I find this video fascinating in two ways.
First, the way that ethnic Russians with modern technology just accept the cold and frozen and work with it. In particular, their embrace of “way below zero” (C) as a feature. Yes, folks in the USA do that too, in the Ice Road Truckers of Alaska (and likely Canada too). But these folks go a bit further. In particular, I notice that their tires are way ATV like…
As I’m checking out ATV like tires for my all wheel drive Subaru, I’ve come to recognize radical tires when I see them.
Second, there’s the “Native” population bits where some folks who are clearly “Much European / Some Asian” in genetics are able to just live in a tent in Siberia. We are talking crazy cold that can not exist in Georgia, never mind Florida or Brazil. Even during an Ice Age Glacial.
So clearly during the coming Ice Age Glacial, it WILL be possible for folks to live relatively well in places like Alberta and Wyoming. At least until the glaciers arrive some thousands of years after onset. But I’m not worried about 30,000 years in the future. A couple of thousand is more than enough.
Big tires. Helping those in need. Shared community spirit among those who live “on the road”. Understanding the risks of nature. Understanding the need to cut losses when it is impossible. Understanding that fuel is survival (both for men and machines).
I think I will fit right in, in our future glaciating world.
But I think I need a 2nd set of rims and some good ATV tires for the Subaru first! ;-)
Musings from the Chiefio 
Start with Nitto Ridge Grapplers, there are others. Heavy tread, side armor. No need to go bigger than original unless you do a lift kit. The proper tires for off road are a first cut basic item. Factory tires will not take the sharp rocks, or have traction in loose rock or sand.
If we maintain our current level of technology there is no way we will allow another ice age to occur.
Geoengineering isn’t particularly difficult or even that expensive (probably as little as 1% of current GDP could do it).
@Foyle: “If we maintain our current level of technology there is no way we will allow another ice age to occur.”
The only geoengineering I can think of that might do the trick is to get rid of Panama. That would keep the tropical heat in the tropics instead of it being circulated to the poles to be shed to space. But I suspect there would be unintended consequences.
Perhaps we’d have enough energy to tackle the problem if Mr. Fusion ever becomes a reality, but that’s not current technology. Fusion is still just 30 years away; always has been.
Ice ages are generally caused by the loss of a few 10’s of watts of average solar influx to northern latitudes due to Milankovich cycles. We have many big dials we can twist: pumping hot tropical water to arctic requires a tiny amount of energy for enormous heat flux (on order of a million to 1), increasing ice cap albedo is pretty easy too – just sprinkle with dust, as is adding super light weight space mirrors to add a few 10’s of watts average heat input to northern high latitude region (particularly effective if targeted at icecaps, or lots of big balloons over regions to reflect back some upwelling radiation. Much of this stuff could be done for low trillions of dollars, and would be cheap at the price.
I would think pumping heat from the tropics to the Arctic would just accelerate the transfer of heat to space.
I’ve often thought that spreading soot in the Northern latitudes would help get rid of a bunch of snow, but then, why aren’t the Northern countries doing it now? Soot, or dark particulates, would have to be applied after a snowstorm. Obviously, if you apply it at the start, it gets immediately covered by snow. So after each snowstorm, h-u-u-g-e areas would have to be re-coated with dark matter (See what I did there? ‘Dark Matter’ ark! ark!).
I’d suggested years ago that we should put giant window blinds in space that we could open or shut depending on if we needed more or less sun😜 . But reflective surfaces directed towards the Earth might help. I’m not sure about unintended consequences. Would we be putting too much space junk in orbit? I dunno.
If those balloons were window blinds, we could close them at night and open them during the day. Just putting up balloons would block more energy coming in during the day than it would hold in during the night. If they block too much light, soon there wouldn’t be enough energy getting through to have anything to hold in at night. Air traffic might get a little weird, depending on how many balloons were needed.
