Bio Fuel WHO WHAT WHY AND WHERE?

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Originally Posted by rsrichie

I can see that there will have to be a lot of campaining to convince the public that these fuels may be safe to use I know i will be holding off till i have seen evidence of its stability as like most i cant afford to risk a investment as large as a vehicle on suspect fuels.

( EDIT:- this post was ment to go before the one by 303gunner but i was slow in typing lol)

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OK, I have to admit at this point that I run Biodiesel in my Toyota 80 series Landcruiser:o . (Ex-Army Series 2A's run on petrol!). Now that I've got that admission out of the way, my cruiser's done 12,000km on 100% Biodiesel, or B100. In Spring, Summer, and Autumn there is absolutely no issues in starting the engine or driving. It loves it. It has become a much better tow vehicle, no black smoke, less injector rattle noise. I can get away with gear changes around about 300-400rpm sooner, and the top end power is only slightly less. Fuel economy has gone from 10.5l/100km to about 11.0l/km, hardly noticable. My oil changes are much cleaner as the oil no longer looks like black ink. The only drawback has been Winter time. It gets quite hard to start first thing on a cold morning, and has solidified in the fuel lines one frosty morning. A bucket of hot water on the injector pump got me on my way. I have an auxillary tank in the cruiser, so the smaller tank now holds petrodiesel which I use to start the car on cold mornings. When the car has warmed up, I change over to the Bio and have no issues for the rest of the day. My main tank is 95 litres, so the price of a fill is nearly $50 cheaper. The car's running great, and running cleaner as well. I don't need any convincing, Biodiesel's great!

wow has,nt this opened up a can of worms and brought the good old techno knockers out:rolleyes:

The current (June) issue of Overlander comes with a bonus extra issue (one of last years) which has an article on biodiesel. Makes it sound quite appealing but it is definitely more of an option if you are prepared to brew your own. I am thinking of starting a bio-diesel co-op with my in-laws.

As far as the TD5 is concerned - surely it must be possible to tweak the ECU settings to make it run fine on the stuff. At around 40c/l I'm willing to do the research and give it a try. Besides, Peugeot for one warrant their new cars to run on it in Europe.

Goss Kip, you ate all the freeking Corn Chips.

When arguing over buying our 300tdi Disco, one of my positives to my girl, was that we could run it on bio diesel without any problems and it's my intention to brew my own at some time, but i'll be trying the B50 first.

This seems like as good a place as any to let the landy community know that my good mate and i are about 80% of the way through our initial biodiesel development and testing process. It won't be long now before we start building the big tank to make larger batches (for private use).

We have been interested in the renewable energy/biofuel side for a long time and my mate decided it was time to bite the bullet and start testing biodiesel recipes. There is heaps of information out there on the web and the Sydney Biodiesel website (303Gunner sums it all up perfectly) is a great place to go and learn. I am astounded at the amount of misconceptions out there about biodiesel and it's amazing to learn just how much value true biodiesel can add to your diesel engine system- wading through all the info is the challenge (you might want to have a read yourself dobbo).

We have done over 10 different sample batches and have achieved some very promising results- out of the first batch i made i took a sample bottle which now sits on my bedside table........it's pretty exciting really. As i haven't got my 300tdi yet, the test car is my mates 1991 Maverick with an aftermarket turbo and once my mate has finished the cloudpoint and blend tests, the proper road test will begin.

It's interesting to think about how the majority of the complaints that come up about Biodiesel concern money and time. Two of our world's great commodities...........

From our perspective, we are more excited about the environmental benefits of the product than anything else. Sure it will save money BUT the emissions coming out of a biodiesel truck are a fraction of the emissions pumping out of normal diesel vehicles. AND We are using a waste product to make a precious resource- and if it means we "waste" a bit of time doing it, then i'm sure i'll get over the television shows that i'll be missing.

A quote which has been thrown around quite a bit which i think is a Native American Proverb is a relentless reminder for me about where our world is heading.

"Only when the last tree is cut, only when the last river polluted, only when the last fish is caught will they realise that you can't eat money"

It's really hard to cut out everything from life that harms the evironment -i'm sure i'm wearing a dozen things that were not made sustainably and i'm sure this keyboard i'm typing on wasn't made with nature in mind BUT we can make small changes. This attempt at the biodiesel is a good step.

Authentic 4WD enthusiasts know exactly why the environment should be our number one priority- perhaps there is a green light at the end of the petro diesel tunnel :D

I look forward to reading how others are travelling with the Bio revolution.

Cheers

Footprint

PS Dobbo, there are people actually running methane generators from manure so perhaps your horses might come in handy ;)