[Halitosis]

Ok... as I stated in an earlier thread I threw about 5 gallons of filtered WVO into my 3/4 full fuel tank last night.... making the blend of #2 to WVO about 90/10.

This morning, my wife gave me a list of errands to run. I started the truck and started the 15 mile drive into town.

About 7 miles into it, I lost nearly all power with the engine... and it started sounding like it was only firing on 2-3 pistons. I could not get the RPM over 1500.

I nursed it along for about a mile... then finally found a place to pull over off the road, and let it idle. It surged a few times, then died.

I sat in shock for a few minutes... (wondering how I ever managed to convince myself to pour waste oil into my gas tank)... then tried to turn the key again.

The truck fired up... surged a bit, and immediatly started running rough... no power, not all cylinders firing.

But.. it didn't die. I decided to try to nurse it back to the house to see what I could do. What a miserable 10 minutes that was. I couldn't go more than 10-15 miles an hour, and my exhaust was pouring out white smoke.

Then... about 2 miles from my house, my power started to steadily increase... until finally when I got back up my (long) driveway, it was at 100% again.

I decided to turn around and run back into town... thinking that it might be better to keep it running at this point than to immediately shut it down. So... I went back into town... ran all of my errands... the truck gave me no problems. I have stopped it and restarted it a few times since then as I was in town.

Here is what I THINK happened... please correct me if I am wrong: I think that I had some WVO that collected at the bottom of my tank that didn't mix/blend with the #2 that was in there. It took a bit to run that cold stuff through, but once it did, it seemed all good.

Question 1) Does that seem like a practical reason?

Quesion 2) Would anyone guess that I have done any damage to my engine? I limped along for 8 miles... for about 30 minutes. After that, the engine went almost immediately (within a mile) back to 100%.

Question 3) For others that are doing blends, what are you doing to help ensure that this stuff is 'mixing' properly?

Thanks in advance,

Halitosis

 

[JJK]

I am fairly new to the alternative fuels, but your thoughts sound reasonable with the WVO settling to the bottom of the tank. Another thought is that the WVO is clogging your filters being that it has a higher viscosity. Was it detwatered? I know people are running SVO without any issues, but that is being delived through a seperate fuel system and being switched over after the engine is HOT. I personally would not blend straight WVO with dino. I do however blend my homebrew bio with dino and has been running great in my 6.0L. I am blending up to 50% right now, and have run over 4K miles on bio blends.

 

[Halitosis]

My WVO was filtered down to 10 microns, and dewatered (held at 130* for six hours to allow the micro-droplets to drop out of solution).

I have 200+ gallons of filtered/dewatered WVO that I wanted to start using in some capacity... as I am still waiting for delivery of my FN74, and seeing the cost of diesel continuing to rise.

I thought about clogging filters... but certainly not after just 7 miles.

Halitosis

 

[mattymx]

What I do when I blend is this. Whenever I add SVO or WVO to the tank, I immediately go fill up with #2. This way I know it is blended properly by the high pressure of the #2 going in the tank. I dont know if that was your problem, but I just wanted to let you know what my procudure is.

 

[MasterTrim]

Sounds like the oil was too cold and you were getting wvo only, meaning it wasn't mixed. Outside temp is a big deal, obviously.
Personally I first put #2 in, about half tank in both tanks (96 OBS). It's 80* everyday so I know that a 50/50 mix will be OK. Then I fill with WVO an drive it a little so it mixes up good.
I made the mistake once of not mixing and the temps dropped to 40* that night. Truck started just fine but, it didn't make it 5 miles and stopped. I replaced the fuel filter poured #2 in bowl and put a water bed heater under the front tank for a couple of hours then let it idle for a couple of hours and after the motor was nice and hot it ran fine.

$.02

 

[Spencnaz]

Halitosis,

Put your #2 diesel in first and then add your WVO. Since WVO is going to have a higher specific gravity than the #2, it will settle through the #2, providing more opportunity for a homogeneous mixture.

I use this method when mixing B50 biodiesel for cold weather.

The stuttering of your engine is it sucking through alternating layers of #2 and WVO that aren't mixed properly.

 

[Halitosis]

Thanks to all for the input.

I am pretty sure that it was the mix/ambient temp that caused my problem.

I am now running a 25% blend in my tank with no issues... what I did differently this time was to actually cut my WVO with 2 gallons of diesel before tossing the 10 gallons (now for a total of 12) into the fuel tank.

Even though it was a small amount of diesel fuel, it got a little bit of a "mix" in there...

I dunno if that made a/the difference, but again... no issues. 2nd tank of fuel so far.

(The first parts to my FN74 just came in... one guess what I'll be doing for the next 2 days!)

Halitosis

 

[HenryJ]

Halitosis

I am looking for information of filtering before putting the used oil in the tank. Guess i am not programming the search right

Would you let me know your process or steer me to the info on it.

Thanx