I’m not pooh-poohing your idea of geoengineering, Foyle. I just think that the best, most trouble-free way to stop a glacial cycle would be to melt the glacier-forming ice right up front, and that would take a Mr. Fusion powered giant blow dryer.
@Terry Jackson:
One the Subaru, a lift kit doesn’t get you bigger tires (already looked into it). There’s a support ring under the spring on the struts that’s the limiting part, and it doesn’t move with the lift…
So I’m thinking “Biggest that fit as is”, and as aggressive a tread as I can find. Did a visit to Big-0-Tires, and either their guy isn’t very clueful about offroad, or there’s a reducing supply of 15 inch rim tires for off road use. (despite the Subaru offroad videos I’ve watched saying to swap from 16 inch alloy rims to 15 steel for your offroad tires.)
I’m going to search a bit more broadly, like other sites (tire rack, etc.) and also look at LT tires. I know a fair number of pickups are still running around with 15 inch rims and wanting mud tires…
I suppose worst case is I’d look for winter tires… I don’t care how long they last / wear. I’d be bolting them on for sand / snow and taking them off for street time anyway. Don’t expect to do any Rock Crawling, but do expect some rough dirt roads in the Southwest with embedded rocky bits.
Mostly just looking at “disbursed camping away from others” situations. Not looking to deliberately challenge any “level” or trail. OTOH, I did drive my Mercedes 240D over Christmas Tree Pass in Nevada where the sign said “4 Wheel Drive recommended” ;-) So there’s that “attitude” to deal with ;-)
https://www.exploringnevada.com/scenic-drives/christmas-tree-pass.php
The Subaru takes fairly small tires as off road vehicles go. 205-70 / 15 or 215-60 / 16 IIRC. Might be room to bump those up to 75 and 65 aspect ratio but would require measuring…
I may need to hook up with some shop that caters to offroaders and get “Official Advice” on who sells tires that fit…
Per “Geo Engineering”:
My approach would be to put small modular nuclear reactors on the glacier to melt the ice, then pipe the melt water to urban centers down south. Lets you plant cities anywhere and green the desert at the same time. Win-win. Yeah, would take a lot of reactors (OTOH a few TW of reactors making electricity will be needed for all those eCars anyway ;-) and it would solve the (claimed) fresh water “problem” too (what with nature providing the distillation phase).
Heck, everything from West Texas to the Mojave can become urban paradise with that much water… “Call it a feature and move on” ;-)
@EM, I considered lifting and up sizing tires on my AWD MKT, but the turning radius would have been significantly impacted, and received feedback from the Scotty Kilmer site saying “don’t do it”, but here is one of the renderings from the 3D tuning site. It was kinda fun doing it. :-) I hope it posts, it is only HTTP.
And the link to the site you can play around with to absorb your talents. ;>>>
http://www.3dtuning.com/en-US/
FYI, I believe you have to log in to use the rendering tools.
@Ossqss:
As I’m a cheap S.O.B., I’m unlikely to do a full dress-out of the vehicle. Frankly, even a 2nd set of rims and off road tires is proving a bit much (order of $1k + a little and up…). Consider that I bought the Forester used for $1400 and put all of about $400 of repairs into it. (New front axles, tuneup). So we’re talking about a near 50% of the cost of the car “uplift”… All to get nobbier tires for a guy who intends to maybe drive on sand a little to go fishing… and I’ve done THAT in my old Banana Boat (Mercedes ’79 300TE gas wagon, yes, grey market) and didn’t get stuck.
