Canola Oil, Veggie oil, coconut oil...anyone?

[kando]

G'day mates,

As you have probably guessed, I'm a great believer in Biodiesel and Ethanol for fuels and I'm always reading-up on new methods of producing home brewed fuels, but with Biodiesel I have one little problem and it's this.:(
I would like to use the cheapest "new" canola oil, veggie oil, coconut oil? Or a mixture of oils that I can find but I'm having a problem in sourcing any new oils in drums larger than 20L for my test! I'm looking for a 44 or 50 gallon drum of oil and if things work-out as I expect them to, this could lead to larger purchases of oils down the track.
Would anyone on the forum have any idea on where I could buy a 44 or 50 gallon drum of canola oil, veggie oil or coconut oil? The oil doesn’t need to be graded for human consumption and I can use any of the oils, i.e. Canola, Coconut, Veggie oil or a mixture of oils.
If I can find 44 or 50 gallons of oil…at the right price…I’ll convert it to biodiesel, trial it in my 1994 Disco 300 TDI and publish my finding here on the forum and on http://www.biofuelsforum.com/
Any pointers on a supplier of 44 or 50 gallon drums of oil/s would be most welcome as all suppliers I can find only supply in 20 litre cans!

Cheers mates and thanks in advance for any help you can supply,

Bill from Corio… Kando

[sclarke]

Mate of mine Tony Deamer in Vanuatu makes Coco-deisel.

He swears by it.
i'll get his email for you.

motor-traders@vanuatu.com.vu

[101RRS]

As vegetable oil is half the price of diesel in the UK, I have noted on the UK forums that some people are using it without converting it to biodiesel - straight into the tank with various % of diesel mixed in - seems to run OK with performance droppng off with increasing % vege oil but still runs OK - remapping of ECU seems to reduce this. I have seen posts with 75% vege oil and 25% diesel and still seems to run OK. Posters seem to think that if a engine was designed from the start to just run on vege oil it would work - I am a bit sceptical as it would probably continue to run when hot but unlikely when cold - maybe start on diesel and switch to vege oil.

Anyone have experience with vege oil (not boidiesel) in Aust?

Gazzz

Anyone tried

[kando]

As vegetable oil is half the price of diesel in the UK, I have noted on the UK forums that some people are using it without converting it to biodiesel - straight into the tank with various % of diesel mixed in - seems to run OK with performance droppng off with increasing % vege oil but still runs OK - remapping of ECU seems to reduce this. I have seen posts with 75% vege oil and 25% diesel and still seems to run OK. Posters seem to think that if a engine was designed from the start to just run on vege oil it would work - I am a bit sceptical as it would probably continue to run when hot but unlikely when cold - maybe start on diesel and switch to vege oil.

Anyone have experience with vege oil (not boidiesel) in Aust?

Gazzz

Anyone tried
G'day Gazzz,
Haven’t tried straight veggie oil myself but to the best of my knowledge, you need two tanks to run straight veggie oil and diesel. Apparently the tank holding the straight veggie oil need to be heated so I think I'll stick with converting whichever oil I get to biodiesel, that way I just pour it straight into my tank and if I run low on Biodiesel...I just top-up on petrodiesel... enough to get me home where I can fill-up on Biodiesel :D

G’day Sclarke, is this your mates email address motor-traders@vanuatu.com.vu?
If so, I’ll shoot him off an email but the cost of shipping only a few 50 gallon drums from Vanuatu to Geelong or Melbourne may make the project unfeasible.
Still, it won’t hurt to try.

Thanks for your views mates, it's early days so lets see what comes up.
Kando...Bill from Corio :spudnikwaving:

[George130]

Don't know where to get those volumes but a friend who was setting up to make biodeisel was surprised by one of his contacts who bought out all the canola oil at wollies one week when they had it on sale. I can get my hands on 250l of used cooking oil but havn't tried setting the gear up yet.

[DEFENDERZOOK]

its getting hard to get anything in drums bigger than 20 litres these days due to too many
compo claims against bad backs from moving the drums around.....

painters cop it the worst as they are now bringing the paint out in 15 litre drums.....
at the same price as 20ltr.....

at work we use oil at a rate of 4 or 5 ltrs per vehicle......we get in 20 ltr drums for the above reason....
the job i got was actually as a replacement for the guy who is off on compo for moving a 205ltr drum........

you may be able to find a bulk supplier and either rock up with your own drums....
or have them come to you and fill your own drums on site.....
just like in the days of oil heating.....when the truck used to come round and fill your
oil tanks at home......

i dont see the large food manufacturers such as white wings etc. getting their oil in 20ltr drums......
i would say they get it by the tanker load......straight to their holding tanks.......

