I’ve always considered what my ride would be for the “after times,” but I guess I never considered what I would put in it to keep it running.
That picture reminds me of one of the old abandoned gas stations from the movie The Last Chase. It’s one that most have probably never seen. It stars Lee Majors and a Porsche 917-10 “clone”. Cheesy movie from back in 1981. Go look it up all you car guys……
Colin Wood said:
I’ve always considered what my ride would be for the “after times,” but I guess I never considered what I would put in it to keep it running.
See, exactly. Sure, you have already planned out your DeathMobile, but how will you keep it running? Can’t outrun the mutants if you’re outta gas.
3 choices.
1. Find a producing oil well and build a refinery there. (Don’t know how, but there must be a low tech way to do this. You probably won’t get 100 octane race gas though)
2. Start disilling alcohol, hope you have a good field of grain and sugar cane.
3. Take over a hydroelectric dam. Lots of power for an electric car. Put additional batteries on a trailer for more range.
Alcohol still or electric. Batteries are easy enough to come by that short of another ice age finding supplies would be easy, solar farms and wind farms can be taken over or even moved to better locations. Anything that grows can be convinced to ferment with fire, water, and time.
I’d be trying for electric personally, less moving parts to deal with means less drastic means of repair and replacement.
Bicycles tend to get oddly overlooked in postapocalyptic movies and literature, but they seem like they’d be very useful when fuel is hard to come by.
Look at what our Amish neighbors do, and copy that. I see lots of horses, walking, little scooters. If things get really desperate methanol and ethanol aren’t THAT hard to make. Probably worth printing the how-to and keeping it in your safe.
MadScientistMatt said:
Bicycles tend to get oddly overlooked in postapocalyptic movies and literature, but they seem like they’d be very useful when fuel is hard to come by.
I wouldn’t say they are overlooked, I’ve read many books where bikes were used
WRT alcohol- need some special look at the remaining water. There will always be leftover water no matter how good the normal still is. So the car has to be robust to having water in it, or you have chemical means to remove the water (it’s chemical but based on solids), or you make that special still that can actually produce 100% alcohol (which is not just a massive reflux still- there are some tricks to do more- one still person I know mentions a vacuum system in the process).
Wood gas.
I already have the plans printed and filed somewhere safe.
I also have several really old engines. Think early 1900. They will burn almost anything and can be repaired with a sledge and a file.
Here’s the thing guys… in a gasoline starved world, it’s just like madmax. Except they can hear your ICE. And when they hear you… “They” come running… looking for that gasoline.
I’ll take my solar powered, 2000w electric bike please. You’ll never hear me. If “they” see me, they can’t catch me.
In reply to Vajingo :
Electric bikes are quiet, but not silent. In a world without as much external noise, they would be heard.
Even bicycles are not always silent. Fixed gear bikes – very quiet. As are some bikes with silent “clutch” rear hubs (Onyx is a popular brand right now).
In such a world, I would likely spend so much of my time cultivating food (and storing for the winter) that travel would not be a top priority.
Setup carburetor to run on alcohol. Set up still to create alcohol. Ferment the bodies. Problem solved.
In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :
Yep. Quiet enough to only be heard when in the vicinity. Allowing someone to get the jump on would be attackers. By the time they hear youf you’ve already zoomed by, and they, without enough time to react. Whereas an ICE would be heard at least a 1/4 mile away, and attract every miscreant in the 1/4 mile radius. And in order to escape, you would have to turn the car off, or spend a lot of fuel accelerating away. With an electric bike, you simply pedal down an alley way and easily stash it, and then begin walking about like an innocent bystander.
The original settlers of the North American continent used bison dung as fuel for thousands of years.
But then the Bluecoats killed almost all the bison…
Ammonia could be another idea for your Mad Max fuel; The Haber-Bosch process is complicated for what we’re doing here, but Ammonia has no carbon so it cannot foul up and can also be used for cleaning and disinfecting, which will be needed with no society. Alcohol and ethanol would probably be the best tho, since you also get a medical source AND can get drunk on it too!
