Have been doing some research on the web and was thinking of converting my
2001 Discovery. Has any body been using vegetable oil and can they pass on their words of wisdom. Thanking the group in advance.Mick
Yeah! Father-in-Law uses it in his Toyota Hilux with no mods to the engine. A ratio of 3 parts diesel to 1 part cooking oil. Not recommended for use in winter though! I did hear that Japanese Diesel engine are built to run on light Diesel while over here we have heavy Diesel, which would explain why cooking oil works, but I have no idea how true this is. Wolverine.
110 Defender CSW.
it's thicker than diesel so will put more strain on pumps, particularly injector pumps. it also lifts all the crud out of your tank and blocks the fuel filter with it, so carry a spare and if you get fuel starvation symptoms, swap the filter. it's generally regarded that bosch injector pumps are up to the job, some others are not. Try it first on a 25% mix for a couple of thousand miles, if all ok then go to 50%. more than that and you're on your own ;o) an electric fuel line heater will make starting alot easier and a heat exchanger fuel heater will make the running easier, I can suggest a manufacturer/supplier for both, not cheap but if you are going to try non-purified vegetable oil and/or a high % mix then I think you really will need them. In winter I'd suggest a 50% diesel mix to help prevent it thickening/waxing similar to the way diesel used to before it was jecked-up with additives.
-- Mark.
................................................................ Posted via TITANnews - Uncensored Newsgroups Access >>>> at
Do any of you cooking oil converts make your own biodiesel (process it to remove glycerine)? The process loots a little involved for the average garden shed, and the home conversion kits look very expensive. One kit mentioned in the Sunday Times was over £4k. David
Though the chemistry looks easy, getting all the aggressive catalyst out of the final product has to be done carefully, or you get the seals in your pumps attacked and rotted out, unless the pumps are rebuilt with Viton.
Steve
try running 3litres SVO [straight vegetable oil] per 10 gallons of diesel , this is 5% mix and you can run all year round on it .
is easier to get hold of the oil in the 3litre bottles because the larger ones get snapped up quickly from shelves :-(.
just buy the cheap ordinary veg oil from someone like tesco/asda and pour straight into tank when you are about fill up , youll note a slight smell from exhaust but its not too noticeable .
change fuel filter after first 500-1000miles , then at normal intervals .
customs and excise wont bother about you running 5% mix, they allow that much error when dipping tanks , but any more and they may rap youre knuckles .
the veg oil is higher viscosity than normal diesel and the reason why the bosch pumps are reported to be ok for using veg oil is because of theyre better ability to pump thicker viscosity fuel than many other makes of pump .
you can also mix SVO veg oil with normal diesel to run it in older landy diesels , 10% mix would run ok .
you cant run the 100% blend manufactured BIODIESEL in a lot of older vehicles because the 100% biodiesel contains alcohol which will rot rubber hoses , which were used a lot on pre 1990 vehicles .
Mick wrote:
On a 300TDi Defender with initially no modifications I ran for about a month on 100% veg oil direct from the supermarket, the truck ran a treat. After that it seemed to lose power, so I fitted a heat exchanger that sat between the fuel filter and the filter holder. This fixed the power loss and it ran sweet after that. As the colder weather set in, the truck would chug like fury with no power for the first mile of running, including swamping the garage with thick white smoke for about 2 minutes. Once I'd travelled about a mile it was fine and back to running sweetly. I didn't think it would run through the winter like that though as the oil would turn solid.
After being stopped by the cops for driving down a 3 foot long bus lane and having to turn off the engine and coast to a stop to avoid the stink of chips, I stopped doing it. As I lived in an argricultural area and parked my landy in a neighbour's barn, I thought that I was running a risk of being stopped and having my tank dipped for red diesel. Also the neighbour kept red diesel on his premises so had signed a form allowing random inspections on all vehicles on his premises, which would include my landy. Given that the consequences are in the region of 4,000 quid plus the confiscation of your vehicle, even though I was saving 100 quid a month I didn't think it was worth it. Plus of course making it run in cold weather was going to take some modifications and I also wasn't sure how much damage I would do to the engine.
Running on a veg/diesel mix didn't seem worth the hassle, especially given that filling up from supermarket oil was a hassle (all those bottles) and other sources (cash 'n' carry, restaurant suppliers) were more expensive than supermarkets. Veg oil is quite sticky so if you spill it on the side of the truck it makes a mess, if you don't clean it off you end up with flies stuck to it!
Overall it was a nice idea but probably not worth the hassle unless you can get reclaimed oil delivered by tanker into a tank in your garden (which is entirely do-able), but if you're going to do that then you might as well get diesel delivered in 1,000 litre quantities at wholesale prices, which are about 20-30p cheaper than pump prices, making it only slightly more expensive than veg oil. If you want to do some tree hugging, you could probably get biodiesel delivered in
1,000 litre quantities for similar prices.Finally, purifying the oil yourself involves some really nasty chemicals that can kill you easily if you make mistakes, not something to be done if you're not experienced with chemicals or have kids or interfering wives around.
