1986 300SDL Good for WVO?

This is a good car for WVO... so do your research on which kit you want to install.

I did the same. I've got a '79 300TD.

Nah, it's fine. The thing that's 'required' for vegetable oil is indirect injection.

The more I read about it, though, the more I think I just need to build a reactor to make biodiesel in my garage. It is suggested that vegetable oil can cause a lot of problems, but at the same time there are others who've been doing it for a long time and who have cars that still run. The "complete" conversion, which includes new injectors (the only vendor for which I know about is in Germany) will run you a good chunk of change.

I'm running a mix of about 30% svo in my car; I get soybean oil from a discount superstore, 35 pounds per jug (which works out to about 4.7 US gallons), although its price fluctuates just as bad as petroleum. The first tank of it blackened my fuel filters but quick, but since then the fuel system has been clean as new. I live in southern California, and while it does dip below freezing at night it's not really that cold. However, a thicker mix of veggie oil starts a lot harder on cold mornings. I ran a 60% mix for one tank to see what it did, but beyond the hard starting I dropped fuel efficiency by 10-15%.

There are potentially a lot of problems with running vegetable oil as fuel, especially WVO. Do your research so you don't get struck by any of them, and beware the snakeoil that is a "conversion" kit in the US. Many of them have heaters (which help, to be sure), and many have additional filters, but some of that is offset by other recommendations such as, "use a more permissive fuel filter so it doesn't clop up as easily" which results in "all that crap that was getting caught by the filter is now being injected into your motor... if it doesn't get stuck somewhere sooner!"

Me, I'm using SVO 'cause I haven't got my WVO collection and filtering routine set up yet, and I pour it straight into the fuel tank.

-tom!

Any kit that someone is experienced in and would recommend?? Im a first time converter and diesel owner. I love it though! Noise smoke smell and all!

"Tiger" wrote

No recommendation at this time. I was planning to do it on my diesel too but lots of things to do that it is not a priority.

Go to

and buy the gear and it'll work again.

It'll work just fine.

I woudl suggest doing a lot of research on kits and how the systems work before purchasing anything. I did my reserach on two forums. one is at

and the other is the forums atfrybrid.com. I had originaly intended to research which kit is better,but the more I learned about the kits, the more I figured out aboutjust how simple they are. It can be quite complicated ifyou try tofigure out what is the best way to do stuff, as there are manycompromises to make and solid arguments for both sides of eachdecision. However, the fact that even amongst the best kits there aredifferences in their philosophies tells me that none of the argumentsabout which is best really hold that much water. With that said, I'd suggest that if you are mechanically inclined, research, design and build your own. It will be cheaper, easier to troubleshoot, and probably work just as well if you are good. If this doesn't sound like the solution for you, the greasecar kit is a great kit for the money. It uses hose in hose, which gives better thermal conduction than hose on hose, is relatively cheap comapred to others, and is a relatively simple install. The drawback of this system is that in many cars it still won't get the oil up to the 160-180 that you want. That can easily be remedied by installing a flat plate heat exchanger(FPHE) that you can get for about 80-100 dollars. Then you have an excellent system for well under a grand. If you want to go higher tech with alarms and stuff there is the frybrid system. It is electronically controlled, but almost twice the price. Some people aren't big on Chris, the owner, and I've seen him be quite rude to people on forums, but then again, the other people were also being quite rude.

I think Tiger mentioned that you have to switch fuel injectors. this is not true with a two tank system like the two that I mentioned. In a single tank system you do have to do that, but I know very little about them except for there is a company called elsbett based in Germany that apparenlty makes high quality kits.

As far as the car beign a good car or not, the general opinion is that the mercedes peaked in quality in 85. They had finally worked out almost all of the bugs.(except for the radiator overflow tube nipple breaking off the radiator on every one of them I have ever seen.) Then in 86 when they switched to the aluminum head engine it reduced longevity. Apparently if you let the AL head engine overheat you are done for. So I'd say you're fine if you're the kind of driver that keeps an eye on the coolant temp. I don't intend to make you paranoid to the point of watching the gauge obsessively, but if you don't think that you'll ever let it overheat, then you will likely get a lot more good use out of it... As long as the old owner also didn't let it overheat.

The injectors are designed for diesel fuel. Actual biodiesel will work properly, since its dispersion properties are similar. To get similar dispersion out of vegetable oil with the stock injectors, you need to heat it up to like 160 degrees CELSIUS (over 300 degrees Fahrenheit), so this is why you "need" new injectors. The Elsbett injectors will disperse the oil differently so that it'll combust more properly.

from

:

and

Their recommendations, then, are here:

From , which really mademe think twice about the way I've been doing it: