simple bio-diesel?

Having made bio-diesel for over 15 years,I can only say you get out what you put in,if your running a inline injector pump you have some leeway,but for rotorary pumps(tdi's) and common rail engines ,fuel quality is vital! Poorly made fuel gives the user a headache and the industry a bad name,there are no short cuts to making good fuel,but there are efficient methods and Journey to forever is a good site.I've allways tried to make the best fuel possible and as a result have had no major problems and the hickups that did happen were sorted out years ago.All my fuel is two-stage cracked,every batch titrated,washed,p-h tested and dried before being dosed with anti oxidation treatment,this is necessary to stop red deposits forming due to fuel breakdown,these deposits build up and become sticky causing problems in some fuel systems (td5 pumps and some common rail pumps),its up to you how much reliability you want out of your vehicle and how much spare time you have,cheers!!!:)

hi all I would like to tell story about what we now call bio fuel,
a long time ago when I was but a lad I was listening to an old mate of my dads talking about his time in the war as a diesel mech. and what they use to use when the supply truck couldn't get through, he was saying they would use the old oil from the deep fryers and the trucks and thin it down with anything that was combustible mainly kero until it was about as thick as standard diesel fuel. now having this info stored in the memory banks one day I came across this 81 hj60 cruiser in the back yard of house I was doing work on, I asked the elderly owner what he was going to do with it, he told me he had bought it to travel around aust with wife which they did 3 times, checking the odometer I seen it had over 450,000ks on it, it had sat in his yard ever since his wife had past (about 3 years), and I could have it for $500 if I wanted it. no rego but good tires and looked clean with a little rust in the roof area as they do, it had a 2h diesel with a nippondenso pump, low and behold it started first go so I bought it got a blue slip a put rego on it and drove it around for about six mths then lost my job, no job no money no money no fuel, then I remember that conversation I heard years before, so down to the local takeaway/fish shop I went, what do you do with the old oil in your frier's I asked, we shot it out they replied, can I get some next you clean out the vats no prob they said come back next week, this I did and received 120lt of old fryer oil, I took it home and began to filter it, I ended up with 90lt of clean veg oil, down to the servo and got 20lt of kero, mixed the kero with oil until it flowed like diesel ended up with about 50lt of fuel oil and poured it in to my almost empty tank started it up and drove it around all week with out a problem, It ended up working out that in summer I could mix it 60-40 ratio 60 oil 40 kero/diesel and in the winter it was the reverse I drove that thing for 5 more years on those mixes with no probs at all, however a mate asked me what and how I was doing it so being a mate I told him he has a 4.2lt Patrol and lives in QLD thank havens because not long after he tried my mix the fuel pump blew up and cost him a packet to replace as they do, just so happens the mech he took it to new about the exploits of the war and said therer were only a few pumps the could handle the hi oil mix and one was the one on the h2 toyota motors. anyway it was a cheap drive until the dreaded brown cancer final put it off the road. well thats my story and I hope you enjoyed it.

I thought I'd forgotten about BioDiesel, especially as I've crossed to the Dark Side... (SPARK ignition).

So here's the question and the answer in one.

"Where do you want to do your mucking about, ON the vehicle or OFF the vehicle?"

If its 'On', then you set up a dual tank Waste Veggie Oil system with heater and switchable return etc etc.

If you want your vehicle bog-standard, then you make biodiesel in your shed/backyard/garage and pour it into the fuel tank.

Your choice. - influenced only by the space you have, vehicle and what the War Office will let you get away with...

Either way, the *only* place to start is:-

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There are no shrt cts, spend more than a few evenings reading up the archives, see 'who' was doing what and where from... - Quite a lot of the really Good Stuff is from Aussie members.

Couple of names, Neutral knows his stuff inside and out.... Tilly has the ability to make the most complex stuff easy to digest and replicate, Biocruiser will show you a great way to water-wash. - Tilly actually is a Yank,, but he's had the Operation and now understands our humour. Lives up in sunny Queensland.

Word about washing. You either do or you could pay for it in the very very long term, most likely if you use it in a late model wussy diesel. The older ones before Engine management comps were made of sterner stuff.

If you do, then you do it properly, that is, with water, not with flocculating powders as one commercial maker used to.... - Don't ask, cost me a filter and a tow home.... Also dry it well, and use a fuel conditioner/Algacide.
And be fussy about your feed-stock. Filter it at every possible excuse!

The chemistry is'nt difficult to live with, large doses of common sense will keep you alive and those around you, but for the usual Nanny-state Legal Reasons I'm advising "everyone" to never-ever do it or even think about it 'cos its all terribly lethal, dangerous, explosive, poisonous, corrosive messy and against some law somewhere.

You still here?

- THIS is where you need to be!

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James from Perth

look up the DR pepper method, thats where I started....

that'll give you a feel for the ground.

I turfed making bio when alex got big enough to go exploring around the yard and got rid of everything..

now I just filter it, heat it dewater it, stick it in the tank, add about 40l of diesel to 120l of WVO and call it done. I have 4 filters between the main WVO tank and the injector pump, 3 water seperators and 3 strainers. There are 3 tanks on the vehicle 1 blended WVO tank, the main running tank and the spare tank that always has fresh diesel in it. IF I pooch the mix a little I just keep on chugging and flow more fresh diesel into the running mix.

I do get some bad days, but then I'm a mechanic and its usually less than 10 minutes to sort most problems.

The petrol stations in Qld are all putting out petrol with 10% ethanol. It is a little cheaper than petrol. Will E-10 damage my 2000MY P38a (Thor engine):question:

Simon

nope but it will pick up water from everywhere and you may notice a loss of performance depending on the quality of the fuel that you get (this is influenced by the conditions of the underground tank and the e10 turnover of the servo more than anything)

I knew someone who set up a little filter/cooker in the back of their (I'm about to use the forbidden word now so those who are sensitive should cover their eyes) Landcruiser, to filter WVO and ended up driving around the country for virtually nothing, the setup cost about $750 to build and fit and was plumbed so the oil could be added, filtered and drained directly into the 2nd tank while they were camped for the night. They would just collect a little oil wherever they went, process enough each night to drive the next day and by morning they were full and ready to go. Not sure if there were any additives used but I guess with the right heating and filtration a good thin oil should work in place of the regular diesel. Never having owned a diesel I'm not up with all the whys and wherefors but they ran an old 70's Merc diesel sedan on mythbusters once on straight filtered diesel and it seemed to work fine.

I looked into running a WVO conversion in the 300Tdi after a work colleague who was running an older Merc on it offered me an unlimited supply of filtered WVO.

In researching the subject I discovered that for WVO to reach the lubricosity of diesel it had to be heated to 180.C The lubricosity issue isn't critical for old buses, tractors and mercs, but is for high speed modern diesels.

The main problem with using straight wvo is the glycerin is still in the oil ,and when burnt ,forms a hard glaze which can damage bores and stick injection pumps,as Superquag says ,there are no short cuts if you want to make a quality bio-diesel.Also ,system components must be suitable,afer 3 years testing two Td5's on high standard bio-diesel,we found that non-genuine fuel filters were causing pump failures. This was due to the wrong plastics used in the filter paper ,were releasing plasticers which were sticking the ceramic discs(in the low pressure part of pump) together casuing the pump to burn out. The car using genuine filters had no pump failures and is still running b100 with no problems,both cars used fuel from same batches and travelled smillar km:eek:(and no,I dont work for LR:angel:),just thought I'd share some trade secrets:) learn't after 15 years of fuel making:cool:,cheers ,Gregg;)

Ouch, never had a fuel pump pack it in on me, but then again, my trial horse was a Mazda van, 'grey' import, 2 litre turbo diesel with mechanical fuel injection pump.
That much abused bus had some terrible mixtures fed through it, from un-heated WVO, to some very iffy biodiesel with almost as much residual methanol as fuel !

I ran RYCO filters, and only had two blockages, first being early on when the bioDiesel obviously cleaned the tank and lines....and dumped it in the filter... which was long, long overdue a change anyway.... and the second was due to cold weather and using feedstock that was largely Palm Oil.

Palm Oil based BioDiesel WILL thicken up if it gets cold enough, eventually clogging the filter. This thickened brew can also snap the main drive shaft in a Lucas-CAV Injection Pump...

Normally you get some warning, engine sounding like a cold petrol engine... and the diagnosis can be confirmed by pouring loads of hot water over the IP and filter.

If in doubt, put a sample in the fridge for a few hours...

Around 100k in the Mazda and 70k in the Pajero 4d56T (2.5 litre turbo)

James in Perth.