Biodiesel

[Disco44]

Hello All,
I have a 96 update TDI. When I was over in West Oz last year I used ,for the first time, Biodiesel . It was cheaper in a bout of higher fuel prices,134.9 against 145.9 a litre. The TDI performed brilliantly on it.The only advice that I can offer is to have a few fuel filters on hand as it certainly cleans the insides of the donk out.On start I had only blue smoke and very little against standard diesel very much on the black side. On bio it purred. Now that I am back on standard the black smoke has returned. The quicker we are able to get in all states the better is my opinion.
Cheers and safe driving to you all.

[Blknight.aus]

yep bio is great on the old school mechanical diesels....

but please dont use it in td5's theres a lot of reasons not to (to have a WAG it should be ok to use up to say 20% to pick a nominal figure from OOMA) but based purely on the high pressure lubricity (or lack thereof) of bio and the excess ethers and other crud that has the potential to be harmful to your injectors and seals its just not a good idea.

I will acknowlodge however that it is certainly with in the realms of reality to get a perfect batch of bio and blend in just enough addative to get the lubricity up to scratch and never have a problem with the TD5 but murphy just doesnt play that way with me.

[1103.9TDI]

Dave....any mods/adjustments that should be done to the Isuzu, prior to adding Bio-juice to the tank?....

[Blknight.aus]

short term or occasional useage no not really.

if you were going to convert to full time usage Id add a second sedimentor in parallel with the first or fit a larger one and swap all the seals over for new ones.

Depending on the quality of the bio you might want to back the injection timing off a degree or 2 but thats something thats probabley going to change from tank to tank.

Id also keep a spare set of lift pump, priming pump seals and filters in vac lock bags on board untill your on about your 5th or 6th tank (who am I kidding Id carry that anyway)


IMHO the suzie is a perfect candidate for bio.

[cameron]

yep bio is great on the old school mechanical diesels....

but please dont use it in td5's theres a lot of reasons not to (to have a WAG it should be ok to use up to say 20% to pick a nominal figure from OOMA) but based purely on the high pressure lubricity (or lack thereof) of bio and the excess ethers and other crud that has the potential to be harmful to your injectors and seals its just not a good idea.

I will acknowlodge however that it is certainly with in the realms of reality to get a perfect batch of bio and blend in just enough addative to get the lubricity up to scratch and never have a problem with the TD5 but murphy just doesnt play that way with me.

Hi Dave,
Biodiesel has higher lubricity when compared to petrodiesel so would you mind just running through exactly what you mean by this?

Thanks,
Cameron

[knp]

Gedday all,

We've been buying diesel from our local servo now for a good number of years.
Today I found out that they've been selling B20 - 20%biodiesel blended with petrodiesel - since about March this year apparently.

So it will be a very interesting experiment with our 2003 td5 disco to see how it goes in the next 6-12mths.

Details on the fuel can be found here:
http://www.freedomfuels.com.au/

I just hope I haven't jinxed myself by writing this. :)

Cheers
Peter

[Blknight.aus]

Hi Dave,
Biodiesel has higher lubricity when compared to petrodiesel so would you mind just running through exactly what you mean by this?

Thanks,
Cameron

sure...

Yes at normal temps and pressures (lets say TDI300 engines) 100% pure and correctly refined bio IS the better diesel in all respects full stop end of story on that count.

But... When you step out of the hypotetical perfect world Bio Aint Bio when its got water suspended in it that hasnt been dried out, ethers still in solution that havent been washed out and imperfections in the oil from using burnt oil.

Now in a normal situation low to medium pressure injectors (relatively speaking here ALL injection is high pressure) the bio is great, and the contaminants arent a problem But once you switch over to the High pressure injectors (21K+ psi) you start to run into problems.

