vegetable oil

[Cogburn]

I have found a source for pure vegetable oil right out of the jug for $1.00 per gallon. I will probably be mixing it with diesel fuel in one tank and keep the other tank with pure diesel for starting. I live in a climate where it gets down to 15 degrees F only a couple of nights a year and mostly stays above 40 degrees for highs during January. Can I run this half and half in the winter of do I need a warmer? If I need a warmer, can one be home made? If not, where can I get a warmer for the mix tank? I am running an 84 Ford 6.9 with an aftermarket turbo.

[Gibson]

thats a dang good deal! I once found found some for 53cents per 1/2 gallon before. I just go around to all teh doller store places and see what they got cheap. I'm running 3gallons of diesel to 2gallons of pure vegabtle oil. I dont run a warmer or extra filter like some do. the reason I dont use a filter is because I know for a fact that the Veg. oil is clean (store baught) and the temps dont get below freezing too often. right now the high for today is around 50* and last night it got down to 35 or so. it started just fine at 6am..........Gibson

BTW-i also use a a botttle of Power Service on each fillup per tank

[BullHauler]

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BTW-i also use a a botttle of Power Service on each fillup per tank

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Given the cost of PowerService, would not this negate the financial advantages of burning storebought vegetable oil??

If a person lived in the vicinity of a concern such as ADM, I bet clean/cull soybean oil could be had in bulk for very little cash.

[Gibson]

Bullhauler, no I dont save much at all. but a penny saved one day can be spent on something else the next...

15gallons of my mix=9gal of diesel and 6gal of vegie oil. thats noramlly how much I add at a time since I dont run completly to the E. so, thats $33.75 for 15 gallons of diesel (15X$2.25) for my mix it costs $28.02-$32.02 ($21.15/diesel and $6-10/vegie.oil and $.87/PowerService). I get the power service for $3.50 a quart and use 2 cups per 15 gallons. I dont save much, just enough to buy me a hamburger and coke for lunch, sometimes..................Gibson

[pnose]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


BTW-i also use a a botttle of Power Service on each fillup per tank

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Given the cost of PowerService, would not this negate the financial advantages of burning storebought vegetable oil??



The power service shouldnt negate anything towards the financial advantages,even running diesel only you should be using it anyway.

[Nitro454]

Ilive about 6miles from an ADM plant, worked around there this summer, but I'm not sure if they will sell straight to the pbulic.I will have to check into that. As for running the oil, that sounds like a heck of a deal. Just remember that your rubber lines will need to be replaced. I would make test batches and use the fridge/freezer to see what it is goin to take to be safe. I'd almost be tempted to run 50/50 and go from there. Or even cut it a bit withlike 60 veg 30 diesel and 10 K1. Try diff. combos and see what works for your temps.Also in the test batches, use the PS and see what kind of affect it has. You may want to also post this in the Bio forum to see what they think.

[h2odrx]

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... As for running the oil, that sounds like a heck of a deal. Just remember that your rubber lines will need to be replaced. .. You may want to also post this in the Bio forum to see what they think.

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why whould he need to replace the rubber lines for SVO?

[HJAlbert]

Vegetable oil will eat away at rubber lines. You can use the reinforced clear line (it looks like it has threads in it, sold at home depot/lowes) for V.O. or you can replace all of your lines with viton if you are running biodiesel/svo/diesel. It will stand up to all. Alot of newer vehicles (not sure which) are coming equipped with viton.

[BullHauler]

If one dropped a rubber fuel line in a jug of vegetable oil, how long would it take to disintegrate??

[jdkline]

I have been experimenting with veggie and biodiesel for a year or more now and I still haven't disentegrated any of my fuel lines. There are some studies that show that an engine run on VO will not live as long as one running diesel or Bio, but that is yet to be proven. If I had veggie that cheap, I'd be tempted to make a hom,emade heat exchanger, start on D100 or B100 and then switch over to veggie once my t-stat was open, don't worry about mixes, this usually gets people into more trouble. Either heat it or change it to biodiesel, I say.

[HJAlbert]

what kind of experiemtning have you been doing? I convetred my Rabbit, put everything together myself. two tank. I am going to find out about thow long rubber hose will last.

[jaluhn]

I ran used veggie oil for several months this spring. Went probably 1000 miles with no trouble, actually ran straight oil no heating, ran just fine. No evidence of carboning or other serious issues. I had some trouble with plugging filters, but that was due to a bad batch, I think, and I got some sort of acid formation, contaminating the tank and eating holes in the filters. I lost an injection pump in mid july (~2000 miles on svo and/or #2) due to the head seizing up, but the pump had been abused at other times (plug filters, no water seperator, etc) and I knew it was going bad. I think this was caused more by fuel starvation than svo, athough I think the unheated oil was definetly a contributing factor. The pump was replaced with a good used unit, which subsequently failed in the same fashion in early september, (~1500 miles later) for unknown reasons. I was not running much of any veggie oil from early july onwards, and so I think this failure was caused by the pump baing worn to begine with. The first failure gave me some warning, and it was running poorly already, and then it failed sometime on a long downgrade under closed throttle. (for some reason I have found that clogged filters show up as fuel starvation during closed throttle coasting. Not sure why, but it'll run well at idle and under full load) The second failure was quite sudden, and happened under high throttle acceleration, but in completly normal operation condition, and I think the filters were all new, and I was running on straight #2 at the time. Running just fine then a little 'tink' noise and no more running. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shrug.gif[/img] Same exact problem - sheared the pump shaft internaly. Guess it was just weak. Now got another used pump, seems to be good. But, I am completly cleaning the SVO tank and lines, and will not run svo for a while.

My recomendations -
1) make sure you have very good batteries, starter and glow plugs. I failed to switch tanks or allow the engine time to purge all the oil (at least 5 miles under normal crusing) before shutting down more than once, and had serious difficultly starting. If it's not too cold, it's not that hard to start, but in your climate, I think you'd have to drain the filter, refill with #2 or mabey some sort of dewaxing adgent, then crank the engine enough to purge all the oil in the injection system. (quite a while) In other words, the battery better be up to par. Also, mabey carry starting fluid / wd40. In my opinion, used sparingly, this is a good way to help the rig fire. (note - disable the glow plugs first)

2) Preheat the oil. I don't think it is nessessary to heat the entire tank (as long as it's not too cold) instead just run the oil through a heat exanger before the pump. I was going to use a stock 6.9 oil cooler with a custom backing plate. (ie - the same setup you'd used for a hydro test on one) Then mount it to the frame inline and connected to the heater system. (or another hot side port on the cooling system) This system should provide adrequate flow to feed the system, and should be more than sufficentl to heat the oil to coolant temp. Also, I was going to keep the stock oil filter in place and use that as a secondary fuel filter. ($9.95 instead of $15 for the main fuel filter) Return flow should help heat the remainder of the tank. Alsomight be a good idea to put a electric pump before the filter to help oil flow. However, I am not sure if this would affect the functioning of the water seperator. I also recomend a fuel pressure gauge of some sort to make sure you're not getting fuel stavation. I had planned to eventually refit the truck with a completly spolit fuel system, with the #2 and svo systems coming together just before the injection pump. In other words, the #2 and svo systems would each have seperate tanks, filters, water sperator and fuel pump(s) and then have a selector vavle between the final filter and injection pump. Thus, there would be a minimal amount of the system which would need to be purged during switching, and the potential for cross contamination would also be minimized. (so if you get a bad batch of oil and it plugs the filters, you can just change tanks and keep going)
-John

[jaluhn]

Oh, and I did not see any evidence of oil attacking the rubber lines.