A Biodiesel kit that works

[lapeer20m]

UPDATE:

Not much to say. 1,500 miles since the conversion and all is well. I was concerned about premature engine failure during the first 1k miles, now that i'm past that milestone I think she'll run trouble free for a long time. I would like to add another 30 gallon veggie tank so i don't have to fuel up as often. I have No real problems to report.

With the price of gasoline being so high, i've been using my skoolie as a daily driver. I love driving around for free!

I am very very happy with the conversion. Why didn't i do this earlier? If anyone would like more info or would even like a helping hand to convert their diesel, feel free to contact me.

[soused moose]

Lapeer …it’s Great to hear the Veggie-Oil conversion worked out so good for you.
Driving around for mostly nothing sounds very, very appealing to me.

I heard of folks doing this but never got much hands-on info on it…really appreciate your run down on how you did it.

But…now that I’ve learned it worked out so good for you ….
I’ve decided to get rid of our Gas Bus…Buy a halfway large Diesel Truck (covert it to run on Veggie Oil ) and build a big 5th wheel trailer to tow behind it.

Gee Thanks

I just picked up a pretty interesting Book called “From The fryer to the Fuel Tank” written by Joshua Tickell that gives a pretty comprehensive explanation with lots of charts & pics on doing a Veggie-Oil conversion…that should help me.

[lapeer20m]

2,500 miles since the veggie conversion, and still going strong.

I've been taking the bus out on a trip nearly every week this summer. I have almost every fri-sat-sun off of work, so I have a lot of time to play.

Before the weekend, I plan to add a second veggie tank. It takes me longer to set up the pump and other items necessary to filter the oil than it does to fill my tank. There is not much more labor involved in picking up 60 gallons instead of the 30 gallons the bus now holds. I'm currently able to filter about 10-20 gallons per minute of veggie oil(depending on what kind of oil i use)
Before the trip to burningman (michigan-nevada and back) i would like to add another 30-60 gallon capacity. Having 120 gallons of veggie and 40 gallons of diesel would be very convenient.

[lapeer20m]

I installed the 2nd veggie tank today. Now i can carry a total 60 gallons of vegetable oil.

[lornaschinske]

Originally Posted by Eric von Kleist

<snip>

Or just make your biodiesel tank look like a blackwater tank. Glue a dummy drain system on it ...

Why not use a real drain system? Might come in handy. Personally I think the fuel tanks on everything ought to be able to be drained fairly easily. Lots of junk ends up in them.

There doesn't seem to be a system in place (currently) to collect taxes from individuals regarding Bio-diesel or the use of waste diesel as fuel.

My husband spends a lot of time in a restaurant (Huddle House) in the town he works in during the week. The restaurants in that town simply pour their waste oil down the drain and it collects in a tank. The water and other stuff that goes down the drain simply passes the waste oil on it's way to the town's sewer system. A pumper truck comes in and pumps the oil out of the tanks. He has talked to the folks down there. We have discovered that you might have a hard time (in some places) getting the restaurants to "retrain" their workers to save the waste oil for you. Haven't checked with the Oriental restaurant that we frequent yet. Waiting for you to blow up your engine At this time we will still watch others....

[lapeer20m]

"waiting for you to blow your engine"

Gee, thanks!

In this area, i've noticed that almost every restaurant has a grease dumpster out back next to the garbage dumpster. The biggest problem is finding oil that is liquid at room temperature. It seems that only about 25% of my local restaurants have oil that is liquid at room temp.

I've checked all the grease dumpsters in my local town so i know where the good stuff is. however, If i fill up out of town, i sometimes have to go to quite a few different places to find "good" veggie oil.

every restaurant i've visited has always been more than happy to let me take their waste veggie oil.

[lornaschinske]

Originally Posted by lapeer20m

"Gee, thanks!"

You're welcome! Well, someone has to be the guinea pig... I read your postings with interest.....

This subject was brought up on MAK's busconversion board and on Ian's Busnut online forum. Most of the responses on it was disheartening at best. I had also read (many years ago somewhere in all my extensive reading) that the guy who invented the diesel engine was a canny sort of guy and developed the engine so that it would run on pretty much anything even vaguely resembling fuel (I think he had trouble with the water as fuel, although I had read about rumours that after WWII there were a few that were running on diesel heavily mixed with water... never ran into any books that specifically said where they were just "in a town", so may have just been extraggeration to point out how tight things were). So I really can't see where as the veggie oil or biodiesel could hurt the diesel engine. Only trouble engine-wise I can see is if the fuel causes the engine to get too hot (not likely) or if it causes some of the fancy electronic/computerized engines to have problems since they aren't "programmed" to handle diiferent stuff. It's a good use for Canola oil, I'm a bit leary of canola so try not to eat any, and that Mutated soy stuff that Monsanto is pushing on all the soy farmers (they can't kill it out since it resists Roundup and right now most of Europe won't touch the stuff. If US/Canada refuses it, the farmers will need to do something with it).

