 |
|
02-09-2011, 07:04 AM
|
#1
|
|
Feedback Score: 0 reviews
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Oregon
Posts: 19,865
Liked 1163 Times on 504 Posts
Likes Given: 2940
|
How about a Steam Car?
With all the oil insanity, it sounds like it's time to get that old Stanley Steamer running.
How hard would it be to put together a steam car or SUV? Since it's been done, the technology could just be refined and redesigned for modern production methods.
I am a handy guy, but engineering and building something like that is way beyond me. However, the talent to do so is here at FTF. It might be interesting to fool around with the idea a bit.
Would it be possible to take mostly standard automotive parts with the exception of the actual boilerworks and cobble a vehicle together?
How expensive would it be? Obviously the prototype would cost a fair amount of money, but after that?
__________________
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” ― Samuel Adams
|
|
|
|
02-09-2011, 01:00 PM
|
#2
|
|
Moderator
Feedback Score: 0 reviews
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Third bunker on the right,Central Virginia
Posts: 13,034
Liked 3479 Times on 1707 Posts
Likes Given: 518
|
Your challenge will be weight. In terms of weight/power ratio, the IC engine is way ahead of a steamer. You need the entire boiler side, which is a lot more than a tank of water you heat. You will need a HOT burner setup (unless you want to wait 30 minutes for a head of steam to build) and then you have the steam engine side of things- as well as condensing the used steam, lubing everything, etc. I have known some folks that have done the steam engine thing for a fixed power source- guys with scarred knuckles (from turning wrenches), It is a lot more than tossing a handful of twigs into a firebox and zooming away.
__________________
What we have heah is.... failure to communicate.
|
|
|
|
|
02-09-2011, 01:28 PM
|
#3
|
|
Feedback Score: 0 reviews
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: |,Maryland
Posts: 3,847
Liked 409 Times on 249 Posts
Likes Given: 137
|
Safety is a concern as well. When you get into an accident now your engine dies. Fuel does spill but it doesn't explode like the movies. With a steam car you would have boiling water/steam escape during an accident.
Plus you still have to continually heat the water which requires a portable fuel source.
__________________
"Good people drink good beer."
Hunter S. Thompson
|
|
|
|
02-09-2011, 03:11 PM
|
#4
|
|
Feedback Score: 0 reviews
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Stafford, Virginia,The state of insanity.
Posts: 14,043
Liked 21 Times on 17 Posts
|
use a propane O2 set up burns really hot really fast. I am sure you could make it work but how far will 50# of propane and 2 o2 tanks get you?
Jay leno has a steamer he said it takes for ever to get going.
Rick Derringer ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!
|
|
|
|
|
02-09-2011, 04:41 PM
|
#5
|
|
Feedback Score: 0 reviews
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: 3-P
Posts: 3,112
Liked 356 Times on 261 Posts
Likes Given: 195
|
|
|
|
|
|
02-09-2011, 07:04 PM
|
#6
|
|
Feedback Score: 0 reviews
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Oregon
Posts: 19,865
Liked 1163 Times on 504 Posts
Likes Given: 2940
|
That's the way to go Trez. I saw that in the running out of oil thread. That's insanely great stuff. Now, we need to get it away from NASA and into public domain.
__________________
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” ― Samuel Adams
|
|
|
|
|
02-09-2011, 08:49 PM
|
#7
|
|
Feedback Score: 0 reviews
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 440
|
If you use a nuclear reactor to make steam it might work better.
|
|
|
|
|
02-09-2011, 09:52 PM
|
#9
|
|
Deader Bears=Better Bears
Feedback Score: 0 reviews
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: BFE,Mississippi
Posts: 14,866
Liked 2406 Times on 1447 Posts
Likes Given: 1880
|
It is my understanding that colonial British peeps were known to use mummies as a fuel supplement for their steam engines; i vote we start making some more mummies, preferably Arab ones. 
__________________
Dead Bears, the only good kind.
GANDER MOUNTAIN OF HATTIESBURG, MS IS OVERPRICED, HAS LOUSY CUSTOMER SERVICE, & SELLS BEAT UP PISTOLS TO LITTLE OLD LADIES AS "NEW". :p
|
|
|
|
|
02-09-2011, 10:11 PM
|
#10
|
|
Feedback Score: 0 reviews
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Monte Vista,CO
Posts: 1,231
Liked 2 Times on 1 Posts
|
If we built one steam car, I think that would be great! But if the whole world started to use steam, I wonder what would be the affect on the atmosphere? One of my friends is a meteorologist and says that if cars started to produce water vapor emisions that the climate of the world could change for the worse!
__________________
It's like paradise on Earth, enriched with the ever so sweet nectar of
elk urine.
When you're out there by yourself, you become who you really are.
|
|
|
|
| Thread Tools |
|
|
| Display Modes |
 Linear Mode
|
|
|
|
