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spidey
Trad climber
Berkeley/El Cerrito
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Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 28, 2006 - 10:02pm PT
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Anyone out there doing this? It sounds great - get free oil from restaurants, filter it in your garage, pay around $1000-$1500 to convert any diesel engine to run on it, no more paying $3/gallon for gas or biodiesel, no more supporting the oil companies etc.
So, who's doing it? Is it worth the hassle? Does it really work well or does it create more problems than it solves?
please advise.
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landcruiserbob
Trad climber
the ville, colorado
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Apr 28, 2006 - 10:20pm PT
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My unimog uses vegi oil. Hard to find & hard on my fuel filters.rg
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hashbro
Trad climber
Not in Southern California
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Apr 28, 2006 - 10:25pm PT
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We've got a 96" VW Passat TDI running on biodiesel and getting 50 miles per gallon.
My neighbors runs straight veggieoil in both their VW Jetta diesel and their 79' Mercedes turbodiesel, and getting great performace with both vehicles.
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George_W_Bush
Big Wall climber
Crawford, TX
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Apr 28, 2006 - 10:30pm PT
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I am working on legislation to ban those things. Every time I get behind one in my limo I feel like I have my face buried in Freedom Fries. Those cars stink and ruin the air quality.
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akcIimber
climber
Eagle River, AK
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Apr 28, 2006 - 10:31pm PT
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"We've got a 96" VW Passat TDI running on biodiesel and getting 50 MPH."
Stay out of the f*#king fast lane then. Nothing worse than some moron going 50mph on the freeway. So, is that car 96" long or wide? Sounds like an ugly piece of sh#t to me.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Apr 28, 2006 - 11:15pm PT
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"We've got a 96" VW Passat TDI running on biodiesel and getting 50 MPH."
Stay out of the f*#king fast lane then. Nothing worse than some moron going 50mph on the freeway. So, is that car 96" long or wide? Sounds like an ugly piece of sh#t to me.
LOL
There is a local fuel distributor (like a gas station for big rigs) that is starting to sell biodiesel (a mix?) to civilians. They've been selling the stuff in bulk to farmers and truckers for a while.
Since it never gets very cold here, I think most users can just run it without modification to the engine.
I wanna put a Mercedes turbodiesel in my Range Rover.
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Dave
Mountain climber
the ANTI-fresno
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Apr 28, 2006 - 11:26pm PT
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I investigated B20 and B100 biodiesel for our industrial operations a while back. Problem for us - our storage tanks are at 10,000 feet elevation, and temperatures get to -30 F in the winter.
B100 requires an overhaul of the fuel systems of heavy equipment. B20 wouldn't, normaly - but due to elevations, dust, and heat, our heavy equipment is already derated. To get performance back we'd have to do a lot of work to our equipment to make B20 work.
But, either way it couldn't be stored on the surface.
in the end, the cost and effort just wasn't worth it.
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hashbro
Trad climber
Not in Southern California
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Apr 28, 2006 - 11:43pm PT
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Of course I meant we are getting 50 MPG, not MPH.
There are two locations in southern Oregon where I live that have
B 99 at the pump. Right now it is cheaper than fossil fuel diesel. I'm told it burns cooler than fossil fuel diesel and there fore one's engine lasts longer than using regular diesel.
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spidey
Trad climber
Berkeley/El Cerrito
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 29, 2006 - 09:18pm PT
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is that it? I'd have thought there would be more climbers doing this...is rg the only one out there? and what the heck is a unimog anyway?
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 29, 2006 - 09:37pm PT
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It will ruin your engine. Gum the sh#t out of it after a while.
It will burn your rings. Be careful.
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grover
Social climber
Akanada
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Apr 29, 2006 - 09:50pm PT
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Free fuel, hell ya!
Been looking for a diesel to convert.
I've read in the past some engines are more suitable to svo conversions, but have since lost the site it was on.
With the way things are going though, i'm sure dubya will find a way to tax the living sh#t out of used veggie oil.
Mark
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Majid_S
Mountain climber
Bay Area
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Apr 29, 2006 - 10:00pm PT
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spidey
I spend 30 years dealing with engines and now this Veggie none sense.
Veggie oil for Veggie food OK
Gas for engine
Veggie oil for veggie food ,repeat after me VAGGIE OIL FOR FOOD
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Dave
Mountain climber
the ANTI-fresno
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Apr 29, 2006 - 11:04pm PT
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Ah, yes, like Werner said - that's the other problem ..SVO is worse than biodiesel, but both are hell on fuel filters.
