| Author | Message | ||
| JW Smythe (Jwsmythe)
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I found that this has been hit on in abundance in here, but I didn't manage to find anyone who said they actually did it, which is why I'm asking... Has anyone here actually gone the biodiesel or vegetable oil route with their bus? More specifically, on a 6v92? ya, ya, still wannabe, still trying to get my hands on the right bus. Hopefully I'll be a full fledged member of the club in the next week or so. I spent a good bit of tonight reading up on the subject. It seems to take advantage of biodiesel for emissions, you have to retard the timing. How much of a task is that on these motors? I know muscle car gas engines inside and out and could set the timing by ear, but I don't know a lot about DD's. The idea of pulling up to the closest fast food or chinese restraunt, and sucking up all their waste cooking oil is very appealing, especially in that I plan on doing long drives. It'd be worth putting a big vegetable oil tank in, if it's known to work. Some sites say you have to go through a long involved process. Some say use processed biodiesel only. A few interesting ones indicate that the waste oil just needs to be filtered for impurities. Some sites say to dump the filtered waste cooking oil into the fuel tank at either an 80:20 or 20:80 petrol diesel to vegetable oil ratio (ya, there's a freakin' specific number). The general idea that I've read is this. Fire up the engine on petrol diesel or biodiesel, let it warm up to get the coolant temp up to heat up vegetable oil, and then switch the fuel line over from diesel to vegetable oil. There are reports of coking, but then one guy on a german site reports running over 100,000 kilometers on just straight waste vegetable oil with no processing, with no evidence of coking or plugging up the injectors. Would it be conceivable to pump out the waste oil from the resturant, run it through a screen for big chunks and a couple automotive oil filters for small particles, and dump that result into a tank to drive on? I love the idea. Cross the country on $10 of fuel and lots of cooking waste. I wouldn't mind throwing the normal cost of fuel into more interesting things like the "rebuild the motor in another 500k mile" fund. I'd like to know that someone has already tried it with their bus, before I just go try it and find that it shortens the lifespan of a DD from 1 million miles to 1 mile.  Also, if you've done it, did it work for a diesel generator also? It would take away a lot of the pain of the idea of leaving a diesel generator running most of the time, if I knew I could run it on free shit, rather than knowing I'm burning several gallons per day at $2.47 per gallon. (2.47 is the DoE average diesel price for the US, as of 2/27/06) If it would work, should I expect engine heating or cooling problems from trying to keep a big tank of vegetable oil heated from engine coolant water? What should I expect from condensation? Is there a maintaince where I should expect to drain water from the vegetable oil tank on a regular (daily) basis? If I do have dual tanks (petrol/bio diesel in one, vegetable oil in the other), do I run a risk of the diesel going stale and the engine running like shit after a while? My diesel experience has been with large farm equipment and an old 55 gallon drum on the property, where we may go through the 55 gallons in a year or two. I know I could run the shit out of that that equipment, no matter how old the fuel was. I know the old diesel tractors could run on WD40 sprayed into the air intake. I only did that a few dozen times when they were misbehaving. Too many questions? | ||
| David (Davidinwilmnc)
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You might want to check Yahoo Groups. Here are a couple: http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvobus/ and http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/vegetable_oil_vehicles/messages. I'm also planning on doing the veggie oil thing with my MC-8. From what I can tell, it should work fine. I'm going to 'perfect' the system on my '85 300D first. Besides, fuel consumption isn't an issue for my bus yet, as I haven't driven it since I started converting it. | ||
| bruce knee (Bruceknee)
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Hey guys, before you perfect the system, try lining up your sources for waste oil. I didn't look long and hard for it, however, most places I talked to had contracts with processers or some other reason they did not want to give it to me... | ||
| David (Davidinwilmnc)
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I've got a place that gives it to me. The have a contract but give me the oil before dumping it. I've gotten about 4 55-gallon drums full so far. I got lucky, but I guess it depends on what sort of rapport you develop with the restaurant. | ||
| David Hartley (Drdave)