Frankly, I’ve been doing dirt roads, sandy and gravel roads, and light mud in 2 wheel drive cars since I first got my license. I’ve been stuck one each in sand ( about 17 yo) and mud (about 18 yo) and none since… So just having 4 wheel drive and M&S tires is a big plus-up in vehicle ability…
I’m mostly just being a bit paranoid as the Subaru has almost new Bridgestone tires on it. Had about 2000 miles on them when I bought it and I’ve added maybe 8000? These are Turanza Serenity Plus 215-60 / 16 600 AA M+S tires that are reviewed as being really good tires with good traction. My only real issue is that I’ve had the experience of Bridgestone tires not being as sticky in wet and snow as I’d like… But those were other models and on the heavy Mercedes, so who knows…
Having poked around a bit more, it looks like Nitto Grappler doesn’t come small enough for me:
https://www.tirebuyer.com/tires/nitto/ridge-grappler/p/style/430059
Smallest one they list is:
which http://www.rimsntires.com/specspro.jsp reports is 31.7″ tall while my stock tires are 26.1″.
That’s before you get into the 2 inches wider…
So far, the ONLY really off road like tire I’ve found with any hope of fitting (in 15 or 16 inch rims both were Subaru stock that year) is the Yokohama Geolander. I’ve seen a guy running bigger tires (but didn’t pay enough attention to record the sizes he talked about) but to do that he had to shave some metal off the wheel well… I’m not that guy (yet?…).
So at this point I think I’m just going to run with what I’ve got until I’ve gotten “good enough” to get stuck somewhere ;-) After a $200 “tow” out in the boonies, then it will make sense to pop $1k for new tires and rims ;-) Or maybe just spend an extra $k or two on a Real Truck… that takes Real Tires…
The 2001 Subaru is “truck like” in that it is boxy and square, has a jeep sorta / mini SUV shape, and takes a hitch. The Mercedes don’t DO hitches… Plus this was the last year of the limited slip differential in the rear (before they went the cheap route of doing electronic brake control to simulate limited slip). So I like to think of it as “my truck”, or perhaps “truck-ette”… But clearly it is too small to play in the Big Boy Shoes…
At this point I think I’m just going to put “2nd rims & Geolanders” on my someday list and move on for a year or two…
Ah, here’s the video of the guy running AT tires on his Forrester:
BFGoodrich T/A KO2 on 15 inch rims. 215 75 R 15 (per him at 4:34) but I’ve not seen them in my tire searches. Per that sizing link, these are 27.7″ (so 1.6 inches taller) yet it claims it only fills out the wheel well by an added 20 mm… which looks like 1/2 of 1.6″ more or less. I’ll have to go measure and see if I’ve really got 20 mm more clearance I can lose…
Looks like Toyo, General Grabber, the BFGs, and more are in that size:
https://www.tirebuyer.com/tires/size/215-75-15?
The General Grabber is also available in 205-75 / 15 at 27.1 inches tall… So there’s this odd “spotty” selection of different brands each in a different size, but close enough maybe…
So I can do something, just not necessarily an optimal match to my analysis…
Way oversized (but claimed to fit, maybe) in a few brands. v.s Will fit, but not very rugged. v.s. Choice Of One Brand in a couple of workable sizes like on 16 inch rims but without the extra 0.4″ sidewall height I’d likely get with 15″ rims. (Per what I’m learning, when aired down especially, the added sidewall helps a lot in protecting rims, getting grip on rocks, having a decent ride, etc. Low Profile is NOT a feature for off road).
Oh Well. I’d not care if it was a $500 throw to do it. But at over a Kilo-Buck, I want something I know will work AND be a significant improvement. I think maybe I need to find an offroad Subaru group and hang out with them for a few months…. “Hello Nooby! Hey guys, we got a new one to break in… get your humor hat on…”
@E.M. re geoengineering – That would be a LOT of small nuclear reactors. But yeah, I figure ya just gotta melt the ice as fast as it accumulates if you want to stop the next glaciation.
What’s to be done about the Antarctic? It’s out of phase with the Arctic, but I don’t think an offset of the start by a hundred or even a few thousand years would make much difference. The glaciation occurs at both poles. I don’t think the Antarctic grows all that much, but the Southern portion of South America & Africa starts glaciating.
