mtnfreak
Advanced Member
I thought it was time to share a bit about the bus adventure we’re on. My hope is to help others on this journey and connect with folks who are using SVO in their diesel motors.
So we started out mid September this year from Slocan BC. We have been homesteading up in the mountains there for the past 16 years. We bought a 2000 BlueBird All American 40’ pusher that had already been converted. It has the 8.3 Cummins and Allison 3060 tranny. Our family of five were able to move into it after building some overhead storage, food pantry and book shelves. We added a trailer hitch on the rear and another on the front bumper for a bike rack. On the hitch we’re pulling a 8’ cargo trailer with dry goods , kids homeschooling stuff , basket weaving supplies and tools. We rented our 4 acre off grid place and hit the road.
Dreamweaver is the name of the bus and she has been converted to also run on veggie oil. Now I’m still learning the system that is in place: 25 gal oil tank, fass fuel pump,heat exchangers, heated oil filter and electric final heater before injection pump. I filter the used oil through heavy duty fabric filter before using and there is also a screw on filter on the transfer pump that moves the oil from. Restaurant tanks to my jugs, s
So far I’ve probably run about 250 gallons of SVO through this motor. There is a toggle switch on the dash to switch from main diesel tank to the veg tank . I make sure to start up on diesel any get motor up to temp before I switch over to veg tank. I make sure to switch back to diesel a few minutes before I shut the motor down. I don’t use the veg when driving in the mountains. Or in stop and go traffic.
It works well at highway speeds, I don’t usually drive over 55 mph. Finding oil has been tricky. A lot of restaurants are under contract with biofuel companies and don’t give it away. That being said, we are still finding it and some places dont care if you come and take it. I like to call and ask over tjhe phone before hand.
We have no intentions of returning to Canada and have made this bus our permanent home, currently we are in Florida around the panhandle and finding enough oil.
Our plan is to head west to winter in AZ . Recently I installed a new fuel pump for the veg oil because old one(fass adjustable) started making loud noise and check engine light came on when I switched to veg tank. When I switch back to diesel light goes off. After installing similar new pump it worked great for couple weeks and now check engine light comes on again when running veg for a few minutes and goes off again when I switch back to diesel…
I think I will try and increase pump pressure and check filters. I hope we can keep this system running any help would be great right now diesel here is around 3.70 a gallon.
Hope this is not too much to share , blessings ,
So we started out mid September this year from Slocan BC. We have been homesteading up in the mountains there for the past 16 years. We bought a 2000 BlueBird All American 40’ pusher that had already been converted. It has the 8.3 Cummins and Allison 3060 tranny. Our family of five were able to move into it after building some overhead storage, food pantry and book shelves. We added a trailer hitch on the rear and another on the front bumper for a bike rack. On the hitch we’re pulling a 8’ cargo trailer with dry goods , kids homeschooling stuff , basket weaving supplies and tools. We rented our 4 acre off grid place and hit the road.
Dreamweaver is the name of the bus and she has been converted to also run on veggie oil. Now I’m still learning the system that is in place: 25 gal oil tank, fass fuel pump,heat exchangers, heated oil filter and electric final heater before injection pump. I filter the used oil through heavy duty fabric filter before using and there is also a screw on filter on the transfer pump that moves the oil from. Restaurant tanks to my jugs, s
So far I’ve probably run about 250 gallons of SVO through this motor. There is a toggle switch on the dash to switch from main diesel tank to the veg tank . I make sure to start up on diesel any get motor up to temp before I switch over to veg tank. I make sure to switch back to diesel a few minutes before I shut the motor down. I don’t use the veg when driving in the mountains. Or in stop and go traffic.
It works well at highway speeds, I don’t usually drive over 55 mph. Finding oil has been tricky. A lot of restaurants are under contract with biofuel companies and don’t give it away. That being said, we are still finding it and some places dont care if you come and take it. I like to call and ask over tjhe phone before hand.
We have no intentions of returning to Canada and have made this bus our permanent home, currently we are in Florida around the panhandle and finding enough oil.
Our plan is to head west to winter in AZ . Recently I installed a new fuel pump for the veg oil because old one(fass adjustable) started making loud noise and check engine light came on when I switched to veg tank. When I switch back to diesel light goes off. After installing similar new pump it worked great for couple weeks and now check engine light comes on again when running veg for a few minutes and goes off again when I switch back to diesel…
I think I will try and increase pump pressure and check filters. I hope we can keep this system running any help would be great right now diesel here is around 3.70 a gallon.
Hope this is not too much to share , blessings ,