Otherwise, I’d be e-bike all the way, perhaps small vehicles using salvaged forklift motors. A Brushed DC motor into a bike is dead-simple and the “power” switch could be actuated via altering voltage- there’s a guy from Pakistan I know who made his E-bike for free, and his “power switch” was the fan speed element ripped out of a Nissan Truck he found abandoned in a field. For higher tech, lots of forklifts are going AC for power instead of DC to get that sweet Regen, though I’m not sure how many are IPM motors for your E-wasteland rides.
That reminds me, I had an idea for an Environmentalist Mad Max spinoff…
Never thought about the noise an engine would make. Assuming the world comes to standstill after the apocalypse, you could probably hear a running engine for miles away.
I’m learning that I am not as prepared for the after times as I thought. I’ll stick to Fallout for now.
Most people here seem to believe this post apocalyptic world will be a utopian paradise. My belief is it will be a dystopian feudal agrarian steam punk hell.
There won’t be much travel because of the whole agrarian thing and our machines will use electricity because we’ll be using the original elements Earth, Wind, and Fire to obtain usable power.
I’ll leave it at that lest everyone comes to the realization that maybe I think too much.
Rons said:
Most people here seem to believe this post apocalyptic world will be a utopian paradise. My belief is it will be a dystopian feudal agrarian steam punk hell.
There won’t be much travel because of the whole agrarian thing and our machines will use electricity because we’ll be using the original elements Earth, Wind, and Fire to obtain usable power.
I’ll leave it at that lest everyone comes to the realization that maybe I think too much.
Using the tears of your enemies = utopian paradise to you?
In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :
I only saw most with the utopian paradise, not the wise ones who see the path.
Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) said:
Just in case someone needs to print these out:
https://sciencing.com/make-wood-alcohol-through-distillation-7762993.html
Filling up my emergency fuel trailer yesterday, and a guy mentioned wood gas… hadn’t thought of it in years. You just saved me the time of looking it up!
Rons said:
In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :
I only saw most with the utopian paradise, not the wise ones who see the path.
And I didn’t even mention biobatteries……
My dad entered high school in Southern California during WWII. Of course, everything was rationed then, including gas.
He told me that there were a couple of Model Ts that old guys had built wood gasifiers for. Dad said they ran… sort of…
Since the T engine had been designed for poor fuel in mind – low compression and low RPM – I guess it was a good choice.
In the immediate post-apocalypse, once the easy sources of lootable conventional fuels dry up/are under the control of warlords in assless chaps, the easy options are going to be running waste veg. oil in old diesel vehicles (this will be a valuable commodity), and charging EVs from improvised AC power sources. It’ll be relatively easy to rig up solar arrays and wind turbines from salvaged materials for decades to come.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Depends on the sitch. If mutants or zombies run amuck, wind turbines make you an easy to spot target. Solar arrays are a great way to trap someone. Sabotage a wire, wait in ambush for the farmer to come looking why. Slap farmer with a board with a nail in it. Take hostage the rest of the family. See, I’ve already thought of how to become evil after the apocalypse.
David S. Wallens said:
Have we mentioned horses yet?
You could probably make them into biodiesel but plants are easier to catch.
Doesn’t matter. In the post apocalyptic world everone seems to be envisioning, you will most likely drink some bad water and poop your colon out in the first month.
No real mention of dumb diesel yet?
Old school, non electronic diesel can run on just about any oil with a little thought and effort.
After the last drop of gasoline or diesel is gone, there’s still likely to be vegetable oil floating around. Oil from the sumps of multiple fuelless vehicles that have been discarded. Biodiesel is another option. Hell, I’m betting rendered fat could be used.
You’d want something stout, slow, overbuilt with loose tolerances. Think old military vehicles or farm implements. Something with good ground clearance and 4×4/awd. Something that will go nearly anywhere, even if it’s a bit slow doing it.