With Tier II engines (150 hp and up), fuel filter replacement has decreased to every 250-500 hours. Tier III engines in the larger hp classes will require replacement at 200 hours or less, as I understand it. biodiesel decreases these service intervals by 50-80%.
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Majid_S
Mountain climber
Bay Area
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Apr 30, 2006 - 02:47am PT
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You need three things to create heat to push a piton down on an engine.
Good Fuel
Good Burring with less deposit
Good internal lubrication which could stand high temp
On a bio/ Diesel engine, piston compresses air to about 300 psi or more, by doing that, the internal temp of the combustion chamber increases then fuel gets injected in to this chamber which causes this hot air to ignite the fuel.
Since this fuel is petroleum base, it lubricates the piston and rings, valves etc and burn cleaner out of the exhaust.
On the VEGGIE OIL
You have to able to ignite this Veggie fuel at the right temp, in this case the correct temp already been set with the amount air temp and air pressure inside the chamber. You can not tell the engine to ignite this dam VEGGIE oil at what ever temperature.
Once that fuel is injected, it better burns with the right ignition timing and right amount of internal fire to push the piton, if that fuel burns slower or faster, it with create miss fire which leads in to advance or retard ignition, knocking and every thing within that engine falls apart, your VW dealer gives a finger on your left over warranty.
Then we got to deal with the burring deposits and the necessary lubrication needed to (LUBERICATE THE INJECTOR UNIT AND THE INTERNAL COMBASTION PARTS SUCH AS RINGS AND OTHER THING).
Turbine engine
These type of engines burns any thing, from your VAGGIE OIL to your AFTER SHAVER, as long as you can make a fire using any flammable liquid, these types of engines will burn it. They may smoke and run with a lower out put but they will get you from point A to point B.
Why not turbine? a small engine to fit your VW could cost you $100,000 and every 150K miles you must do a major service, plus it is noisy and they are not environmental friendly.
Concussion
Since mid 1800 from the birth of internal combustion engine (piston engine) nothing is been done to replace these type of motor, they are very dependable, they can work under hard conditions.
Technology has grown so far in so many directions except one area and that is Combustion engines. The new technology adds more horse power and or better ignition or fuel efficiency but it is still a PITSON ENGINE.
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spidey
Trad climber
Berkeley/El Cerrito
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 30, 2006 - 04:08am PT
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Weren't diesel engines originally designed to run on peanut oil or whatever other oil you wanted to put in them? As for the fuel filter clogging issue, just filter the fuel before you put it in the car, and replace your fuel filter more often? I'm not seeing how that would be such a big deal, given the cost savings on gas. Am I missing something?
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Dave
Mountain climber
the ANTI-fresno
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Apr 30, 2006 - 10:26am PT
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spidey - I'm talking about heavy equipment engines... I don't know about cars, and frankly don't give much of a damn.
As I understand it, the fuel filter replacement on Tier II 325 hp engines has gone from 500 hours (1 month) to 50 hours (2.5 days) with biodiesel. This is a big deal - additional labor, lost production, tramming costs to the shop.
PS. "gas" is not diesel fuel.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Apr 30, 2006 - 01:04pm PT
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Is it really a good idea to put a piton down an engine in the first place?
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spidey
Trad climber
Berkeley/El Cerrito
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 30, 2006 - 01:15pm PT
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Dave, thanks for the clarification. I realize that heavy machinery is a whole different beast, and that gas and diesel are not the same.
I'm asking because with gas at $3 a gallon and likely rising/staying high, ditching my jeep (runs on gas at 18-21 mpg) and buying an old diesel vw or mercedes and converting it to run on veggie oil is looking like a very cost effective option.
I'm looking for others who have done the veggie oil conversion to get firsthand info about the pitfalls and/or how great it is. so far I haven't got much to go on other than a warning from Werner that it will ruin my engine and your info about the fuel filter issue, which may not matter much with a car (cheap filters, easy to replace yourself, etc).
Werner's concern about the engine and seals may be valid, (i've heard about the seals before, but they can be preventitively replaced, no?) but apparently lots of people are running veggie oil with no major problems.
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m e
climber
CO
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Apr 30, 2006 - 05:39pm PT
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Check out biodiesel.org a wealth of info and links.
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Apocalypsenow
Trad climber
Cali
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Apr 30, 2006 - 06:09pm PT
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There are a couple guys collecting "used" vat oil from the casino's in South Lake Tahoe as we speak. I am not sure when they are going to open their biodeisel operation but they certainly have a good idea.
My buddy runs biodeisel in his truck. Smells like french frys. Always makes me hungry!
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