I really haven’t read much about what happens in the Southern Hemisphere during a glacial cycle. If you don’t stop the glaciation at both poles, I suppose there will be consequences.
I recommend going l-o-o-o-n-g on Snow Piercer stock. And go ahead and get the snow tires for the Subaru 😜😜
@H.R.:
The South Pole can only grow the ice a little bit, as the circumpolar current breaks it off due to up / down flexing.
South Africa is too far north to ice up much. Look on a globe, it’s farther away than you think… about the same as Spain…
It’s the Andes where there’s snow / glaciers get going, but they melt as they come down slope pretty quickly. For them, I suspect the water pumping idea would work. Pump hot water from sea level up the mountain, melt snow with it, capture the electricity as hydroelectric to power the pumps for some of it to cycle back up again… Note that only the tip of South America goes past 45 degrees, or about the latitude of France to England.
No, glaciation is almost entirely a Northern Hemisphere problem.
Per Tires:
I think I still have a year or two to decide. Maybe ;-)
Besides, I’ll be in The South soon enough… so more interested in the sand and mud ability than the snow.
Looks like they DO fit, but described as “snug”
https://www.subaruforester.org/threads/on-off-road-tires-215-75-15.110777/
Then we get a necro-bump in 2017:
So looks like you can make them work, but only with some strut kit stuff. OK, I think that says I’m going to be using Geolanders… or similar that comes in closer to my factory size.
Either 15 or 16 inch rims, depending on what’s available at the time I’m ready to buy. But not going to “reach” for a significantly oversized tire or any particular brand.
Update:
After some digging, found out that SG and SH are model runs of Subaru Forester. So
https://www.subaruforester.org/threads/lets-document-the-little-differences-sg-sh.38932/
Which implies mine is an SF.
This also implies that the guy running 215-70 / 15 with SF struts has the same gear as mine. Nice to know. It also implies that the need to change struts was from an SH to SG and not involving the SF group at all.
So, OK, I can definitely do the 215-70 / 15 and can most likely run 215-75 /15 but would need to check that the 0.8 inch increase in diameter, 0.4″ increase in proximity to strut bottom, would not be a problem. The size site says 10 mm for those who think in metric.
I’ve run 195-70 / 14 and 195-75 / 14 on my old Mercedes and the 75 was significantly heavier tire (same brand, Michelin). OTOH, the size comparison site says the 75 has the “same” suspension and fender clearance (side to side) and only 20 mm of height inside the wheel well needed. I’m pretty sure I’ve got that. I need to get under the car and look up at the strut support plate to assure it is outside of the tire disk, but if so, then I think I can use either one.
I’ll likely prefer the 215-70 / 15 just because I’m not going to be THAT hard core about things and I doubt I’ll notice a few 1/10ths inches of sidewall. I’d rather know they WILL work when ordering.
E.M.: “No, glaciation is almost entirely a Northern Hemisphere problem.”
Ahhh… that explains why I haven’t read much about the SH and glacial periods. I have run across the Andes info, but that’s about it.
@EM, you would probably save enough in a month from Taxation, gas and electricity saving when you move to Florida to pay for those tires. Just sayin :-)
Summary Tire Discovery and Conclusions:
My era, SF, Forester has tires that were OEM in two sizes.
Modern Foresters have stock tires on 17 inch rims up to about 28″ tall, but I need to find out if the wheel wells / struts have been changed for more clearance (most likely).
Folks have fitted, and worked stock, in the SF
That’s 0.6″ taller than the taller standard size.
You can, perhaps with some added risk / work, fit:
I’ve found acceptable AT Tires in these acceptable sizes:
205/70 - 15 26.3" Yoko Geolander $130 215/70 - 15 26.9" Yoko Geolander $127 205/75 - 15 27.1" General Grabber $114 225/70 - 15 27.4" General Grabber $136, Yoko Geolander $144 Cooper Discover $152I think I’m happy with NOT stretching for the BFG 215/75-15 at 27.7″ and added risk.