All of this was about 3 years ago, truck still runs like a dream now, but I only use diesel these days. If I had more space in the garden I'd try to buy in biodiesel in bulk but the tanks are large and expensive (double walled). Next house perhaps.
Sorry for the disjointed rambling, off to bed now!
I've just started using a bio-diesel (bio power V100) in my 1990 Defender 110 CSW. The only mod so far has been a heat exchanger in the heater line.
With the fuel I have bought (70p/litre tax paid) I have been recommended
(diesel/bio diesel)
60/40 first tank full (& change filter) 70/30 second tank full (& check and possibly change filter) 10/90 from then on and the filter should be OKI get my supplies from
I'll keep you updated on what happens.
Cheers
Peter
Defender 110 CSW 2.5TD Rover P4 110 Hillman Imp
Just to clarify the bio-diesel I buy is in 45 gallon drums at about
70p/litre and is duty paid.I got a "sticker" from the seller so that if I ever get stopped, they can call him and he will verify that I have been sold "duty paid" vegetable oil.
Cheers
Peter
On or around 13 Oct 2005 01:03:03 -0700, "puffernutter" enlightened us thusly:
where's that from?
and does it require any mods to the vehicle?
but if you're going to do that
I buy derv in quantities of between 2500 and 7000 litres at a time and can assure you that while there is sometimes a saving of 2-3p, NOT 20-30p, there is also the probability that a loss can be made when fuel prices fall. I do not know where you get your fuel price from but it cannot be anywhere legal.
Huw
I need specs. Ian said 'biodiesel' not diesel. Still, if it were 30ppl cheaper then surely everyone would be using the stuff?
Huw
As said elsewhere,
Hmm, sounds like you need to get a better supplier ;-)
The people I was asking were my local kerosene heating oil supplier, they also supply DERV in 1,000 litre quantities, when the last fuel protests were on the price per litre, duty paid, was 60-something pence while the pump price was 20p or so greater. I've asked from time to time since, and it's more or less stayed at the same price below the forecourt price. And yes I asked if that was with duty paid and any other little cuts the government takes, i.e. it was the price that I would actually have to pay. I've not checked again in the last
5 months though.Also some chap in another post has quoted that he's paying 70p/litre for biodiesel duty paid, which is a few pence less than what I'd expect the DERV to cost from my local supplier right now.
Get ringing round, sounds like you're paying over the odds!
No you don't need specs, I was talking DERV, and the reason people don't generally buy DERV at these kind of prices (about 20-30p cheaper) is because most people don't even think about it (when I mention the idea to some people they seem to think you're not "allowed" to do it), and of course the reason they and I don't buy it at those prices is because putting a double-walled 1,000 litre tank in the garden with a pump attached involves too many negatives, including setup costs, to feel it's worth the money. I don't do so many miles now as I used to, if I'd kept up my commuting habits then it would have been worth the hassle but not any more.
Groovy, do they deliver across the country? I'd like to get some of that. Can you give us supplier details?
Also, do you know if it's BS-approved, ISTR that there's some fuel rating or sommat that some biodiesel now conforms to, the type of fuel a car needs is usually listed in the manual and the fuel cap with this conformance number, if the fuel matches the car then it can use it unmodified.
Great, there are two suppliers within reach of me (both about an hour or more from me, as is just about everything, ah bliss!), I'm going to see what the smallest realistic quantity I can get is, preferrably around 2-3 tanks (about 200 litres) and will see how it goes. No point testing it in a 300TDi engine, that'll run on camel piss, it's the 1.9 TDi in the Audi that does the most miles.
The main concern really is anti-waxing, I don't want to have to blow-torch the fuel tank each morning in the winter. I'll see what they have to say.
On or around Thu, 13 Oct 2005 15:25:47 +0100, "Huw" enlightened us thusly:
's what i was thinking. Last time I tried pricing bulk diesel, it would've been cheaper to drive 30 miles to the elchaepo supermarket. When I pointed this out to the supplier, they said that it'd be cheaper for them to drive their tanker tyhere and get it filled up, presuming it were possible. Their price for buying 10,000 litres at a time was more than the elcheapo was selling it for.
supermarkets are no longer quite so cheap compared to other outlets, mind.
On or around Thu, 13 Oct 2005 17:41:56 +0100, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:
jolly good. I've emailed the local bloke; will see what happens. 200l would last less than a fortnight here, so only viable in quantity, or a
1000l one might be more cost-effective. Or go and fetch say 4x200 at a time in a trailer.
Well I shop around a bit for 40,000 litres of fuel I buy in bulk every year and on the day of a deal I have seldom bought at more than a 5ppl saving compared to the pump price and mostly less than that. When prices lower at the pumps I am often lumbered with a quantity of fuel bought at a higher price. Sometimes I strike lucky and fill the tanks with lower priced fuel on a rising market but it is a case of 'swings and roundabouts'. Unless one hauls ones own fuel in from the refinery by the tanker load then
20-30ppl saving is a fantasy.MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.