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Waste oil supply is the tough part for most people. Most restaurants already have a pickup service operated by a local "rendering" company. The catch is that although there may not be a contact as such, the rendering companies provide the storage drums or collectors and many have now begun padlocking them. They also get very upset if they start finding empty drums. It's funny, They don't pay for the used oil but they depend on the revenue it provides when they re-use it or export it to other countries. Otherwise how would the drivers get paid and the trucks get paid for? Here in Central Florida there is one company that appears to have the market tied up for some reason. I have spoken to restaurant owners and they have been told that if anyone but their people are caught taking oil they will file theft charges, this has people scared now. I have a couple of times managed to intercept the oil before it gets into the drums but that is getting harder to do lately. Now the thought of travelling blindly across the nation without a pre-arranged source for the oil is a poser. What is needed is someone to set up and intermediary group to collect the oil in each local area, filter it and make it available to people who use it. An accessable location would be needed also due to the size of most buses and trucks needing turning space. 95% of the restaurants have the drums located behind the buildings where about the only thing that fits in there is a delivery truck. Taking a bus into those spaces is just asking for problems. One other worry that seems to be cropping up especially on the Left Coast is spillage of the oil onto the ground and roads. It's an issue here in Florida as well and only going to get worse. Now it seems that if there is even a hint that someone spilled oil or anything on the ground that the EPA sends sample drill trucks to your area and starts looking for stuff soaked into the ground. Property owners are being fined for stuff that happened 50 years ago even before they bought the property. A spill of solvent that probably cost $10 years ago is now estimated to cost between 1 and 10 million dollars to clean up. Beam me up...NOW!!!! This place has gotten insane!!! | ||
| Dale Fleener (Dale_mc8)
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I think Chris of greasel.com is converting a Neoplan IIRC. Check out his site. DaleMC8 | ||
| Richard Bowyer (Drivingmisslazy)
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I believe you have to have a hazardous waste disposal permit in most (if not all) parts of the country to pick up, store or transport these waste oils. I feel certain it would be next to impossible to start out across the country and find an adequate supply of available waste oil in a location where you could get your conversion to pick it up. The fines for spilling hazardous waste is unbelievable. There are inspectors driving around looking for people hauling 55 gallon drums or pumping wast oil out of car dealer/service storage tanks. Richard | ||
| Richard Bowyer (Drivingmisslazy)
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I just had a customer in who operates a Quick Lube store. The company that picks up his waste oil is a licensed waste oil dealer and the waste oil dealer pays $.45 per gallon to the Quick Lube dealer. There must be a paper trail for all the oil he transports. He just received a check for a little over $500, so the Quick Lube dealer is not about to give his waste oil away to some bus nut. I installed a waste oil furnace last fall and although there may be some differences in this application as opposed to use as a motor fuel, the owners manual very clearly states that it must be used in a commercial/industrial environment. Used oil is to generated on site. Can accept used oil from "do it yourself" oil changers and furnace must be used for heat recovery purposes. In other words, you can not run the furnace in the summer just to get rid of waste oil. Again I caution everybody considering doing this to research very carefully any and all enviromental regulations concerning "do it yourself" operation of waste oil recovery systems. Richard | ||
| Mike (Busone)
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A lot of people on the group skoolie.net have done it. One guy has been running his bus for years now on WVO with no problems. Once you find a few resturants that will supply you it is no problem. Most resturants have to pay to get the oil hauled off so they will gladly give it to you. The smaller mom and pop places will sometimes put it back into the 5 gallon plastic containers they got it in. It makes transporting it real easy. As far as used cooking oil the hazmat thing is not an issue. That is why a lot of operations that use hydraulic fluid are starting to use a veggy based oil. Then they don't have to worry about spills. They even use it to lube the chain on chain saws. | ||
| waynewland@earthlink.net
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You guys need to talk to Lawrence Gaskens of WV. lawrence gaskins [gmclawrence@hotmail.com] He has been running his pusher for about a year on his home brew. | ||
| Bruce Henderson (Oonrahnjay)