First off the impurities cause little Islands in the oil between the moving part and the oil is expelled from the high points (lateral experiment;squeeze your thumb and forefinger together really really hard and put it in water, pull out, dry hand and when you pull your fingers apart the middle of the pressed together parts should be dry) that lack of lube causes problems. The knock on effect of this is if these contaminates causes an injector to fail to seat you will get dribbley injector or even worse a fail to close letting residual fuel pressure drain into the combustion chamber potentially hydraulicing the engine (not to bad for pots 1-4 but #5 doesnt have a glow plug you can pull out to vent it and I bet it will be the #5 that does it just to annoy you)

Secondly the bio can attack some seals and the lubricity of it when its warm and under just a little pressure means it can leak past some seals that dino diesel just wouldnt have, not so much of a problem on a TDI as the injection pump is only at about 15psi or so max and the entire fuel system is external to the engineso you can see the problem and fix the leaks.... On a TD% however about 50% of your fuel system is internal to the engine, get one of them leaking and your lube oil gets diluted with fuel. That'll kill you in one of 2 ways, by diluting the lube oil to the point that the engine siezes OR by leaking out the turbo seal/ venting out the crankcase ventilation into the inlet causing a run away (havent heard of that one yet but on paper its plausable)

The last way is with the effeciency with which Bio cleans. All the crud that was happilly adhered to the internals of your fuel system will no longer be so and you can get all of the problems from the first point but more likely will be the death of the fuel pump from having to pump the equivelent of gravel..


All that said...

I know of people who have run their TD5 on bio and are still doing so with no problems that people running dino arent having. But at $1700 odd for an injector, $1k for a pump, who knows how much to redo the head if it gets stuffed and how much? for a new donk if you get a run away. Bios not for me in the TD5...

It might be doable in the new ford donk But I havent yet specked that one out and dont own one so Im not likely to....

I do know that the old 2.25 runs just fine on dewatered and filterd cooking oil. did that in townsville for about 2 months as an experiment.

[cameron]

Thanks for the clarification Dave.

So from my reading it seems that the catalyst to problems developing (if they do) might generally be fuel quality issues related to insufficient filtering of impurities, water and incomplete processing. The rest relates to the chemical properties properties of the bio if those circumstances come into play.

If I have picked up on what you are saying (and paraphrased accurately enough for you) then I can certainly live with that!

As much as I love biodiesel I would always suggest that if you have a choice between good quality petrodiesel and poor quality off-spec biodiesel that you should go with the quality fuel everytime. We are lucky here in Sydney that we have an excellent commercial source.

Happy bioing (I don't know if that is a word but it is now...)

Cheers,
Cameron

[Gug]

I've been told I should replace all the fuel lines in my '93 tdi 200 with something called vitton(?). Is this true and if so where do you get it?

Cheers,
Gug

[Graz]

short term or occasional useage no not really.

if you were going to convert to full time usage Id add a second sedimentor in parallel with the first or fit a larger one and swap all the seals over for new ones.

Depending on the quality of the bio you might want to back the injection timing off a degree or 2 but thats something thats probabley going to change from tank to tank.

Id also keep a spare set of lift pump, priming pump seals and filters in vac lock bags on board untill your on about your 5th or 6th tank (who am I kidding Id carry that anyway)


IMHO the suzie is a perfect candidate for bio.

On a bit of a side issue, Approx a year ago I posted on this site the failure of a near new lift pump on my 200TDI after using B20. At the time the bio was considered to be the cause of the failure. This is not the case as I have had the diaphram soaking in 100% bio for three months and there is no indication of deterioration or damage.

[B92 8NW]

No Land Rover product is approved for use with Bio Diesel.

Please PM me if you wish to know my experiences over 10,000km and those of the excellent Bosch agent who rebuilt my fuel system.

[Bushwanderer]

No Land Rover product is approved for use with Bio Diesel.

Please PM me if you wish to know my experiences over 10,000km and those of the excellent Bosch agent who rebuilt my fuel system.

I'm sure that Joel is right.

I remember, however, the hoohar about ethanol in petrol engines. It took some time before the manufacturers, generally, accepted a 10% ethanol blend.

Having said that, the manual for my TDV6 EXPLICITLY states that the motor is unsuited to biodiesel. I'm not going to risk it.

[chosen]

G'day!

For those of you out there who know how to make bio-diesel the old fashioned way - modern more commercial ways of separating the esters from the fatty acids (and alike) often include the use of a centrifuge... this is a fantastic way of producing bio-diesel and it creates a highly consistent quality of fuel!!!

John Howards Fuel excise has stumped the industry somewhat in Australia but it hopefully will take off and with new technology and sources of bio oils such as algae an extremely high quality fuel should be the result!

Chosen

[tannery]

err.. hi.

if you would like to hear of my experiences of using 100% home made biodiesel with NO problems, then feel free to PM me.