I like the look of the General Grabber tread more than the Yoko tread (blockier looks like better snow shedding and rock gripping / mud paddling) and both are “Sever Snow Rated”.
Which more or less puts me at 205 vs 225 tread width. I’m thinking either of them is Just Fine for what I’m likely to do. The 225 is just 10 mm wider than my present tires, but the 27.4″ tall is getting close the the 27.7″ that starts being a concern, maybe. I’m more concerned with snow than rock climbing, so the 205 will work a little better at cutting through snow and water hydroplane risk (skinny tires do that well) but I doubt if 20 mm is going to make much difference. OTOH, at 27.1 inches I likely still have enough room to fit some kind of slim profile chains onto the beast in a real Aw Shit condition. (And it would need to be pretty bad if 4×4 and extreme snow tires doesn’t cut it…)
So I’m leaning toward the 205/75 – 15 General Grabbers. Same tread width as the standard tires on 15 inch rims, but a little more height from the 75 aspect ratio (and a lot more sidewall than my 60 aspect ratio on 16 inch rims at present). The tread pattern looks a lot like the BFG pattern and that’s what I think I want most. Along with essentially zero risk they won’t fit, or will rub something on extreme travel or turning.
So I think this is my tire:
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=General&tireModel=Grabber+A%2FTX&partnum=075TR5GRATXRWL&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes
So I guess now I have to go looking at rims ;-)
@Ossqss:
As California Gas is $1/gallon MORE than anything east of us, I’ll pay for the tires I’ve settled on, in about 450 gallons, or 7650 miles of the car we drive the most…. So yeah. Oh, strike that, Hell Yeah! BTW, the plan is to buy the tires after we’ve relocated so as to avoid shipping them anywhere. The plan also is to have some good mudder tires on Forester for fishing with Florida Friend as soon as Forester lands there…
Schedule:
Drive Forester to Florida
Drink Beer with Florida Friend
Drop off Forester to get new shoes
Drink Beer with Florida Friend
Bring Forester back to house
Drink Beer with Florida Friend
Load fishing gear and go fishing
Drink Beer with Florida Friend
Once we have caught our limit, wait for next day to find out how many fish we caught, if any ;-)
I can see it now.>
Gee! That even looks close to my year! Mine is silver, though. Looks like this:
Without the hood scoop though.
Just adding a note that here:
https://tiresize.com/tires/Subaru/Forester/2001/L/
lists “alternative sizes” for 15 inch rims and goes up to 27 inch height.
So I suspect 27 and a couple of 1/10ths would be OK, but 7/10s likely “has issues”…
Oddly, it has tabs for 14 inch in addition to 16 and 17 inch:
I wonder where you get 14 inch rims for a Forester? A 215 / 75 R14 might be nice… and a 27×8.5 14 would positively drive folks bonkers when they saw it ;-)
Giant Solar Mirror focused on Hudson Bay.
Perfect infrastructure project to improve North Americas weather.
You will notice,re the ice road documentary,all their misery starts as it warms up.
Through the heart of winter snow provides great traction and ice at 30 below “grips your tires”.
Soft rubber works better,but of course does not last long on rock.
The idea of opening up a huge channel through Panama is good.
Bomb Panama?
Stupid question,that has been bugging me.
Drones..Hacking drone footage and taking over control there of..
Just how possible is such activities?
I recall reading the Taliban or ISIS had accessed Army drone footage,at one point,was that true?
I was considering the way a hostile and frightened government would use technology against its dissident citizens..Drones would appeal to such fools and bandits..
So the solution?
Hack them or smack them..
@John Robertson:
There’s a world of difference between civilian drones and military drones.
Civilian: Transmit on the same band with higher power and swamp the other controller input. For fancier drones, will require a few minutes monitoring to recover the “identity code” to match.