Manual transmission so roll starts are an option. No electric required, you know, in case the apocalypse was due to an emp or whatever.
In reply to Sidewayze :
Knowing how to source and sterilize water is a cornerstone of survival though. If you’ve made it far enough into the apocalypse to be thinking transport, you’ve probably already mastered shelter, water and fire.
In the end times I probably won’t have much time for motor sports. Maybe I’ll take up not dying as a hobby instead.
thatsnowinnebago said:
David S. Wallens said:
Have we mentioned horses yet?
You could probably make them into biodiesel but plants are easier to catch.
To ride! Ride the horses. Not turn them into fuel….
David S. Wallens said:
thatsnowinnebago said:
David S. Wallens said:
Have we mentioned horses yet?
You could probably make them into biodiesel but plants are easier to catch.
To ride! Ride the horses. Not turn them into fuel….
Ew, riding horses? Those things are big and stupid, falling off will really suck in an era without modern medicine. A mountain bike is the better option if engines are off the table.
(I grew up on a horse farm and have ridden for years, I just don’t like them.)
Didn’t we once ride horses–like for transportation? This was after the dinosaurs.
A bike would be cool, too. My fear would be a parts failure. Snapped chain? Popped tube?
Horses were never quite as common for transportation as people think. They were expensive and take a lot of upkeep, most people walked from place to place.
With any level of industrialization, bicycles are the default transportation device. Look at Asia, bicycles everywhere.
David S. Wallens said:
A bike would be cool, too. My fear would be a parts failure. Snapped chain? Popped tube?
Inner tubes can be repaired until they’re nearly made of patches (and protected from punctures with a good tube protector), and a tubeless setup can take a ton of punctures and self-seal, although tubeless sealant and piping insulation for DIY tubeless inserts would be hot commodities, as will parts that are difficult/impossible to DIY such as tires, inner tubes, chains, and multi-speed sprockets. Big-money silent hubs would be valuable for their stealth capabilities.
Electric golf cart and solar panels or an old 5 ton military multifuel diesel, the kind that run on kerosene or veg oil etc that doubles as my home
In reply to tomtomgt356 (FS) :
Any really long stoke motors that we can convert to steam? The longest stroke I can think of is a Pre 1987 Jaguar with a 4.17 stroke.
lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) said:
That picture reminds me of one of the old abandoned gas stations from the movie The Last Chase. It’s one that most have probably never seen. It stars Lee Majors and a Porsche 917-10 “clone”. Cheesy movie from back in 1981. Go look it up all you car guys……
The funniest thing about that movie is that the “free” place they were trying to get to that still had fuel powered vehicles was… California. 
frenchyd said:
In reply to tomtomgt356 (FS) :
Any really long stoke motors that we can convert to steam? The longest stroke I can think of is a Pre 1987 Jaguar with a 4.17 stroke.
Raid a Summit or Jegs warehouse for a Chevy 572 crate. 4.375″ stroke.
In reply to rslifkin :
There has to be some really long stroke Diesel engines to convert into steam. In fact much of a Diesel engine could be used with the sole exception of pistons.
I wonder what sort of compression is used for steam. Guess I’ll have to do some research
frenchyd said:
In reply to tomtomgt356 (FS) :
Any really long stoke motors that we can convert to steam? The longest stroke I can think of is a Pre 1987 Jaguar with a 4.17 stroke.
Well, I for one am shocked that that’s the engine you came up with.
The early 30’s Chrysler flathead straight six (310 ci) and straight eight (385 ci) apparently had a 5″ stroke. Dunno what might be longer.
EDIT: The Ford GAA V8 in the Sherman tank had a 6.0″ stroke. A steam-powered tank would be a very stylish way to survive the apocalypse.
In reply to psteav (Forum Supporter) :
And then you’re using up pure water in your steam system, unless you’re steam engine-powered tank is also you’re water purifier somehow. Better to use the old flatheads for converting them to natural gas or propane, since old infrastructure fuels would likely be easier to source and find than handmade gasoline or diesel derivatives and kits and writeups for those already exist.