[kie4]

Hi my old 200tdi ran on new veggie oil, now my 300tdi does. the engine takes a bit longer to start, but once started all you notice is the smell of the exhaust gasses(bit like a chip shop).
due to the colder climate in winter here in the uk I add 1 gallon of paraffin to a tank of oil, that thins it out a bit.
I also ran a vauxhall 17d astra on paraffin with engine oil mixture approx 4/1 ratio( smells better).
I was told the old farmers years ago used this mixture as a cheep alternative for their farm machinery.
Is it legal to run on veggie oil in australia ?
In the uk you can use it if you pay duty on it and as its an alternative fuel the tax is as much as the oil approx 35p.although 70p a litre is better than the £1 per litre for diesel.

cheers
Richard

[kando]

Is it legal to run on veggie oil in australia ?
In the uk you can use it if you pay duty on it and as its an alternative fuel the tax is as much as the oil approx 35p.although 70p a litre is better than the £1 per litre for diesel.

cheers
Richard
G'day Richard,

Yes mate, it is legal to run veggie oil in our vehicles, I don't use it because it's still cheeper to buy diesel than to buy veggie oil from supermarkets to turn into biodiesel. For brewing Biodiesel for use in our vehicles we are to register and pay a tax of 38 cents, see below:

Later that year the balance changed. Government-formulated biodiesel standards were put in place, shortly followed by the introduction of a 38 cents excise tax on biodiesel.
"The Government made a commitment that there would never be an excise on biofuels in 1998," says Lake, who is also a shareholder of the Australian Biodiesel Group.
"Then they go and excise ethanol and biodiesel at the same rate as oil."
However there is an out clause. If producers can meet the Government's biodiesel standards they can claim a full rebate of 38 cents, which makes it effectively tax-free until 2011 when it drops to a 19 cent rebate.
Read the full facts here: http://www.abc.net.au/catapult/indepth/s1515906.htm

Once again, Australian pollies prove to us all that any promises they make to us…the people and the employers of pollies …are worthless!

Bill from Corio

[Graz]

Richard
How long did you run bio diesel in your 200 TDI and was it 100% bio?

One bio site I visited advised not to use bio in the TDI's due to fouling of the Injector tips.i.e. a cone shaped build up of crud on the tips as the injectors are placed in the combustion area ( direct injection ).

A couple inputs in this section advise a loss of power using a bio mix. It would be interesting to see the quality controls during manufacture e.g. was it properly washed.

Regards

[longreach]

:cool: Hi,I worked for a for a company,driving trucks years ago......thy sold veggy oil in bulk,mainly to export.......the company was P F D food services......that was here up in brisbane......but there also down in Melbourne,I dont no if thy sell to the public(there wholesale):eek: :eek:

[kie4]

Hi Graz. It wasnt bio diesel It was just cooking oil straight off the shelf of the supermarket. I was using it almost constantly for 3 years. because I had used it for so long I didnt notice any lack of power. Its had to judge the output of power on landrovers as they differ so much, For instance Im using a 300tdi discovery from work as mine is on its way to WA and its the slowest landrover ive ever driven.my 200 was much quicker, if you are thinking of trying it and dont like it just revert back to diesel.
cheers
Richard

[kando]

Hi Graz. It wasnt bio diesel It was just cooking oil straight off the shelf of the supermarket. I was using it almost constantly for 3 years. because I had used it for so long I didnt notice any lack of power. Its had to judge the output of power on landrovers as they differ so much, For instance Im using a 300tdi discovery from work as mine is on its way to WA and its the slowest landrover ive ever driven.my 200 was much quicker, if you are thinking of trying it and dont like it just revert back to diesel.
cheers
Richard
G'day Richard,
Did you use new veggie oil straight into the main fuel tank or did you have a second fuel tank for veggie oil?
I run a 94 Disco 300TDI and some of the bio forums say that you can't run veggie oil in a 300TDI unless you use two fuel tanks, one for diesel and a second tank, heated, for the veggie oil but if you're saying you used straight veggie oil in a Disco 300TDI for around three years and had no problems, then I would like to test it for myself.