[lapeer20m]

i think i mentioned this once before, but the brazilian made 6.6 liter ford was originally designed and used as an off road heavy equipment engine ie: tractors, dozers, ect. I think that alone probably made for a simple, rugged, reliable motor. Coupled to that is the fact that many are used in brazil and i would immagine that the fuel quality there is not as good as here in the states so it would make sense that the engines were designed to handle the "dirty" fuel. Diesel fuel isn't exactly "clean" anyhow. The stock bus fuel system is only filtered to 30 microns. The human eye can see particles that are 40 microns and larger.

I have no idea how long the engine will last. There are nearly 270,000 miles on the original engine. The past 2,500 miles have been driven primarily with veggie oil. From the reading i've done, it seems the injector pump is the weak link in the veggie system, luckily the bosch inline pumps (that's what my bus has) seem to be the most tolerant of wvo.

There is nothing in my bus that i can't live without. I've only spent approx. $4,000 total on the project. and i've gotten at least a year and a half of use out of her. The worse thing that could happen is that she sufferes total thermo nuclear meltdown (ie: throws a rod through the oil pan, or blows a hole in a piston) far from home. Then i'll have the bus towed to the nearest scrap yard and i can go greyhound.

Even if (when) the engine fails in the bus, it cannot necessarily be blamed entirely on the use of veggie oil. 270,000 school bus miles are A LOT of hard miles for any engine!

Wish me luck! i'm leaving in about an hour for a 450 mile round trip this weekend.

[lapeer20m]

I had to visit almost 20 restaurants before i was able to find suitable vegetable oil while i was in traverse city. That was inconvienent, but i didn't bring enough money to drive the 200 miles home on diesel fuel.

Eventually a chinese restaurant came to the rescue and i filled up my twin 30 gallon fuel tanks.

About halfway home, the bus started having diffuculty climbing hills and generally seemed to be making less power. I was pretty sure my fuel filters were getting plugged up. The bus had been having trouble with cold oil for about the past 800 miles, but had been fine once the oil heated up. Now it was acting like she was running on cold oil even though it was well above 150 degrees. I only had one replacement filter, and i really needed two. I stopped and replaced the main veggie filter @ ~2,800 miles driven on veggie. This fixed the problem for the next couple hours. About 50 miles from home, the bus slowed down to about 35mph and woulnd't go any faster. I switched over to dino diesel and the bus ran better, but still not good. The rest of the trip i could only cruise about 45 mph using diesel fuel. The engine would barely run ont the thicker veggie oil. It was sunday evening, and there was no place to get a new fuel filter.

I purchased the new filter after i got home and the bus now runs fine once again. I've driven another couple hundred miles since i changed the filters and everythign is excellent!

the lesson: always carry extra fuel filters!

[Quest_techie]

On water removal, good cooking thing I learned, The reason all these biodiesel sites say chinese restaraunts have lower water content in fuel is that traditionally in chinese cooking a brass basket is used to remove the food, for some reason the water clings to the brass, maybe that would be helpful in the oil treatment process.

[J.B.]

Keep up the good work. I have been watching in the wings for quite some time. It seems that you are slowly but very surely working out all of the bugs. I have a 78 Crown with a 671 Jimmy. Right now I am working on the interior. Soon I will very seriously looking into alternative fuel. One thing that I did notice is that you have isolated your return lines. Diesel to Diesel and veggie to veggie. That is a good thing as you would not want the veggie to congeal in the diesel tank. I would suppose that you have been to Mr. Sharkey's web page. If not I would suggest it. Very informative. As I mentioned earlier keep up the good work but most important for me as a computer challenged individual keep up the good postings.

Later, J.B.

[lapeer20m]

Update march 2005:

The odometer now reads about 167,000 miles. most of the last 6 or 7K miles was driven on diesel fuel.

I took a trip to burnigman and back. At the time, i had plenty of money, but not much time. It takes time to find a suitable fuel source when on the road. I burned maybe 100 gallons of wvo that i brought with me on the trip, the rest of the driving was done on diesel fuel.

This was also my first winter with wvo. I pretty much gave up driving on wvo in the winter. The oil is ok once it gets into my tanks since they're heated, the problem is getting the oil from the restaurant. I would have to carve it out in blocks then bring it home and let it thaw. There are simplier methods, but i lack the desire.

I do very little winter driving with my bus, but wvo is definately much more tricky in the cold weather. We've had several days this season that were in the single digits.

don't think that i'm giving up on wvo! I used almost 1,000 gallons last year and i'm very happy with the results so far. For the most part, i don't venture more than 100 miles from home, but i use the bus nearly every weekend during the summer months. I have the filtering process down to a science now. It takes very little time for me to filter 60 gallons of oil.

I would like to change things slightly in the future however
In the wvo conversion i did i my mercedes 240 D, i have two heated wvo tanks: once for dirty non filtered wvo, the other for clean wvo.
cold dirty wvo gets pumped through a screen and into the first tank where it is heated with engine coolant. The hot oil not only flows much much faster through the filter, but the filters last a really long time.

cold oil yields 10-50 gallons of cold wvo through a filter before it's usless
hot oil has lasted for over 100 gallons on one filter....i'm still on my first filter so i don't know when it'll become too plugged to be of any use. This method of wvo filtering seems to be the better way to go. My mercedes only uses a max of 20 gallons of oil at a time. Now that winter is here, i've given up wvo usage in the MB also but spring is just around the corner!