Military: Have encrypted control channels. Damn hard to crack in real time. Instead, spoof the GPS data from satellites (easy to override their power levels. Iran did this to capture a US Drone. There are likely countermeasures deployed now of which I am not aware).
So, easier approach: “Shotgun Antenna” that focuses large power very high gain. Send a few kW pulse to the input antenna of the drone and fry the input stages. Drone is now either DOA and crashes, or resorts to “return to home when signal lost” default (IFF GPS still working). Not much can be done to stop this kind of counter measure, though YIG input stages can mitigate to about the 10 kW level. (Yttrium Iridium Garnet) But there’s always more kW available…
End game: Just laser their little propellers off…
so:
For Civilian: Hack them.
For Military: Smack them.
https://www.droneshield.com/dronegun-tactical/
Not that I would ever do such a thing… I just like to have the ABILITY do do such a thing.
The big issue with tires off road is avoiding punctures, especially sidewall. Load Range E or better, armored sidewall. A few weeks back a couple went missing in Death Vally. Car was found 20 miles down a native soil road, 2 flat tires. They tried hiking out cross country, got stuck on a ledge, he died, she was hospitalized. Killed by city street tires is my take on it. But then I live in the desert and use those native soil roads often.
John Robertson: “The idea of opening up a huge channel through Panama is good.
Bomb Panama?”
Yeah, I think that would be best and also adding mirrors focused on Hudson Bay would put paid to a glaciation. Well, at least maybe make the next glacial merely an inconvenience.
But the problem with bombing out Panama is that it would produce a whole lot of nasty letters to the editor and the neighbors would complain to the zoning commission. Hmmmm…. zoning commission…. then someone would be in real trouble. 😜
The challenge with drones is the the hives. We saw the practice run in Miami (I think at the Super bowl a few years back ,remember we got GPS from the military after they changed it after 10+ years). Your not droppin 100 or a thousand drones spread across multiple frequencies, no matter what you do. Ordinance, is a whole other subject. Just sayin,,,, looks nice, Eh?
I think the drones around my area are getting BIGGER!
Why dont you go the whole hog and get a Urals truck. It looks like its almost Mad Max level of capability.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2776512/Monster-truck-used-Russians-Cold-War-transformed-luxury-camper-van-sale-21-000-complete-self-inflating-tyres-solar-panels-roof.html
The NAT Geo channel use to have a show about ice road truckers. Canada. End point was Churchill They were trying to compete with The Deadliest catch. I saw a few episodes, and it was interesting, but not for a long time series.
Speaking of off-roading, there is a local sport called mudding. Take powered vehicle out into mud holes. Spotted a Rubicon and a regular Jeep in the Wally-world parking lot this morning. Dang Rubicon had mudders on. Thick and tall sidewalls, wide tread on 15s or 16s rims. Dang things were a good meter high. The footboard looked like it was 18 inches off the ground. The regular Jeep was running regular SUV type tires. The contrast was striking.
Heh .Thanks for the response to the off topic,random thought.
Interesting ideas.
Swarms of cheap drones against high tech ones?
Skeet Shooting for home owners?.
Such ideas will hopefully never need to be deployed.
Although zapping the electronic tethers of annoying children could be a fine retirement pasttime.
I am endlessly amused by the complete breakdown of logic so many young men suffer when their cell phone has no signal.
Remote Camp work really brings it on..You see them stalking the ridge lines,as they just know they can catch a sign..Miles away from any repeater stations,towers and low on the Sat Signal angles.
The horror,they start having to engage in conversation at coffee breaks.
The dependency on data from the net is never more apparent.
Once upon a time we thought our positions through,now we google supporting chatter..And call it evidence.
Back to the snow and ice,those bolt on track packages are gaining popularity every year.Converting a 4 wheel drive vehicle into a 4 track machine.
Seem to run best with a diesel.
So much easier to travel on top of the snow rather than lugging thro it.
