Hey family is growing and starting to look for a full size van. Thinking a conversion style van will be best since it's already setup with dual captains chairs and rear bench. Also would probably be a good tailgate van for the couple tailgates we attend a year.

I was looking around and found a 2001 Maxivan with less than 9000 miles, but it is a CNG vehicle. Curious how difficult would it be to convert back to gasoline?

Also it is setup for cargo. Would swapping in conversion seats and bench be difficult?

 

My major malfunction with conversion vans is, the conversion companies do not document/publish anything about their changes to the wiring system in the van..... so, if you have issues with any part of it...... its an exercise to chase 'em down.

As for converting it back, that depends on what the conversion actually did..... Chances are, all the stuff to make it run on gasoline is still there..... but, need to have a close look at things to determine that....

 

Yeah that one of my concerns I've noticed it's difficult or impossible to get info on all the conversion add-ons.

Honestly I'm more interested in the bench seat that folds into a bed and 2nd row captains chairs. I'm not really interested in the fancy lighting etc. That's why I was kinda looking at a non conversion van and maybe getting seats and some features from a junk conversion van?

I was able to look up the vans vin and it say it's a factory CNG conversion. So curious how much is involved to switch it back or if it has dual tanks it might be okay just keeping both.

 

No idea what the factory CNG conversion consisted of...... But, to me, grabbing a van that has the options you want, and then installing the seats you want, sounds like a really good plan.

 

Yeah would love to pick up this van! But the CNG is scaring me away.

How would it be to install conversion style seats out of a junked van? Looks like it's a base plate that's sandwiches the floor and then the seat attaches.

 

Some time ago there was a member here that posted pics of a LP factory conversion. It was a injected system with 8 lines going to each cylinder. I would imagine natural gas would be similar. It most likely has a different pcm/wire harness and gas tank removed for a pressurized tank. Really would like to see some info on these systems how the factory did it. Probably could be converted to gas but don't know the extent you would have go to.

 

I swapped a 360 into my 3.9 van...

You just need a motor and harness and PCM...you can use any Magnum motor...IF you want to go back to gas...

CNG is cool though...