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__. Hey, guys. Hold the phone! "Bio-diesel" and "WVO" are two different things. "Bio-diesel" is a "OK to use" diesel fuel; only difference is that it's made from vegetable oil (and gives very good lubrication to fuel injection components). Aside from the fact that it tend to be a little higher viscosity than "dino-diesel" (which can result is damage to some injector systems), it's pretty much pour it in the tank and go. __. To make "bio-diesel", you take your base material and heat up, add a heavy sodium salt to precipitate the glycerin and other heavy oils out, then "wash" it with methanol. After this, you need to dry it. __. "WVO" can be used as the base material for "bio-diesel" but you can also run it direct to your injection system. Since it's a "complex" oil, it has to be heated to about 160 degrees (F) before it goes into a fuel injection system made for "dino-fuels". Since it tends to be a heavier viscosity than ordinary diesel fuel, there have been problems with failure to spray and atomize properly, resulting in poor combustion and buildup of carbon. This is bad enough in the combustion chambers/piston tops, but fouling of the injector tips is really bad news. __. "Biodiesel" and "WVO" can be considered alternatives to ordinary diesel but you're talking very different details. I can't imagine a conversion system to make biodiesel being carried in a bus (however, if you have access to a heated tank, proper chemicals, and have chemical experience, it's a reasonably practical thing to do at home but this implies relatively short trips from home). You can run on WVO on a regular basis is you can get oil to dump into the tank, but that's a level of complication on top of normal operation -- filtering of the oil, starting/warming on diesel fuel, switiching over, going back to diesel to fill the fuel lines before you shut down, etc. __. Both are doable, but aren't "free". ' | ||
| niles steckbauer (Niles500)
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Hopefully Bill Glenn will post on this thread and give you some 'real world' experience w/ WVO - IMHO he has the most experience of any on this board - no sh** he is the master of WVO - or you can check the archives - FWIW | ||
| GmcLawrence Rating: N/A |
Hi I have been making Biodiesel for about one year. Runs fine in 1987 Mercedes 190D 2.5L Turbo 5 cylinder engine. Mercedes has become my daily driver traveling 30 miles plus on the 0.87 cents homebrew Biodiesel. Traveling 30 to 34 miles on 87 cents of fuel makes My day. The diesel pusher motorhome has traveled 5000 miles on the homebrew Biodiesel without a hint of any problem. Motorhome is a factory made 1999 American Eagle 40 foot with a 350 horsepower Cummings turbo straight six cylinder engine. I carry a new fuel filter, filter wrench and quart of Diesel fuel if needed. No problem of any cloged fuel filter yet. Others have reported that the Biodiesel will loosen diesel residue from tank and fuel system. Biodiesel is an excellent solvent also lubricates injectors and pistons. The exhaust pipe is bright bare metal rather than black soot. Engine oil remains surprising clean after oil change and running on Biodiesel. Biodiesel runs fine at 40 deg F and above. Below 40 deg F Biodiesel begins to cloud and will begin to cease flowing thru fuel system. Mixing winterized Diesel fuel from service station will lower the useful cold weather use of Biodiesel. One part Biodiesel and one part of Diesel is good for temperatures down to 18 deg F. This mixture would be called B50. One last plus for Biodiesel fuel, is a quiter diesel engine,the diesel ping and knock is much less or almost gone. | ||
| GmcLawrence@aol.com Rating: N/A |
There are 3 ways to power a diesel on waste - deep fry oil from resturants. Adding a fuel tank, heated by engine coolant and fuel valve switching. Expensive kit for this modification. Add filtered waste vegetable and when the fuel reaches about 150 deg F switch from diesel fuel to the hot vegetable oil. Another method Diesel fuel,waste vegetable oil and gasoline mixture. Non heated fuel tank. Sounds risky and am a not planing to try. Biodiesel requires some labor and equipment-tanks, pumps,Ethanhol alohol,lye,water and electric heating elements. Cost $700 to $1000 This method is working fine for Me and am looking no further. The Biodiesel can be added to fuel tank without any vehicle alteration. This is helpful if two or more family vehicles are going to be Biodiesel powered. The Biodiesel exhaust has a plesant out door grill cooking odor. {:> | ||
| Stan Rating: N/A |
GmcLawrence: When you make biodiesel from WVO do you have any by-products that have to be disposed of? Lye sounds like a dangerous chemical to just dump anywhere. | ||
| Dale Waller (Happycampersrus)
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I have been playing with black diesel and may have made a mistake. LOL. I have 2 local garages that are saving oil for me and it's more than I can use. They slow down in the winter to run their oil burning furnaces so I have got to find a used heating oil tank for storage soon. I can get my cost down to around 60 cents a gal. I would love to have all that motor oil back that I have poured on poison oak and tree stumps. | ||
| Richard Bowyer (Drivingmisslazy)