[TravelingMan]

Thanks for all the info. Originaly planned on getting a bus with 366 gas simply because gas engines are cheeper and easier for me to fix, but then I did some calulations on how much a1000 mile trip would cost on gas compared to diesel. OUCH! and now I look at the possibility of running that diesel on WVO and making the effort of putting the some money saved back for future engine repares is very inviting.
Im goin diesel!

[lapeer20m]

It's already june, and i am still not on veggie oil yet this year! I disconnected the system during the winter when i was remodeling the bus, and have yet to put it back together. A week ago last saturday i put $85 in the bus, then the following wednessday i put $95 in diesel in the bus. That trend needs to stop. At this rate, i'll be spending almost $400/month in fuel.

IF all goes as planned, I'll have everything working again tomorrow on the new modified WVO system.

The plan is the keep my twin heated tanks, but fill them with cold dirty oil (oil that is strained through a screen, but not filtered) I can pump probably 20 gallons per minute or more since the oil no longer has to be forced through the filter. I also plan to add a float switch to shut off the pump in case i'm not payig close enough attention.

After the oil is heated, a pump will force the hot oil through three filters, a 20, 10, 5 micron in that order. From there, the oil will go off to the Racor heated fuel filter, then the oil will travel through the stock lifter pump, through the stock fuel filter, and back to the injector pump.

I will need to periodically clean out the veggie tanks as they will tend to collect more debris now that i'm pumping dirty oil into them.

I also need to find a couple more suitable locations to collect oil from. I've moved since last year and no longer live near my original sources. There is a restaurant near my new place that was letting me take oil for my mercedes, but i've found that it takes about three restaurants to quench the bus' thirsty apetite for fuel. Last summer i used about 50 gallons per week of veggie oil. I think i tend to drive the bus more often when i know the fuel is nearly free. Driving the bus to run errands or just cruising around also allows for lots of research and development to fix any of the bugs in the system. It's much better to have a minor breakdown in the veggie system when you have no place you have to be, rather than being late for a party on saturday nite!

Hopefully I'll keep my diesel fuel cost down to about $100/month

[lapeer20m]

never accomplished the goals in the previous post....but i did do a new veggie oil system in my current bus..it's not quite finished though.

I believe that the 2 heated veggie tank system is the way to go. Pump "dirty" oil in to the first tank, heat it, then filter it into the clean tank.

I tried running my new bus without a return line when i went to nevada and back. I could not get all the air out of the line. I finally switched back to using the return line, and i'm much happier with the way the bus runs.

Having electric fuel pumps in the veggie and diesel fuel lines is also a really great idea. They don't run constantly, but are used just for priming the system.

The pollock 6 port valve costs about as much as 4 brass manual quarter turn valves. if you're gonna do veggie, buy the 6 port electric valve!

I thought i made a post about it sometime ago in the past...but can't find it. My current bus has some good lengths of heated fuel line that look like this.



This particular photo is stolen from somewhere on the web...I did however reverse the coolant and veggie lines in my setup. It made more sence to me to have the coolant in the big tube, and the veggie fuel line running through the center.

One more thing i changed in the new system: larger fuel and return lines. I used 1/4" copper tubing in the first bus. This created much higher pressures in the return line than were necessary, also made the system impossible to run without an aux pump. I think that 1/2" tubing/hose works much better, and is way safter for the injector pump. In the current bus, I used a combination between copper pipe, and flexible clear tubing. The biggest disadvantage of the tubing is that you cannot use a torch to heat it up if the veggie coagulates in the line.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by voxecho

i noticed that the link at the beginning of this thread is dead. has anyone got a link to it or something like it anymore? ~E

http://www.green-trust.org/2000/biof...hn/default.htm

[axle]

This is a wonderful thing to do but one guy was fined for running veg. oil because he had not paid any road tax I wonder in the years to come you have an elc. car they going to tax your mileage veg. oil diesel agian is uncle sam going to tax your mileage what do you guy think?

[Poki]

My partner and I just purchased a 1991 Blue bird with a DT 360 turbo engine. She runs perfect and we want to find the best SVO conversion system that will not harm the engine.

Anyone currently running such an engine on vegetable oil that can help us?

Thanks!

[backwoods bandit]

I have followed this set of post not because of my bus 366 gas engine but for my other projects i was wondering about converting wvo to diesel i have done it on a small scale collecting parts for 50 gal. system or bigger to run in in my farm tractor and truck it takes just abit of studing and the use of 2 chemicals that you can pick up at the grocery store or home improvement store seems to me that its the less costly and easier way to go no added plumbing pumps and tanks but then maybe i am missing something

[miltruckman]

I really hope it goes well for you. But I know a lot about engines and experimenting with systems like that does risk damage to the fuel injector pump. Hopefully your bus is a dog nose and changing the pump will be easy. I have a TC2000 flat front Bluebird, and I can't even lay eyes on the pump without a mirror and flashlight. So i'll keep playing it safe with dinosar fuel.

Bill
Birch Run, MI