@Nessimmersion:
At one time I wanted a Unimog, as they were not too expensive and are a Mercedes with my favorite Mercedes Diesel engine in them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unimog
Found some for sale in the USA too. Then discovered that, like most military vehicles, they had a top speed of about 45 MPH… End of that dream.
I expect the newer ones go faster, but I’ve now “moved on” to Subaru… The “muse” with them came from Larry Ledwick who did an alcohol conversion on one once IIRC. Claimed it was not all that hard and “somewhere” in my archives is his ‘how to’ on it. So as an “end of days” chariot it too can be “home fueled” with some work. ( I’m keeping my Diesel anyway as I can run it on all sorts of odd stuff… details upon request, but I’ve fed various diesels various mixes of propane, alcohol, kerosene, lamp oil, Crisco Shortening, soybean oil, home made “bio-diesel” methyl-ester, etc…)
The 2 big issues with various monster / military truck conversions are: MPG and top speed. Minor issues are ride comfort, parts supply & repairs, insurance weirdness, finding tires and some others.
Though I would not mind at all getting a “Sleeper cab” long haul 18 Wheeler tractor. A guy had one of those in the RV park where I was living in Florida. Had it all tricked out as an RV. Parts & repairs are easy to get along with regular truck tires. MPG not too bad without the trailer and top speed is nice too. Don’t know if the “Gang Green” have made the old ones impossible to register any more or not, though. They’ve become a PITA to commercial truckers, but sometimes private parties fall under different rules…
@John Robertson:
Jamming cell phones is easy. Lots of commercial gear to do that sold to police and governments.
Yeah, I really like the idea of track kits on a truck. But don’t live where there’s enough snow to make it a feature (and never will… Snow is something you drive to to play in ;-)
@CDQuarles:
I’ve seen some of those in Florida. Giant tall tires with almost paddle wheel tread… Looks like a lot of fun, but I’d need a new vehicle to do it…
EMS: “Frankly, I’ve been doing dirt roads, sandy and gravel roads, and light mud in 2 wheel drive cars since I first got my license. “
With an LSD giving good 2WD, it’s surprising to most people how far you can go.
For just dirt/gravel/sand type roads where ground clearance doesn’t come into it, the standard Scooby-do AWD should be plenty. And “standard” road / light duty off-road tyres will do fine too.
@E.M. re homemade diesel – That was also part of my calculus.
The Mrs. asked me about fuel today and I told her that under the current (mal)administration, fossil fuels might be banned tomorrow, or only slightly later.
But we have a diesel now, so we can go with a variety of fuels that we can make ourselves.
.
.
.
.
I also pointed out that if the commie-owned puppets in D.C. ever banned diesel, long haul trucking would cease. Hardest hit would be those big, Blue cities and that includes D.C. IF they actually got that crazy (or just plain evil) cities would be on their knees and out of everything but mattresses and fruitcakes within a week or two, and you can’t eat either of those.
We are a l-o-o-n-g way from electric big rigs and even farther away from a grid capable of keeping them charged up.
Dang, looks like the Grow Box dot is back on my Android tablet.
@H.R.
The Cummins Diesel is less forgiving of funny fuels than the Mercedes. The Mercedes has a precombustion chamber and is marginally low compression ratio. This means you can do things like valve propane or ethanol into the air intake up to about 75% power and let the diesel injection act like a spark plug. Per this link
https://dieselresource.com/diesel-resources/2nd-generation-5-9l-cummins-specs/
The Cummins is also modestly low pressure 17:1 so It must be the precombustion chamber… in any case, back about 1984 I posted about my fuel experiments on Usenet, and a guy tried it on his Cummins Dodge. Said it knocked a lot. No I don’t know if he did it right (you must stay away from ideal mix ratio and be very lean to prevent knock)
It also uses an air heater instead of glow plugs for cold start (so I was told then) meaning heating a flammable mix in the air intake could be bad…
But liquid fuels injected still give options. The biggest one is just jet fuel. Jets last 40 years and nothing can replace them yet. Just add a quart or two of motor oil per 20 gallons to keep injector pump lube up. Military Humvees did that. IIRC it was one quart per 10 gallons.