In reply to stroker :
Don’t know. I DO know that they had problems choosing between gasoline and diesel for the longest time- I think the T34 was one of the last gasoline-powered tanks.
On the old flathead thing, some of the early, very low compression, very low power engines will run on some pretty terrible excuses for gasoline.
My first girlfriend’s father used to rebuild old farm power engines–they had enormous flywheels and would fire once every X revolutions to keep the flywheel rotating. He claimed they’d run on damn near anything, vinegar, vegetable oil, diesel, gas, kerosene, whatever.
Think something would be seen like an old Traction engine? Something that could literally run off of anything burnable?
psteav (Forum Supporter) said:
frenchyd said:
In reply to tomtomgt356 (FS) :
Any really long stoke motors that we can convert to steam? The longest stroke I can think of is a Pre 1987 Jaguar with a 4.17 stroke.
Well, I for one am shocked that that’s the engine you came up with.
The early 30’s Chrysler flathead straight six (310 ci) and straight eight (385 ci) apparently had a 5″ stroke. Dunno what might be longer.
EDIT: The Ford GAA V8 in the Sherman tank had a 6.0″ stroke. A steam-powered tank would be a very stylish way to survive the apocalypse.
The Buick straight 8 of 1937-38 had a 5 inch stroke. But I doubt there are many around. Same with Tank engines.
I do know there are a fair number of Jaguar engines. Annual production was around 10,000 with 50% of production coming here to America. until 1987 and many of them became collector cars. But I’m sure some Diesel engines have to be longer stroke. Well except for the whole weight thing. Kind of limit what they can be used for.
The vehicle that I regret selling the most, was my ’86 F250 XLT with the 6.0 idi. Those will run on almost any oil. I never filled it at a pump. Usually used waste jet fuel mixed with whatever else was handy; ATF, waste oil from my last change, filtered cooking oil…. The biggest problem I had was people (Mrs AAZCD) complaining about the fumes when I left it idling.
I’m still looking into fermenting iso-butanol, which has a close air/fuel ratio to gasoline, and unlike ethanol, does not absorb water. Unfortunately, this is still an area of research, so the information I am seeking is closely guarded.
I’m slightly less worried about all this since I read about the Swiss (!) scientists who have managed to produce kerosene using concentrated sunlight and CO2 from the air. Apparently this process has been demonstrated to work and is scalable.
Stealthtercel said:
I’m slightly less worried about all this since I read about the Swiss (!) scientists who have managed to produce kerosene using concentrated sunlight and CO2 from the air. Apparently this process has been demonstrated to work and is scalable.
Heard about a study done on the energy requirements of electrofuels, I think it came out earlier this year or last year. They found that to replace all fossil fuels in the world with electrofuels at the time that the study was done, world electricity generation would need to be tripled or quadroupled…and then keep in mind that all that increased electricity generation would be spent on creating a fuel that would then have 2/3rds to 1/2 turned into waste heat when used. Essentially that would mean turning at least all of the world’s current grid generation capacity indirectly into waste heat. So unfortunately electrofuels aren’t that practical as a mainstream solution.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Wrong ! Unlike oil which is found further and further away from civilization. Deeper in the ocean. In colder and more remote places.
The sun shines and wind blows in everybodies back yard. No transmission losses. Like coal and oil fired electric plants.
Economics of scale will work to lower costs to make it affordable for everyone. A tiny little bit of foresight will show that just like a Ford from the 1920’s could make 20 hp. And todays Fords are able to make 800 hp. Cleaner and more efficiently. 100 years from now solar panels will make 40 times the power they do today. Wind generators will be similar. Yes they will cost $100,000 but so will a bicycle. ( inflation never stops ) .
