Yay! First 10L of Veg

**SenatorKang** · 24th September 2008, 11:08 PM

I've just put the first 10L trial bunch of veg in the disco, tank was just under 1/4 so it makes it 25:75 or something like that. So far no adverse effects... I'm sure I can smell the difference though... I shall post pics of my filtering setup later...

10 litres that's, what... $16.50 saved! Money in the bank!

**Outlaw** · 25th September 2008, 07:44 AM

watching with interest

**Frontier1** · 27th September 2008, 02:10 PM

Well done! Don't worry guys, the sky isn't falling, just another BD LR'r joining the ranks

Look forward to seeing your setup and hearing about your method.

Cheers,

Pete'

**discopete** · 28th September 2008, 06:08 PM

Also watching with interest.

Pete

**SenatorKang** · 12th October 2008, 11:22 PM

well the experiment continues. havn't had time to upload the photos yet, i keep getting shaped before i remember (youtube+fast internet=topgear!)

i had a slight mishap as you may have seen in the technical forums, with a bad batch of veg. it's all back to normal now, hopefully no damage was done. i shall explain shortly what i think happened, but first, i will describe my setup.

i got 2 1000L tanks, an empty 55gal drum and "borrowed" a drum pump from work, plus one full 55gal drum of veggie oil from the lunch bar down the road from work. i put the full drum in the back of the disco with the forklift but didn't think of how i would get it out... so i had to syphon it into the empty drum. the plan was that it would ALL go into the empty drum, but when i came out the next morning they were about half full each and the carpet in the back was soaked. bye bye carpet, i didn't like it that much anyway.

then, after getting the now much lighter drum out of the back, i tried to pump the veg all into the one drum, only to find that the drum pump didn't work. so i gave up, put the drum pump in the garden and forgot about it for the winter.

recently i resurrected my plans. i thought to myself 'there has to be a way of getting that drum on top of that tank. from there, all i have to do is open the bung-hole (lol) and it will flow down into the filter bags!'. So i made a ramp out of some steel i had lying around to build rocksliders for the disco, tipped the drum on its side and shoved it up the ramp. it was heavy. but it worked, and with a little aligning when i opened the drum the oil flowed right into the filter bags - which i shall now explain.

The tanks are big cubes, about 100x100x100cm with an aluminium cage. it is on this cage that the drum sits (hanging of the side a little). they have a tap on the bottom of one side, and a lid on the top. the lid is big and black, about 20cm or so diameter, and has a smaller lid inside it, which is the same size as a drum's big hole. its made so that you can take off the big lid to fill it up, then take off the small lid and whack in a drum pump if you don't want to use the tap for some reason. anyway. i get a woolies green bag and sit it in the hole with the very top of the bag folded over the lip of the hole. then i screw the lid on over it, it holds it there nicely. open up the small lid and pour in the oil, there you have it

the oil that this setup produces is very clean, but it's a slow process. so i decided to do the same in the other tank, but i couldn't be bothered rolling the other drum up on top - besides, i'd used the steel to stop the first drum from rolling off. so i gave the drum pump another try. lo and behold, it worked. apparently leaving it in the rain for 6 months was good for it. anyhoo, i did the same thing with the filter bag, but this one isn't as good, the oil isn't nearly as clean. i think it's because of the pump, i think it stirrs up the oil so the animal fat can't settle to the bottom - plus, the pickup for the pump is down near the bottom, i can't raise it much more or it wobbles and undoes the wingnut thing and slides down again

. also there's water in that drum

. i will sort this out in a couple of weeks after i've moved house. i will probably just put 2 bags in.

so what of the crud left in the bags? well i put it in one of those clear storage boxes with the lid. just for now. i've just finished the first drum, so when i've moved house that drum will become the waste-crud drum until i figure out what to do with it

maybe i'll donate it to a friend who runs his mazda on lard, he has heaters and all that jazz.