I ran my 2001 TD5 on 100% home made biodiesel for 6months, with no probs.

regards,

[B92 8NW]

Hi Bob,

I have noticed your articles on LROCV forum and magazine on Biodiesel in your 'Fender. It is good to hear that you have successfully been using your Td5 on B100 without problems.

However the fact remains that Land Rover has not approved any of their products to date to operate on Bio-diesel fuel, and this is clearly printed in the operator's manual. Now just because Land Rover hasn't approved their engines for Bio-diesel use, doesn't mean it wont work. It will, my Tdi ran quite well on it.

As Blknight.aus will very adeptly explain, biodiesel is not suitable in modern diesel engines with extremely high injection pressures. I wouldn't take the risk of using B100 when a set of Td5 injectors is $6000 upwards. Clearly Land Rover also are not willing to take this risk, especially when the quality of Biodiesel can vary. Prior to using branded Bio Diesel I tried purchasing through people who home made it, they were all very unwilling to sell, my guess was due to fear of litigation... a homemade product not built to any Australian Standards, not subjected to stringent quality screening etc.

The old adage of "diesel engines were designed to run on peanut oil" is completely irrelevant in the present. For one, Bosch VE pumps and KBEL injectors are developed to run exclusively on DIESEL and the warranty is void automatically if Biodiesel is used. I'm not voiding a warranty that cost me $2,000.

As Bushwanderer states, perhaps eventually Land Rover will allow biodiesel to be used, most likely at 5%. But at concentrations of 100%, its very very unlikely to happen.

[Blknight.aus]

I've been told I should replace all the fuel lines in my '93 tdi 200 with something called vitton(?). Is this true and if so where do you get it?

Cheers,
Gug

most good hydraulic supply places should be able to help you out with this, That said the good quality hose at super cheap (stuff thats on a roll thats behind the counter and about 20% dearer than the on shelf stuff) makes a passing grade for it. More important is the seals in the system they will need to be replaced with the newer vitton type seals when they start to leak. Ideally they should be done before they leak but if it aint broke dont fix it.


On a bit of a side issue, Approx a year ago I posted on this site the failure of a near new lift pump on my 200TDI after using B20. At the time the bio was considered to be the cause of the failure. This is not the case as I have had the diaphram soaking in 100% bio for three months and there is no indication of deterioration or damage.

It still can be for a couple of reasons the first of which is a bad batch of bio the second being that if a batch of good bio loosened off depoists that sat on the diaphram while it was working they may have worked a hole into it. But more than likey you just got a bad diaphram or it wasnt installed correctly from factory/rebuild.



I'm sure that Joel is right.

I remember, however, the hoohar about ethanol in petrol engines. It took some time before the manufacturers, generally, accepted a 10% ethanol blend.

Having said that, the manual for my TDV6 EXPLICITLY states that the motor is unsuited to biodiesel. I'm not going to risk it.

about 1/2 of that hooha was because the ethanol used to make the dodgy seals and hoses leak which was a fire hazard... Rather than print the actual facts and the not so damaging claim it was easier (and suited the oil catels more) to print up the hooha. If you have a newer european styled/copied donk I bet given 20 minutes with it I can show you a semi hidden cable with a fuse on the end of it that if you change the fuses position over will net you a little more power and cleaner running if you run on E10+.

They hyundias to my knowlodge all have it and theres even an obscure reference to it in the Excels (1999-2002 that I know of) handbook.

[tannery]

funny that the manual in Australian Land rovers say that biodiesel isn't to be used.. but in Europe, Biodiesel is in ALL French Diesel, to 5%...

so, don't diesel Land rovers fill up in France?

it is appears to be a more widely accepted fuel in other parts of the world..

regards,

:cool:

[geoffo]

I'm also led to believe that bio's main concern is it forms crystals when the temp gets below 5 degrees (I think). Apparently this is the main reason for the filters clogging. Not an issue in some areas but of concern in others.

[Blknight.aus]

it doesnt form crystals (if it does its not made correctly) but it does start to "wax" but then so does summer weight petrodiesel theres addatives you can put in to prevent it but in places that sell dieso where the "waxing" point of petrodiesel is likely to be reached it comes in the fuel premixed thats why theres "summer weight" and "winter weight" dieso.

