Thread: Discovery WVO Conversion.

Project Part 2: WVO ‘Conversion’


The Raw components:

Pollak Valve: comes with 6 ports, diesel in, diesel return, wvo in, wvo return, and the connections to and from the motor.



Heat Exchanger: comes in various sizes, this one is a ’30 plate’ unit.



It has 30 plates between which alternating fluids flow with a copper plate in between for efficient thermal transfer.



Pollak and heat exchanger installed nicely.
Also added a vacuum gauge to the fuel supply line to monitor the condition of the filters, not much use in the engine bay, but it was a nice gauge I had raided and saved so I just had to use it! in cabin gauge to come.

Coolant and Fuel lines connected.



Coolant lines installed connects the heat exchanger in series with the cabin heater.
Dual filters, one for each fuel type to save on contamination of the fuels between the tanks.

I just need to find some banjo fittings and we will be ready to go!



Diesel goes here.



Oil goes here.



A nice switch in the cabin actuates the pollak valve. Red light for WVO



And we are now WVO powered

from what I found from my conversion on fozzy.

if you dont clean up your oil before you put it in (de water filter AND de acidify) your tank wont last long.

on pure WVO or anything with copher in it you need to preheat the tank as well or the stuff wont flow through the pickup into the pumps.

you need an additional filter/water seperator immediately out of the fuel pick up line of the tank and that needs a large surface area strainer.

the lift pump on a TDI and the series diesel will not shift WVO when the WVO is cold or waxy, a facet pump will shift it slowly, if you put the return next to the pickup in the tank and set up a heater in the circut that the facet pump can use to start warming the fuel you can get a shorter warm up time.

Those plastic 6 way valves dont last long and dont like it when you get all the oil heated up.

yep, mostly right.

The oil is removed from the fryers at operating temperature, so any water is boiled off prior to pumping it into the drums, during this process it is also filtered (and pumped back into the vat to ‘wash down’ any chunkys). So when I get the oil it is VERY clean, I then cold filter it through a 5micron bag filter.

I have mounted a nice gear pump on the chassis rail down near the tank that will circulate the oil constantly while the ign is on. This preheats the entire tank, melts any high temp melting point oils and removes ALL vacuum on the fuel line/lift pump.

Steel tanks are not good to store oil in, especially in the car for one reason: they grow algae (or something!?) a funny red growth develops where the oil splashes up onto the steel, and is exposed to the air. Good thing the stock tank is plastic. I have used a plastic tank in another car for many years with no issues.

I don’t have any experience with running a pollak up to the temperatures I am with this setup, but time will surely tell! I have a few ideas on heavy a duty replacement I wouldn’t mind trying out

David

they are right the brass polack is better and i would mind looking at your setup closer

I ran WVO in my 300TDI for six months, using a similar set up with nil problems. (A dozy driver then wiped out the vehicle) I used a pollack valve and two after market filters (Delphi) after the heat exchanger. The return line for the WVO was plumbed back into the WVO fuel line on the inlet side, thus circulating the heated oil back into itself. It is recommended to use an oil resistant fuel line its red in color but I can’t recall its proper name. It’s not overly expensive either. I believe rubber will perish over time reacting with the oil. (I will stand corrected)

After much research into filtering the oil I was put onto Green shopping bags. The system was this. The oil was placed into a drum and sat for a few days . A tap was fitted approx 6 inches from the bottom of the drum. 3 shopping bags were placed on inside the other, the tap was then opened and oil ran into the bags and drained out into a 20 liter white bucket. The results were nil visible signs of contaminants. (Don’t shoot me down) The oil was then transferred into the fuel tank. In the six months i drove the vehicle i had to change the fuel filter $5.00 Delphi once. The only other drama i had was that the facet fuel pump had trouble with the cold oil. I drilled out the sintered bronze bush and had no further issues. Numerous additives have been suggested to add to the oil to help it flow , white spirits ect. I used 5 liters of Diesel to 60 lts of oil with nil issues.

Interesting about how you modified the faucett pump, I had tried using one years ago and it had quite a hard time moving any volume of oil even short distances (actually went to try it again last weekend, but the oil had gummed up the pump/diaphragm. so I went with an overkill gear pump)

I had trialled looping the return to the inlet, it certainly seemed an awesome setup, oil is heated to maximum multiple times through the heat exchanger, and only the oil the engine is consuming needs to be replaced and drawn from the tank of cold oil.

Butttttt I had massive problems with bleeding the air from the system, so I decided to go in the pumping direction.

The filtering method you describe is known as ‘upflow’ filtering.
Usually you have multiple drums with the top connected to the bottom of each in the line, so the particulates fall to the bottom of each drum, and each drum is subsequently ‘fed’ the cleanest oil from the top of the previous drum.

The rubber is tolerant to oil but it does become very messy/gummy/sticky and perish after a while.
The lines I am using are of the oil resistant variety
Just have to make sure to clean any spilt oil away from the coolant lines as they will survive a fair time with the oil, but certainly make a nasty mess in the long term.

Plus it is nice not to be immediately covered in oil the moment you touch anything in the engine bay!!

I wouldn't mind attending some gatherings over here in Perth once I get some more free time, can have the bonnet up no worries

David

Originally Posted by setsuna

yep, mostly right.

The oil is removed from the fryers at operating temperature, so any water is boiled off prior to pumping it into the drums, during this process it is also filtered (and pumped back into the vat to ‘wash down’ any chunkys). So when I get the oil it is VERY clean, I then cold filter it through a 5micron bag filter.

I have mounted a nice gear pump on the chassis rail down near the tank that will circulate the oil constantly while the ign is on. This preheats the entire tank, melts any high temp melting point oils and removes ALL vacuum on the fuel line/lift pump.

Steel tanks are not good to store oil in, especially in the car for one reason: they grow algae (or something!?) a funny red growth develops where the oil splashes up onto the steel, and is exposed to the air. Good thing the stock tank is plastic. I have used a plastic tank in another car for many years with no issues.

I don’t have any experience with running a pollak up to the temperatures I am with this setup, but time will surely tell! I have a few ideas on heavy a duty replacement I wouldn’t mind trying out

David

my bad I thought you were running the WVO in the steel tank, (I was on interslow and the pics timed out loading)

Originally Posted by Bazzle218

I ran WVO in my 300TDI for six months, using a similar set up with nil problems. (A dozy driver then wiped out the vehicle) I used a pollack valve and two after market filters (Delphi) after the heat exchanger. The return line for the WVO was plumbed back into the WVO fuel line on the inlet side, thus circulating the heated oil back into itself. It is recommended to use an oil resistant fuel line its red in color but I can’t recall its proper name. It’s not overly expensive either. I believe rubber will perish over time reacting with the oil. (I will stand corrected)

normal fuel hose will eventually let go, there is oil resistant line but it comes in many colours. Hydraulic oil line is about the best but its very expensive.

Top posts chaps! Thank you for sharing


I wonder if the fuel hose issue could be partially solved by using the plastic pipe that seems to be popular on Land Rovers such as the Discovery? Does WVO corrode other metals such as copper? If not copper fuel pipes might work.

I am awfully tempted to make my yet-to-be-constructed S3 diesel conversion to run on WVO

Cheers Charlie