AND, most importantly, how does it work? it works fine. except for that one dodgy week. what i did was, i couldn't get enough oil from the good tank to make up 20L. so i just took a coupld of litres from the bad tank. i figured it'd be fine, just a tiny bit of impurity in 89L of nice cleanliness. well, i think there was some water in there, and the disco don't like water. but after letting the car sit for a couple of days and then running it very gently for a while, it seemed to work fine. then i gave it some shizzle, some nice black smoke work, just to make sure. and it was good. i think i was lucky. so i don't use the oil from that tank anymore, not until i sort it out.

it's a great smell too. i usually put about 15-20L of oil in and the rest of the tank is gull bio-d, which is B20 i think. i would put more oil in, but the filter bags just don't produce enough at the moment. soon, though.

pics soon, when i'm un-shaped!

landroverbrah · 17th October 2008, 11:22 AM

Bio fuel rocks!

jussy · 13th November 2008, 03:17 PM

hmm would love to hear more about how you go with it i have access to alot of waste oil (im a chef) nothing like saving money

Also on the filter we use a proper filter at work that can be purchased from most commercial food suppliers, if u cant find any where let me know i could point you in the right direction, these should filter alot faster and give u a cleaner product afterwards

**SenatorKang** · 14th November 2008, 05:08 PM

well i've moved house, and finally my interwebs are back, but i havn't used any veg oil since the move because I havn't set up the tanks and drums yet. the reason? they won't fit through the gate into the back yard so they're sitting next to the car port out the front at the moment and there's trees and spiders there.

i have a feeling my water-related issues (assuming it was water) didn't actually go away, something is not right about the way it sounds/go's, and the transmission is acting up now so it's not the best time to be playing around with it i don't think. hopefully soon though!

aussiefx · 21st November 2008, 11:48 AM

SenatorKang,

Sound like a similar set up to what I have. So far I've racked up about 3000km on a 50/50 blend and it's going a treat. I am very particular about making sure there's water in the oil and I filter down to 1 micron (over three steps) so apart from a bit of effort filtering it's saving me over 70c a litre and thus far no problems.

One thing I found useful (and surprisingly cheap) for transferring oil are the little 12V DC marine bilge pumps. I picked one up for $20 and run it off my battery charger. With 3/4 inch hose it's not super fast (especially on cold days) but it beats trying to siphon or use a hand pump.

Cheer,
Aussiefx

stevescott · 24th November 2008, 09:04 PM

Just like to thanks Aussiefx for the following information to help me on my way to a diesel 4WD and starting out with veggie oil - below is the emails we had - thought I'd post as I found the information worthwhile for a beginner like me! (with permission from aussiefx)

EMAIL 1

Steve,

Thanks for the note. I must admit I have been a bit slack in the forum lately between new job, young kids etc etc but I don't want to bore you with that.

I'll answer your questions in the order posed.

I got my Disco ('97) from a private seller. I think I got a pretty good deal as they were only the second owner and they had picked it up almost new (I saw the original rego papers). They looked after it really well. Cost me $9k. Pretty good I thought (and still do).

As for the veg oil conversion I've ended up doing it in stages, purely due to a lack of free time to work on the car. At the moment all I'm doing is mixing the (filtered) used veg 50/50 (roughly) with diesel. Given that I get my oil for free (at the moment) I'm still saving a heap of money as it's like filling up for 70 odd cents/l. The only mod I have done is change the fuel filter - for two reasons. First, the one I fitted now has a glass bowl at the bottom so I can "see" the quality of the fuel and second, the replacement cartridges are only $12 as opposed to $60 odd for the "normal" filter. The whole unit cost about $90 and I got it from a guy on ebay. Do a search for "wagga tractors land rover fuel filter" and you should find it. With this set up I've racked up about 3000km and it goes like a dream (sometimes I think it even goes a little bit better).

I am planning on adding some heating elements when time permits (I already have them just haven't had the chance to install them) so I can run a higher ratio of veg. Until I get to the point of adding a second tank and all that business to switch between the two (veg / dies) I'll probably always keep some amount of diesel in the mix. Coming from an (electronics) engineering background I've designed the system with a few "extras" that will let me know if the heating fails. Also, I want to be able to turn the heating off if I'm running 100% diesel as it's not a good idea to heat straight diesel (makes it too thin).

