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

Originally Posted by 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

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

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.

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

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.........

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

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

Originally Posted by 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

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.
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

Cheers mate,

kando...Bill from Corio

Originally Posted by 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.

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

kando...Bill from Corio