Convert 240D to biodiesel

AFAIK there are no changes that need to be made. I ran my 1979 240D quite happily for over a year on biodiesel (until they closed the one and only station which carried it. GRRRR.) It was about 10% higher price than normal diesel, but I got a better than 10% mileage increase from it. Approx. 22mpg US with regular diesel, 26-28 with bio. Wish I could find some more.

Talked to my local MBZ mechanic. He had not heard of any changes that needed to be made. Don't know why anything different would be needed. It is still mostly dino fuel.

Rochelle

JollyJoe wrote:

Biodiesel is designated Biodiesel 100 and Biodiesel 20, the 100 and 20 being the percentage of Biodiesel.

You should know that 100% Biodiesel will act as a solvent and dissolve old fuel residues inside the car's fuel system. These will be captured in the fuel filters so have some spare filters available. Apparently the

The "conversion" that you mention is for those who want to run their engines on cooking grease to use a loose description. Basically, the grease congeals in cold weather and that "fuel" needs to be heated to fuel the engine. So diesel #2 is used to get the engine going and that involves a fuel switch over mechanism as well as a fuel heater to heat the grease to a liquid. Sounds like a mess.

There's good information available from the Biodiesel association or something like that.

Cooking oils from your local McDonald's work but have to be filtered before mixing it with #2 diesel. Heating the oil helps get it through the filters and removes nearly all the "impurities" that might cause it to coagulate in very cold weather. Aside from that you don't need to do anything. By the way, it smells like french fries out the exhaust. Neat.

Yeah, will have to check them gaskets and hoses...

Check out this book, I received it yesterday, has everything about biodiesel and how to setup your own processor

Thanks c.p. but the amount of use my car gets would not warrant the time and effort to make my own. Hopefully the book will hepl those who do want to make it.

jj

PS - On my first, second and third attempts to post this, a message bawled at me that HTML attachments cannot be posted to user groups. I could find no attachment and deleted your response but I still had the message:

"Outlook Express could not post your message. Subject 'Re: Convert 240D to biodiesel', Account: 'news.west.earthlink.net', Server: 'news.west.earthlink.net', Protocol: NNTP, Server Response: '441 Posting Failed (EarthLink does not permit the posting of HTML attachments to Usenet.)', Port: 119, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 441, Error Number:

It's probably telling me I need to get further from MicroCrap.

for myself, it's about $3000 a year in fuel, for some peanuts, but for me, not yet :-)

cp

Phew!, that's a lotta dough - $250/month. For that I'd do the same.

JJ

What about the cost of collecting it and making it suitable for use?

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Yeh, it's canadian dough, but it's still a lot here!

cp

If I can make the procedure efficient then it's worth it. I set up a supply of around 100L every Friday from a fast "food" joint two blocks away, if I can make the whole operation straightforward I will go ahead with it.

cp

IIRC, Outhouse Express prefers to send in .html format by default. If you select "plain text" for newsgroup postings that might do the trick.

Better get busy, or the oil is going to start piling up...

Guess you could heat your house with this stuff too???? That is more interesting to me personally, since I use a lot more oil and money that way...

Marty

Not started yet :-)

interesting to me personally, since I use a lot more oil

Yeh, that's what I told my parents, get an oil heater. In some Euro countries this is common

cp

Maybe only where there isn't piped gas.

DAS

I hears it's popular in Italy, no?

cp

Statistically invalid sample: yes, the people we stay with in a house on Lake Garda in northern Italy have oil :-)

However, given the terrain and location I can imagine that laying a pipeline would probably be uneconomical, even if it is only a spur from Verona... not that I know anything about gas pipeline economics...

Dunno if oil is "popular" in Italy, however.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Thanks for the suggestion but it was already set for plain text for newsgroup postings. Maybe v5.5 is buggy, but then which version isn't ;-).

Garda in northern Italy have oil :-)

:-)

would probably be uneconomical, even if it is only a

Maybe not "popular"... As for pipelines, here in Vancouver at least the oil is delivered, though it does not get cold enough here to bother. If I lived in the east, then I'd fer sure get it done...

cp