5th gear had a unit on the show tonight it cost about 2 grand but you could keep it in the corner of youre garage/shed and it filtered all the crap out of used cooking oil.

I've used veg oil (pure rapeseed) for the past couple of years in a Discovery 300tdi and have found that it runs perfectly fine at around 25% from spring to autumn - Wouldn't do it without a pre-heater in colder weather.
I did start to increase up to around 50% but found that the injectors seemed to foul and it didn't start as well or have as much power after a while.
It's been run on pure diesel for the last four months now, and I've put a bottle of Wynns injector cleaner in the fuel and it is totally back to normal. I'll start again on the veg oil once it warms up again though, but just keep it to 25%.

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We are currently running a Golf III on a ratio of 50% Diesel and 50% Palm oil - the car is an old junker that does factory duties with shift managers, so just an experiment to see how far we can increase the % and what happens!!! Interestingly everyone who drives it claims more power, and as far as I can determine it could well have a higher cetane rating. The palm oil is not even refined - just pressed and filtered. Thing smells like a local street food spot though! Unfortunately there is currently no price advantage as the palm oil is about one Ghana Pesewa more expensive, but who knows in the future. We will give it a few days and pull the filter of and cut it open. A lot of Ghanaians cannot believe that a car can run on food!!!!
Gil

I am running my Citroen xantia on veg oil/diesel mix and last night I put at least 75% veg oil in. this is the most I have tried. it was a cold night, minus 2-4 and it was slow to start this morning and rough running until it warmed up then it has been fine. I have put two litres of unleaded in tonight to keep it thin....I will see what its like in the morning. the most I have put in before now has been 60% in the summer.

Graeme

The safest way to run veg oil is with a two tank system.

Lots of companies make kits but it's something that can easily be rigged up.

For some ideas, have a look at DieselVeg Home - Diesel to Vegetable Oil engine conversions


I wouldn't put unleaded in my tank but do blend my supply of veg oil with up to 20% white spirit ( turps substitute )


I did some vicocity tests with various blends and 5:1 rapeseed/white spirit emulated derv pretty well at low temperatures.

You try this at your own risk by the way.

Hello big red tractor, when you say the safest way to run veg oil is a two tank system, what do you mean by safe? are you talking about failure of injector pumps because of the viscosity of veg oil being greater than derv? or is there some other danger?
I have been running on a veg/diesel blend for miles with so far no problems.
As for putting unleaded in the tank it is a common thing in very cold climates to put petrol in with diesel to keep the stuff from gelling, so it does no harm as far as I am aware. I will of course post here as soon as something goes wrong.
As you say it is at our own risk. hopefully 'who dares wins'!

Graeme

Graysworld,

Yes, you're right.

Ideally, a two tank system with additional filters and perhaps a pre-heater for the veg would be the way to go. That way you can start and get warm on derv then switch over to veg. Switch back again a few minutes before you stop.

This allows more vehicles to burn veg. Yes, some motors just love it and run great on almost whatever you feed them. Others can be a bit more fussy.

My van is fine, but I wouldn't be happy running our HDI cars or our newer vans, without some conversion work.

Regards petrol as a solvent for your veg; it's more expensive than ghost.


Regards

I put in two litres of unleaded and that has stopped the bad running at start up..........I will put less veg oil in during this cold snap from now on. good to experiment though.

Graeme

Hi, if you take the right precautions you can sure drive on veggie oil, straight or waste vegetable oil.

I had installed a complete conversion of Elsbett, which can be done by yourself too (a DIY package is available).
I drive in summer and winter on 100%, in Europe as well in other continents

In the Netherlands it is NOT prohibited, as Noel said, it's a crime when you don't pay taxes for it, and you're able to do that in about a week after you used it.

A cool thing is, you can also combine driving on veggie oil with overlanding!