Once upon a time when service stations were service stations complete with pump attendants that knew to ask you to pop the hood so they could check the oil, coolant, belts, general condition of the engine bay, then read the tyre placard so they could check the tyre pressure clean the windshield and fill the tank while you had a coffee or icecream in the airconditioned diner might remember the little signs they used to hang on the diesel bowsers for winter and summer. If they had both the attendants would usually ask where you were going and would you like winter or summer weight diesel.

[mcrover]

funny that the manual in Australian Land rovers say that biodiesel isn't to be used.. but in Europe, Biodiesel is in ALL French Diesel, to 5%...

so, don't diesel Land rovers fill up in France?

it is appears to be a more widely accepted fuel in other parts of the world..

regards,

:cool:

The quality (as with all fuels in OZ) of Bio in europe is meant to be far better than what we are seeing over here AT THE MOMENT (I will state in capitals as to not upset anyone):D

The quality control and the consistancy is not up to scratch as yet but it will get there and then I suspect that there will be significant pressure on car manufacturers to manufacture vehicals which can run Bio fuels (or at least allow the use of them).

[303gunner]

The quality (as with all fuels in OZ) of Bio in europe is meant to be far better than what we are seeing over here AT THE MOMENT (I will state in capitals as to not upset anyone):D

The quality control and the consistancy is not up to scratch as yet but it will get there ......
You haven't upset me, but I'd be curious to know where you get the info that Aust Bio isn't up to scratch?

In order to qualify for the Federal Gov's 38c fuel rebate, a Biodiesel producer MUST test each batch to ensure that it meets or exceeds the standards. Commercially produced biodiesel fuel REGURLARLY EXCEEDS these standards by a significant margin, indeed exceeds the quality of petro-Diesel.

Certain independant fuel resellers like Volume Plus have had situations where poor quality fuel is sold through their bowsers, but they have been plagued by that problem long before they started blending Bio. Where they source their fuel from is something they do not reveal, nor can they supply any data as to the quality of their fuel. Poor fuel handling and cutting with dubious additives is a problem that seems to belong to some independant chains, and they often won't stand by the quality of the fuel they sell.

[Johno99]

Hi all,

Been toying with Bio since I bought my TD5 disco 4 years ago... if I lived in a house I'd have a go. Thinking the Body Corporate for my unit might have something to say about drums of Methanol on the balcony...? :D

Anyway, interesting discussion, obviously some experience here. Few random links I found on my travels around the internet, for background reading if anyone's interested.

The first explains the Viton question (under "Biodiesel and your vehicle"), used in answer to Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel introduced in mid-90's in Europe.

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html
http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/
http://www.ebony-solutions.co.uk/
http://www.greenfuels.co.uk/
http://www.biodiesel.org.au/
http://www.goldenfuels.com/

Some are commercial, but I hope 'tis of interest anyway...

[Kimbrover]

sure...

Yes at normal temps and pressures (lets say TDI300 engines) 100% pure and correctly refined bio IS the better diesel in all respects full stop end of story on that count.

But... When you step out of the hypotetical perfect world Bio Aint Bio when its got water suspended in it that hasnt been dried out, ethers still in solution that havent been washed out and imperfections in the oil from using burnt oil.

Now in a normal situation low to medium pressure injectors (relatively speaking here ALL injection is high pressure) the bio is great, and the contaminants arent a problem But once you switch over to the High pressure injectors (21K+ psi) you start to run into problems.

First off the impurities cause little Islands in the oil between the moving part and the oil is expelled from the high points (lateral experiment;squeeze your thumb and forefinger together really really hard and put it in water, pull out, dry hand and when you pull your fingers apart the middle of the pressed together parts should be dry) that lack of lube causes problems. The knock on effect of this is if these contaminates causes an injector to fail to seat you will get dribbley injector or even worse a fail to close letting residual fuel pressure drain into the combustion chamber potentially hydraulicing the engine (not to bad for pots 1-4 but #5 doesnt have a glow plug you can pull out to vent it and I bet it will be the #5 that does it just to annoy you)

Secondly the bio can attack some seals and the lubricity of it when its warm and under just a little pressure means it can leak past some seals that dino diesel just wouldnt have, not so much of a problem on a TDI as the injection pump is only at about 15psi or so max and the entire fuel system is external to the engineso you can see the problem and fix the leaks.... On a TD% however about 50% of your fuel system is internal to the engine, get one of them leaking and your lube oil gets diluted with fuel. That'll kill you in one of 2 ways, by diluting the lube oil to the point that the engine siezes OR by leaking out the turbo seal/ venting out the crankcase ventilation into the inlet causing a run away (havent heard of that one yet but on paper its plausable)

The last way is with the effeciency with which Bio cleans. All the crud that was happilly adhered to the internals of your fuel system will no longer be so and you can get all of the problems from the first point but more likely will be the death of the fuel pump from having to pump the equivelent of gravel..


