On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:37:21 -0700, Matty F wrote:

On Oct 8, 3:20 am, "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:
On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:58:19 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
The big snag is most vehicles have both power steering and brakes.
One being towed with the engine stopped will have neither.

Well it will, I don't think a vechicle that had absolutely no steering
or brakes without the engine running would be allowed on the road. How
ever the effort required to turn the steering wheel and get effective
braking is huge. I wouldn't want to be towed in a modern car via rope
unless the route was straight and flat or just a very short distance.

I used to have a large V8 that ran on CNG and petrol. The CNG was
extremely cheap but would run the car for about 120km. Then the engine
would stop and the steering and brakes needed more effort to use. But
not a problem. I would run out of CNG several times a week so I got used
to it.

I almost bought a car (I think it was a Peugeot) in NZ which had been
converted back from CNG to petrol* - I gather CNG was quite popular as a
fuel there once, but had been gradually going out of fashion for some
reason?

* which implies there were some differences between the setups - unless
the "conversion" involved simply removing all the bits to do with the CNG
side...

As I mentioned elsewhere, I've got no power brakes - or power steering -
on the truck; I just got used to it needing major effort to stop, or to
steer at low speeds. I tend to find that most power steering feels a bit
on the light side (particularly in cars) anyway.

cheers

Jules