:-)


This man was wondering what a tourist does with so much sunflower oil! Although he knew I could not speak turkish, he couldn't resist trying to find out why I needed so much of this oil ;-)


Fill her up in the Sahara, oil bought in Marrakech, Morocco

This man was wondering what a tourist does with so much sunflower oil! Although he knew I could not speak turkish, he couldn't resist trying to find out why I needed so much of this oil ;-)

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http://300td.org - The weblog of a W123 on veggie oil

anybody have any knowledge of or advice about this :

Diesel Secret Energy

phil

Hi Phil. This looks like it is just an additive to add to your waste veggie oil. Although I've not read the whole web site, way too much writing!!
You still have to collect it from the chip shop (or wherever), you still have to filter it, and I guess heat it up to separate the water out. Then you add their fancy additive and you're away.
I guess the additive thins the veg oil out, to make it more like the consistency of diesel?
So, if you have (or want to make) a WVO processor, then maybe this additive will allow the content to work in a wider variety of vehicles.

I'm sure someone one here knows what to add to make veggie oil thinner? Kerosene, paraffin, petrol??

Cheers,
Matt

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I'm sure someone one here knows what to add to make veggie oil thinner?


No need to add anything, just pour out out on a tile or lino floor; you can get it down to a few mil. I thought we had this conversation?

Ch

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ummm, I've just tried Chris's thinning method, and..... I've made a right mess!

You can run a car on veggie oil straight in the tank, but not all cars. Some are more delicate than others. An hour on the internet will find a list of cars that are fine and cars that are not.
A lot of the problems are caused by the thickness (waxing up) of the veg oil when it's cold.
Mixed with diesel it's fine. But I assume this wonder additive makes the veggie oil the same consistency (and viscosity) of diesel. So then it should work with any diesel car.

Right, back to my cup of coffee. In fact a Nescafe 'collection' Espresso recommended by Andy at Allisport.

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Hi Matt / Chris (et al)

Yeas this 'wonder liquid' is surely just a concoction of ???? which keeps the oil thin, as you say perhaps kerosene would work just as good.

I'm still over here in the States (hot n sunny guys, - hot n sunny !!) and there is a netwrok of oil (or grease as they call it here) suppliers, guys that collect way more than they can use and they will 'process' the stuff and just sell it on at the current going rate here of $1.50 a gallon.

For my circumstances - constantly moving - it's not viable attempting on board processing but by jumping on net and finding supplies at all the major towns it is feasible to buy n use en-route.

The 'systems' here tend to be of design which heats not only the extra fuel (grease) tank but also the feed lines right up to the engine. tend to take the heat from radiator and they always advise starting and running on diesel until temperature hot enough and then (IMPORTANT) before stopping engine at end of day purge through the grease and ensure diesel is back in engine system.
I fitted a kit in beginning of January on a 2003 Golf tdi for a friend here, he's now done over 30k miles and has had no major issues.

My IVECO already has a spare fuel tank built in which gives me my storage. I cannot justify cost of a 'heating system' for the grease lines. So my plan is to run grease as a 75/25 mix ratio with diesel.
I'll keep pure diesel in my main tank and will purge through at end of day or if weather is getting too cold.

Think I should be ok.

opinions anyone ?????????

Phil.

By The Way - Matt, that little compressor I got from you is fan-tas-tic ! THE best auxillary item on board !

Morning all. One idea I had (but like all my other good ideas, I've never done anything about it!!) was to fit a Kenlowe (or any other) engine pre-heater.
The Kenlowe one is like a kettle electric element in a neat little housing with a pump. This is T'd into the heater hoses of the engine (very easy/simple). This is all 240v. You simply plug it into the mains, set it on a timer to come on 30mins before you need the car in the morning, and then you have a nice warm engine! Perfect for heating up the veg oil in the engine/injectors.
What I then thought would be good, was to incorporate this with a heated fuel filter (again, heating up the veggie oil) and, if you're feeling really frisky, you could have some sort of water pipes going around the bottom of the fuel tank, all plumbed up to the engine water system.
So in the morning when the pre-heater was on, it would heat the block, the fuel filter and the main tank. So you could run on 100% veggie.
This Kenlowe kit is about £300.
Some fuel filters have a water jacket around them already. Or, it would be very easy to simply make a coil of copper pipe around the filter, then have this plumbed into the water system on the car.

Right, I'm off to have my breakfast now...

Bye

Oh, thanks Phil. Yes, they are mighty things!

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