A few pointers to help you save a few $.

1) vegiecars.com.au is really expensive for what they sell there are many cheaper options (see below)
2) fattywagons.com is much cheaper for injection line heaters (or at least was before the $AU crashed)
3) telepoint.biz is the cheapest place to get filter bags and heat exchangers (I have one but again haven't fitted it yet)

If you have any more questions I'd be more than happy to answer them for you.

I'm not sure where you're based but if your in Sydney let me know and I'd be more than happy to show you my car set up and my filtration set up.

Cheers,
Andy

Quote:
Originally Posted by stevescott
Hello,

I am thinking of getting a Disco and running on used vegie oil.

Did you get you Disco through a dealer or private?

How are you going with the conversion, any problems?

Cheers

Steve

EMAIL 2
Steve,

Glad to have been of assistance.

As for the choice of 4WD I was looking at a few, not really with veg on the mind at the time, although it was there in the back of my mind. I looked and cruisers and patrols (having had one of each in the past) but I felt they were too big. Personally, I never looked at any Mitsubishis purely because I have had and know people who have had bad experiences with various models (remember the Sigma and early Magnas - shudder). I eventually looked at the Disco for four reasons. One, it was a good size for what I was looking for. Two, I'd read (reasonably) good reports about them and when I did take one for a drive I was quite impressed. Three, I found one that fit in my budget and finally I "discovered" (bad pun I know) you could run them on veg but, and it's a BIG BUT, if it had the Bosch pump, which the one I was looking at did.

As for filtering, what I have done is pretty basic but seems to work. There's a place in Sylvania that sells the 200L plastic drums for $10 so I got 3 of those. I bought some 5 micron and 1 micron filter bags from Telepoint and I grabbed hold of an old electric urn my oldies had lying around (you know the type, big, stainless steel things with a tap - usually found at old clubs for tea / coffee. You often find then at the Salvos or Vinnies as well for a few bucks). And finally I got a couple of cheap (about $20) bilge pumps from Whitworths marine and some hose.

So, what I do is pour the oil into the urn through a sieve (to catch the big chunks) then I heat the oil in the urn as hot as possible (>100 C is possible) till the "boiling" settles down. Depending on the quality this can be 1/2 an hour to a couple of hours. I then have my first drum with a "woolies" green back over the neck. I pour the oil through that. I fill one drum like this then move to a second and let the first drum settle (this I have read, and found to be a BIG help) for at least a couple of weeks while I continue filling the second drum.

Then, when I'm ready to move the oil to the 5 micron stage I clean out the urn a little and use the bilge pump to pump oil out of the TOP PORTION OF OIL (all the "bad stuff" tends to sink - use clear hose and you'll notice the difference as soon as you get to the sediment layer) into the urn and heat it again for about 1/2 an hour. Again, I let it settle here for about a fortnight, or longer depending on how much fuel I need.

Then I move to the 1 micron bag. Same process - pump out from the top (this is why I have two pumps, to avoid contamination), heat, cool a little and pour. Only difference being that the bag is in the neck of a 25L plastic drum (from bunnings - the ones with the big opening on top) with a tap in the bottom. The tap just makes it easier to pour into the tank or fuel can for storage). That's it.

The heating does two things. It helps get rid of the water and makes the filtering process MUCH quicker.

Also, in regards to the point about cutting and pasting into the forum...go for it. And like I mentioned, if you're ever heading down south, just let me know and I'd be more than happy to show you. Or, if you have any more questions, just flick me a PM.

Cheers,
Andy

[quote=stevescott]Hi Andy,

Thanks for the information. The 50/50 mix sounds good. That way I could get started on using the veggie oil as I plan the 2nd tank option.

Did you consider other diesel 4WDs? - I am looking at the Disco and Pajero 2.8. Not sure which is better.

I am in Sydney, up at Pennant Hills. I have oil in the garage and a supply of about 20 litre a week. But i have not purchased any equipment for filtering. So any thoughts on a useful setup would be very handy.

Also, do you want me to cut and paste this onto your thread - has some good info for begineers like me.

Cheers

Steve

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Yay! First 10L of Veg

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