All that said...

I know of people who have run their TD5 on bio and are still doing so with no problems that people running dino arent having. But at $1700 odd for an injector, $1k for a pump, who knows how much to redo the head if it gets stuffed and how much? for a new donk if you get a run away. Bios not for me in the TD5...

It might be doable in the new ford donk But I havent yet specked that one out and dont own one so Im not likely to....

I do know that the old 2.25 runs just fine on dewatered and filterd cooking oil. did that in townsville for about 2 months as an experiment.
Sorry, do you mean you used straight vege oil in your tank? I have a td5 and was hoping to be able to convert it to a two tank system to run svo. Do you know of anyone who has tried that?
Kim

[Blknight.aus]

yes Ive run a rover on plain old whatever the hell the local chip shop was using at the time that I got their waste oil from them

it WASNT a td5 it was an old 2.25 diesel engine, the one that now resides in kermit.

[Kimbrover]

Has anyone ever seen a twin tank system for straight vege oil fitted to a td5?

[LandyAndy]

Hi Kim
The general idea is.
WITH A TD5 STICK TO DINO DIESEL!!!!!!
Dont even touch bio-diesel from the servo!!!!
Old deisels yep,not modern electronic diesels,the injectors dont enjoy chewing on a bit of old flake or burnt chip.
They need good quality dino diesel!!!
Andrew

[dobbo]

Has anyone ever seen a twin tank system for straight vege oil fitted to a td5?


Yes I have and from last account the car was still going very strong, I'm not doing it to my TD5 though

[klappers]

Hey people just thought that I would put a little bit of a different spin on things. I am a High Pressure Water Blaster! This means that I deal with water pressure upwards of 1000bar and peaking at just over 2500bar...which is in excess of 35,000psi. I can tell you that at 1700bar and over water does compress...random fact. But what my point is, is that in order to achieve these high levels of pressure than the opening (or nozzels) that we use is in the point of a mm. That means that on a three nozzel rotor cleaning head I would run (depending on the pump) I need to run three .035 of a mm nozzle. Now I also need a 1 micron filter on my pump, and there is no way i would be running bio in any common rail diesel!!!!

[tannery]

FYI -

There is a report from the CSIRO available from:

Caltex - Welcome (http://www.caltex.com.au) (sorry, no other reference)
or
The greenhouse and air quality emissions of biodiesel blends in Australia (Publication - Technical) (http://www.csiro.au/resources/pf13o)

from that report: (ripped without permission, but acknowledgements to CSIRO)

"The research concludes that using pure biodiesel or blending biodiesel with standard fuel can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector.
The greenhouse gas savings do however depend on the feedstock used to produce the biodiesel.
The highest savings are obtained by replacing base diesel with biodiesel from used cooking oil."


makes interesting reading..



Caltex use a 2% blend of biodiesel in their "New Generation Diesel"..
regards,
Paul.

[Johno99]

Has anyone ever seen a twin tank system for straight vege oil fitted to a td5?

People selling the kit...

ATG Vegetable Oil Kit - Vegetable Oil Conversion for Diesel Vehicles (http://www.diesel-therm.com/vegetable-oil-kit.htm)

They quote a TD5... but, of course, they are selling the kit!! I have had no contact with them; just found them on my Bio web-browsing travels...

[Blknight.aus]

If you really want to do it on a td5 I can show you how to set it up after you decide where to put your tank.

all you need is a 65psi intank fuel pump, (Id also suggest a fuel preheater in the tank) and a pair of electically operated single spool change over valves plumbed to suit the fuel lines (more filters go without saying)

hook it up like any other diesel change over system but when you switch to bio from normal fuel you hit both switches at once and when you turn back you turn the supply over first, let it run for a couple of minutes (make sure you dont have a full bio tank) then switch the return over which is essentially purging the lines.

finding places to put it all is going to be the challange.