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Dale, are you indicating that there is some way to convert used engine oil into a fuel that a diesel engine can burn? I have a waste oil furnace for my shop and it does a great job of heating. Now if I could use it for my diesel engine equipment I would be in hog heaven. I currently have at least 1,000 gallons of waste oil and have access to more if needed. Richard | ||
| Bruce Henderson (Oonrahnjay)
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Stan asked: "When you make biodiesel from WVO do you have any by-products that have to be disposed of? Lye sounds like a dangerous chemical to just dump anywhere." __. The answer to this is yes. The biggest waste product is glycerin but you're right about the handling of the other chemicals, too (you gotta be careful of methanol in addition to the sodium chemicals). But most converters say that they work out easy disposal methods. ' | ||
| Dale Waller (Happycampersrus)
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Hey Richard, YES, I have been playing with black diesel for about a year and it works great. Unlike WVO anyone can do this process. I use a mix ratio of 20%diesel/80%used oil. I have made a filter system that mixes the oil and diesel. For 60 cents a gallon it is well worth my time. Check out this link the only thing I don't do that they do is the bead method for water removal, but I have a good clean supply of oil. It's a large site, but they have some great ideas. www.hydrogenappliances.com/bioD.html Dale | ||
| GmcLawrence@aol.com Rating: N/A |
Stan asked: Lye sounds like a dangerous chemical to just dump anywhere. Lye is pretty potent, a few flakes on your skin sure burns. This flesh disolving chemical needs careful handling. On the other hand,expose lye to moist air and it decomposes to baking soda very rapidly. Lye and Methanhol Alchol bring about a chemical change in vegetable oil.The sticky stuff becomes heavier and settles to the bottom. This is called glycerin which can be refined and used for cosmetics and clear liquid in instrument dials. Glycerin can be poured on compost pile for disposal or burned with crumpled newspapers. Every thing I have applied to making Biodiesel has been gleaned from internet sites. Try a Google search Biodiesl or Grease Car. This internet information is fantastic. | ||
| David Ljung Madison (Daveola)
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There are a number of people driving school buses and MCIs and other various buses around on WVO. I'm finishing up my conversion setup for my 6V92 bus right now, most of it except for the recent work is detailed at: http://bus.getdave.com/Infrastructure/Vegetable-Oil/ From the research I've done, running WVO isn't a problem for these engines as long as you filter and heat it properly, but gathering the oil is difficult. Even if you find restaurants that will give you the oil, you're not going to generally get hundreds of gallons in one spot. My guess is that I'll be spending easily a full day tracking down the oil to fill the 270 gallons of storage I have. And it's more than $10 across the country, more like $100 - remember the start and stop diesel costs as well as the filter costs. Btw - some people are talking about waste MOTOR oil as opposed to waste VEGGIE oil - different beast entirely - there are regulations regarding disposal of motor oil, but I don't believe there are regs for WVO. | ||
| Mike (Busone)
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Good point Dave, most resturants don't have all the oil you will need. Most people go to a few different restruants. I will work out a deal with serveral local resturants and store the oil in and old fuel oil tank. Then I can pump it into the bus tank before I take a trip. If I have a good enough supply I will build a furnace that burns the oil to heat my shop. | ||
| Richard Bowyer (Drivingmisslazy)
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Dale, thanks very much for the link. Very interesting. Since I have started using used motor oil for heating my shop I have saved several thousand dollars, even after buying the waste oil furnace, and am still getting people bringing in their waste oil. One farmer just brought in 10 drums (55 gallon each) this Saturday. One interesting thing on the site is that the process will conceal the red dye in off road fuel. Has anybody heard of any process that might be used to detect the use of off road fuel other than dipping a fuel tank? An electronic device to check exhaust emissions? Richard | ||
| Bruce Henderson (Oonrahnjay)
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Daveola wrote: "From the research I've done, running WVO isn't a problem for these engines as long as you filter and heat it properly," __. I hope that this is true because I'm planning the same thing. But I have heard of people who had had severe carbon problems (up to and including stuck piston rings, scuffed cylinder walls, etc.) due to poor combustion because of bad spray caused by VO's. I really hope that a 30 year old British engine is loose and ratty enough for it to not mattter. |