell what you guys went thru. Thank You. But they start as good as a gas tractor. i had a friend he used a 400 and a 450 LP feeding cattle in the winter. But the starter is heavier than a gas 400 and 450, and he kept them up.
 

A rule of thumb for gains from a compression increase is as follows: Using an example; going from 8:1 to 11:1 would result in a gain in HP of 5% and a gain in fuel efficiency of 20%. Of course these numbers are approximate.

This would apply for either fuel, gasoline or propane. It is [u:aa58b806f8]not[/u:aa58b806f8] to say increasing compression and converting to propane would result in a gain of 5% and 20%.

Propane has much higher octane than typical of gasoline. The compression increase was to help maintain HP to that of a gasoline fueled engine and the efficiency increased helped to keep the tractor in the field a little longer before returning for a fill up.

It should be noted propane is a gaseous fuel and as such does not need exhaust heat on the intake manifold. Using the proper propane manifold without heat, is good for a few ponys.
 
Got a 930 Case LP that starts at -20 in the winter. 2 years ago had to run almost every day in the winter to blow snow.....
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Are you saying they fueled standard regular gasoline burners with propane ? If so, the compression would be way too low and everyone could say propane is bad. Too bad stupid in not against the law.
 

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