Cheers,
Bill

[chunk]

PFD also have outlets in Blacktown and Wollongong and will sell most things direct to the public. i buy bulk bread mix for the bread maker at home.

[JohnE]

Fallas
i saw something interesting on the SBS channel a short time ago, it was the french news, ( I don't speak french) But it had something to dowith fuelk and the price in France. Anyway the story showed all these small cars driving about, photos of fuel prices. Then at the end a guy in a small car, not sure what it was maybe a peugot(looked a bit like a toyota echo)drove to a farm, the farmer got a whole heap of small balck seeds, think it was canola, but them through a crusher and oil came out, it was filtered then poured straight into the cars fuel tank, the owner gave the farmer some money then drove off. It was vey interesting. Perhaps the deisels over there are geared up for any type of oil as fuel. I don't know.
Last year when we were in italy and greece i saw that many deisel cars, all small, it wasn't funny. The best one i saw was in the south of italy, a toyota echo, on the back was a TDI badge. I checked it and it was definately a diesel. I had a look around the aussie toyota sites and no mention of an echo in deisel.That made me wonder if they make them for the european market why don't we get them here?

anyway thats my 5 cents worth, I wouldn't mind trying straight veggie oil in my tractor, an old 35 fergy. But I am not sure if, with veggie oil if you need to have a glow plug start. the fergy starts first go on deisel, i don't even have to hit the preheater. Has anybody experimented with tractors yet.

john

[dobbo]

Instead of a few 44 gallon drums wouldn't it be better to have one of those pallets for trasporting liquids. I don't know they're name though I think they're a tonne in weight when full and basically a steel cube frame with a large plastic vessel with a tap insides it. As for filling it try contacting one of the suppliers for woolies, bilo etc.........

[kie4]

Hi Bill, I used it for 3 years ish in my 200tdi and for 6month to date in my 300 tdi . I put veggie oil from the supermarket straight into the main fuel tank and it works fine.
Have you seen a program called Top Gear, its a really good motoring program on the tv. They done a test on a Volvo , drained the tank and the fuel lines /pipes etc, put filtered used veggie oil into the tank and drove away. unless its really cold there isnt a problem with burning veggie oil.
The diesel engine was designed to burn oil, not diesel. diesel came along much later.
Cheers
Richard

[Graz]

Richard

Sorry to labouring the point a bit.

Injector fouling didn't seem to be an issue for you or were you cleaning them.

You don't recall what vegy oil it was e.g. Canola, Sunflower or a blend

Thanks and regards

Graham

[kando]

Hi Bill, I used it for 3 years ish in my 200tdi and for 6month to date in my 300 tdi . I put veggie oil from the supermarket straight into the main fuel tank and it works fine.
Have you seen a program called Top Gear, its a really good motoring program on the tv. They done a test on a Volvo , drained the tank and the fuel lines /pipes etc, put filtered used veggie oil into the tank and drove away. unless its really cold there isnt a problem with burning veggie oil.
The diesel engine was designed to burn oil, not diesel. diesel came along much later.
Cheers
Richard
G'day Richard,

When you say:
The diesel engine was designed to burn oil, not diesel. diesel came along much later.

You're telling me nothing new ;)

As an old deep sea marine engineer, we would use diesel for running our boiler, manoeuvring the ship in port, coming into or leaving port but once we were under-way, we would change to heavy black oil for running our "diesels". The heavy oil had to be heated in the holding tanks before being pumped up to the fuel tanks and from the fuel tanks it would be fed to our 14,000 HP (or whatever HP) "diesel" engine/s.
That heavy black oil was so thick you could shovel it! We could never have used it as fuel if we did not thin it first by heating it. :o
Once the heavy oil was in our header tanks, it was kept heated and had to be drained of water every hour on the hour. (The water build-up was caused by condensation from keeping the oil warm in the holding tanks)
On smaller commercial coastal vessels, trawlers and motor yachts that I worked on, the fuel was strictly diesel, this was and is due, I believe, to lack of space to store and handle heavy oil as fuel on small craft. I do know that's its much cheaper to run a vessel on heavy oil than on diesel and that's why heavy oil is used as the main fuel on large merchant ships.