AAZCD (Forum Supporter) said:
The vehicle that I regret selling the most, was my ’86 F250 XLT with the 6.0 idi. Those will run on almost any oil. I never filled it at a pump. Usually used waste jet fuel mixed with whatever else was handy; ATF, waste oil from my last change, filtered cooking oil…. The biggest problem I had was people (Mrs AAZCD) complaining about the fumes when I left it idling.
Those diesels loved to burn old cooking oil. Same with tractors from that era.
I Friend from the Navy bought an old abandoned farm for peanuts and powered everything with old cooking oil.
The profits from farming like that allowed him to grow bigger and bigger . His 3 boys and a daughter all wound up attending Ivy League schools with his income.
He still goes out 5 nights a week harvesting cooking oil. Last I heard he has 7000 gallons in one tank and 5000 in another. The waste food filtered out is fed to his hogs. His farming operation provides a decent income to 4 other families. With full benefits.
frenchyd said:
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Wrong ! Unlike oil which is found further and further away from civilization. Deeper in the ocean. In colder and more remote places.
The sun shines and wind blows in everybodies back yard. No transmission losses. Like coal and oil fired electric plants.
Economics of scale will work to lower costs to make it affordable for everyone. A tiny little bit of foresight will show that just like a Ford from the 1920’s could make 20 hp. And todays Fords are able to make 800 hp. Cleaner and more efficiently. 100 years from now solar panels will make 40 times the power they do today. Wind generators will be similar. Yes they will cost $100,000 but so will a bicycle. ( inflation never stops ) .
Costs can come down but there’s not that much room for efficiency increases. There’s only room to make solar panels 3~6x more efficient before they reach 100% efficiency, the generators in wind turbines are already over 95% efficient.
Theoretically it could be possible to triple or quadrouple world electricity production and switch everything to eletrofuels rather than swapping ICEs for electric motors, but practically I don’t think that would happen. Switching to electric motors will be needed just for efficiency reasons, being roughly 3x as efficient as an ordinary ICE.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
You are right. I was thinking about the cost rather than actual efficency.
If I remember correctly the total electrical energy generated is about 50% lost to transmission. While generation at your residence loses it would be trivial.
We’d still need an electrical grid to transfer unused power to locations not generating enough at the moment required. But efficiency would increase.
I’m not one of those “purists” I accept that safely operated nuclear power plants will be a partial solution to clean global energy requirements.
As for nuclear waste, nuclear energy has to be refined from what is extracted from the ground. Why can’t the waste be “refined” to usable form thus eliminating lower and lower levels of radiation until it’s down to background levels? Recycling nuclear waste as it were?
In reply to frenchyd :
Refining nuclear waste is politically problematic because it’s a lot like making weapons materials, by recollection.
No I don’t know the exact details anymore. They do it in France but they also have a lot of oversight.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Right now America has about the right degree of oversight. But I wouldn’t object to more.
If refining the waste gets used radiation someplace safer and turned into more usable energy I’d understand heavier supervision. Done properly everyone goes home safely and receives a good paycheck for the added danger.
Any trace amounts of waste could be buried underground where it originally came from maybe with explosions to bury it so it can’t be retrieved?
Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) said:
3 choices.
1. Find a producing oil well and build a refinery there. (Don’t know how, but there must be a low tech way to do this. You probably won’t get 100 octane race gas though)
2. Start disilling alcohol, hope you have a good field of grain and sugar cane.
3. Take over a hydroelectric dam. Lots of power for an electric car. Put additional batteries on a trailer for more range.
There are low tech ways on the internet. The problem is getting that crude out of the ground. Wells will produce long after they are economically viable.
But you could put wind generators and solar panels up to pull oil from the ground then refine it. Probably cheaper and easier to create methanol from coal, wood waste, and garbage.
Yes ethanol can be extracted from corn, wheat, oats, barley, Sugar , or switch grass. Except it requires a much more complex still then creating booze. 100 proof booze is only 50% ethanol.
The final way would be the most simple to convert to steam burning wood, grass, or even coal.
Lubrication oil would be the hardest to create. Vegetable oil would be easier and higher grade but not without its own issues.
