I see that you can get conversion kits for around $800, like "grease-car". But couldn't you do it for less? Couldn't you get a junk yard 20 gal tank, put in the trunk, "southern engineer" a fuel preheater with lines from the radiator? I guess teh fuel switch has to be bought off-the shelf, but that wouldn't cost but 30 bucks or so, right? Is there anything on-line showing how to do it without an expensive kit?
see:
Apparently no conversion is needed BUT know that 100% biodiesel acts as a solvent and dissolves all the deposits etc. in your car's old fuel tank. Soon you'll be changing its fuel filters. 20% bio doesn't have that effect.
You don't need to convert anything. You can drive it on new cooking oil (if you can get it cheap) but of course it's better to use the free stuff from restaurants, just filter it and use it, no need for transesterification, which rids the oil of the glycerine and turns it into what's called biodiesel.
cp
He asked about veg oil, not biodeisel...
Marty
PS Good link though :~)
CP is only correct if you live in a moderate climate where there are NO cold temperatures...
Marty
temperatures...
Yeh, that right, I keeps on forgetting that not everyone has a westcoast weather :)
cp
By the way, I've been running B100 (100% biodiesel) in my '82 300SD and the results have been great! The engine runs much smoother and QUIETER, the exhaust smoke has lessened, and the smell is quite different (no longer diesel). I change my fuel filters fairly regularly. (More often than the suggested 30k mile interval).
I ran B20 (20% biodiesel) for a while, but did not experience quite the results I have with the neat biodiesel. I only wish the government would give a tax break on B100 so that it wouldn't be so costly! B100 is nearly *$1.00* more per gallon than B20, and B20 is about the same price as regular diesel (#2) fuel (here in TN).
I'm debating brewing my own...
David King
82 300SDI have never seen the insside of a MBZ engine run extensively on SVO, but what I did see on a 6V53T Detroit in a converted school bus chassis was enough to put me off it forever. The engine had to be pulled and hot tanked before anything else could be done-it was a total overhaul, and with less than ten thousand miles (plus 200+ idle hours) on the engine on SVO. The copper injector sleeves in both heads were stuck so strongly to the injectors they gave up and sent them back as Reliabilt cores!
Don't know what difference it would make but the Detroit diesel is a two-cycle and not four-cycle as the MB. Also, the 53 series is going way back and I'd question its condition before the switch to SVO (Say, did this guy with the bus have long hair, a beard, talk with a slight slur, and act happy all the time?).
The 53 Series engines are _still in production_, as are the 92's and occasionally 71's. They came out with a 400 hp rated DDEC 6V53T just two years ago for a military contract in fact. This was a engine that was a low time industrial pull and re-configured for vehicle use, he pulled the heads at that time, and they were clean then. The owner is in fact a clean cut Pat Boone type...sorry.
Another individual has run a 2-71 on SVO high time with no issues, he says....it could be he has a different stock of oil or may be running the engine hotter.
On a Benz you could probably borescope the cylinders through the injector or glow plug holes if you had a small enough scope head to see if thing were going awry.
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