At present I’m trialling a few fuel saving items, one is a pill that is placed in the fuel tank before I fill-up each time, the pill can be used with petrol, diesel, biodiesel or cooking oil and will not alter the fuels chemistry, in fact it’s more of an engine treatment than a fuel additive. I have already trialled the pill in my Ford Fairlane and I’m real happy with the results, now I’ll be testing the pills in my Disco 300TDI. ;)
I have already completed the first part of the test, which started with me driving from Corio in Victoria to Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, picked-up a pop-top caravan and brought it back to Corio.
I travelled 3,643KM in total, and I used 390.97L of diesel which equates to 10.74L per 100KM, 1,851KM was covered pulling a caravan and I used two tanks of Biodiesel, plus I drove at 110-120KMPH heading up north and 100–110 KMPH most of the way home with the van in tow.
I am now doing a run-a-bout-town test on one tank of diesel and when that is finished I’ll be doing another run-a-bout-town test with a tank of diesel but I’ll add the pill to this lot of fuel for that test. Then I’ll do a third test using straight veggie oil and the fourth and final test will be on veggie oil with the pill added.
As for purchasing cooking oils?
I have contacted a few companies, PDF included, seeking to purchase 1,000 or 1,200L of canola, sunflower, veggie, coconut or a mixture of those oils; either pure or contaminated, i.e. unfit for human consumption but so far even the big wholesalers, including PDF, say, they only supply 20L drums.
Each company also ask why I want such a large quantity, I tell them it’s for experimental purposes and so-far only PDF say they will see if they can help me find the oil in the quantity I’m looking for.
Anyway, we’ll see how we go and I’ll publish my finding on the forum.
If the engine treatment pills I mentioned earlier in this post work in my diesel half as good as they worked in the petrol Fairlane, then you can bet your life I’ll be using the pill in my Disco 300TDI fuel to save me even more money :D

Cheers mate,

kando...Bill from Corio

[kando]

Don't know where to get those volumes but a friend who was setting up to make biodeisel was surprised by one of his contacts who bought out all the canola oil at wollies one week when they had it on sale. I can get my hands on 250l of used cooking oil but havn't tried setting the gear up yet.
G'day Edd,
I know Yass well mate, a nice little spot :) if I could find a steady supply of used cooking oil...not the stuff that turns into a solid block of what looks like lard but the stuff that stayes liquid...then I would grab it quick smart, it's easy...with the right Additive...to convert this to biodiesel and you don't need any special equipment to work the magic.
From what others have said on this post, you don't need to convert this oil to biodiesel, if it's the liquid oil and not solidified oils, then you can just strain it to remove any solids and use it with no other treatment.
Just to be on the safe side, I would place a good filter before the fuel pump, a glass bowl filter that is easy to remove and clean...can't think of their name but I'm sure someone here will know the glass bowl filters I'm referring to.

Cheers mate, let's know how you get on :D

kando...Bill from Corio

[rangieman]

how about cav filters is that what you mean:D

[kando]

how about cav filters is that what you mean:D
G'day Rangie,
Not exactly what I was referring to…the CAV filters at:
http://www.4wdsystems.com.au/html/cavfilter.htm
look to be much better than the ones I was referring to but then…
I’m going back over 20 years so offcourse things will have got better…I hope :D

[Disco_Drivin_Dude]

Hi Bill, I used it for 3 years ish in my 200tdi and for 6month to date in my 300 tdi . I put veggie oil from the supermarket straight into the main fuel tank and it works fine.
Have you seen a program called Top Gear, its a really good motoring program on the tv. They done a test on a Volvo , drained the tank and the fuel lines /pipes etc, put filtered used veggie oil into the tank and drove away. unless its really cold there isnt a problem with burning veggie oil.
The diesel engine was designed to burn oil, not diesel. diesel came along much later.
Cheers
Richard

I have this episode of Top Gear on my PC. The oil, which had been used to cook with, came from a fish & chip shop. All they did was filter the oil VERY well and added a very small amount of NON-mineral based white spirit to help keep the oil thin. The guys on the show reckon that there is no loss of power and if anything, gives better mileage.

As for buying oil in bulk, my mate owns a oil filtering service (cooking oil that is). He reckons he can't buy oil in anything other than 20L drums or bladder filled boxes. If he could, he would, as a 44 gallon drum should cost less than 20 odd 20L drums.

[Wortho]

Straight veggie oil is not a good thing long term for your engine as the glycerin in the oil will cause glazing in the bores and gum up the engine which is why you remove the glycerin when making biodiesel.And yes diesel engines were origanelly made to run on peanut oil but do you think that modern diesel(direct inj and common rail) engines were made with straight oil in mind.
Correct me if i'm wrong though.