Running straight veg oil will eventually gum up the combustion area and deposit carbon unless you get the viscosity down to normal. This can be done with fuel heaters. Better though is to make Methyl-Ester or Ethyl-Ester. Mix 19% alcohol, 1% lye, and 80% oil or fat. Warm gently while stirring to speed up the reaction. Ethanol takes more heat, about 100 F. Methanol proceeds at room temperature but can take a while. Let it stand overnight and you get 3 layers. Lye on the bottom as it is just a catalyst. Then IIRC glycerin is next then biodiesel on top (though I might have those 2 backwards). Carefully decant the fuel. Some folks adjust the pH and dry the fuel. Some folks run it through filters (especially if used cooking oil). Lots of how to projects go into full detail.
Note that it tends to gel in winter so expect to winterize it with kerosene or lamp oil or jet fuel. Some folks put it in the freezer then coarse filter out what freezes (save it for summer). Different fats and oils have different chain lengths so different freezing point fractions.
Throw away the glycerin. Not good for much other than keeping dust down on dirt roads. Reuse the lye.
@E.M. re homemade diesel: I was only thinking of a “When our pollies go full on stupid or evil” situation. Until that happens, I’ll hit the pumps.
But having not had a diesel, I was not aware of the differences. So I can now say I have been officially ‘tipped off’ to be sure of making a good mix, if I do have to face an end to fossil fuel sales for whatever the reason.
Thanks!
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Oh by the way, my truck has a built-in inverter and extra battery. There’s a 120v outlet in the bed. (I was wondering what the second battery was for.) How cool is that? (!!!)
I wasn’t aware that any maker was doing that, but I suppose it’s now an option on all trucks; GM, Ford, RAM, and maybe Nissan and Toyota, too. Just throw the circular saw and a 2 x 4 in the truck and run out to make a quick repair, eh?
(Dang! Now I’ll have to read how to maintain that system. Every silver lining has it’s cloud.😜)
Propane (“LPG” is 60% propane, 40% butane) is an excellent fuel – only minor tuning required to change over from gasoline (more timing advance down low, less total, all in earlier). Used to be used a LOT by taxis here, less so now as they all seem to use a hybrid instead.
If you want to go hi-performance, then liquid injected is the go. They will start and run on LPG in that config. Go “only” or “mostly” LPG, you can bump the compression (LPG is about as far above hi octane gasoline as that is above standard gasoline – we use RON, which has “standard” at 91, “hi octane” at 95/98, and LPG is 104. The old leaded gasoline “super” was 98RON) and or run forced induction. The old style “gas carby” works OK too (basically an SU carb), but prone to backfire and “blow up” your air filter etc – nasty with a plastic composite intake manifold.
With an easily made (or purchased from a gas fitter) hose, you can fill up from a standard BBQ gas bottle too :-). Although that tends to be more expensive than filling direct at the gas stations that carry LPG.
Still widely available here, I can drive from Sydney to Melbourne or Brisbane (1,000km or a bit more to either) and never have an issue getting LPG. Even get it all the way to Cairns and all the way across the Nullabor to Perth.
Eco-friendly too – not only does it have less carbon (ie, less CO2), it is also usually mostly a waste gas that gets flared off at the refinery, so using it for fuel at least doesn’t waste it.
Price is pretty cheap here – gasoline (standard with 10% ethanol, the cheapest one) is about $1.22-$1.40 per litre, LPG about $0.79 – $0.89/litre, although you use about 10% more LPG (it needs to run a bit richer). You can even keep the standard gasoline tank if you want and have “dual fuel” (inc extra range), but your trunk capacity will suffer if doing that.