GreaseDrive

Its been a long week. But many projects have been completed. Most importantly a couple days ago we finished converting my uncles 240D 4Spd. It now has a two tank system using his stock tank as the grease tank with a 6 gallon fuel cell in the trunk for diesel. The system cost was fairly low considering time forced us to buy quite a few expensive fittings that we could have found much cheaper if we had the time. Here is brief system overview:

Here is inside the engine bay. You can see the Vormax (heated filter housing) the Pollak switching valve, part of the looped return and Vegtherm 12V inline heater. We choose to keep the sacrificial filter inline because I don’t think you can ever have enough filtration and have caught some gunk with mine. We found a source of harder/thicker walled filters that seem to handle the heat much better. they are also completely transparent.

Here is a brass manifold that we use to send heat to the Vormax (filter housing) and a coolant line that we send to the trunk of the car that serves to pre-heat the incoming oil in a hose-on-hose insulated line.

Here is the insulated coolant out and veggie in lines wrapped in insulation and heat tape, with the coolant return and veggie return ran next to it.   Ideally these lines would be less exposed but this car will never go off-road and there is few animals to hit here in the high-desert.  It is also very hard on these cars to find a better place then this (though they do exist) so we took the easy way out and ran them here.

Keep in mind this car is going to be driven near Las Vegas.  Winters here are fairly mild.  I believe Hose IN Hose is a superior way to do run lines.  But it is more expensive, harder to install and requires some fairly special/custom fittings to make it work properly.   If this car was going to be driven in a place that actually gets below freezing with some kind of regularity I would have done it.  But here I believe this will be good enough 98% of the time.

This is the brass manifold that we use to put the coolant back into the system.  You can see part of the ball valve behind the fittings.  That valve constricts the flow of coolant to the heater core.  When you restrict the coolant flow from the heater core it forces it to go through the lines for the WVO system.  It works extremely well.  The brass fittings on both sides of this system cost I believe $75 total.  If we had access to better hardware stores that sold the correct types of plastic fittings we could have built both brass systems for maybe $20.  Don’t get me wrong I like the brass but it isn’t required.

Here is the 6 gallon marine fuel cell we are using as our start/stop diesel tank.  And we bent some aluminum hose around the stock tank to add a small amount of heat to the veggie oil.  It isn’t much but we had the stuff so why not?  Considering this is not a cold climate I believe this is more than enough to keep the oil hot enough to flow after the car is properly warmed up.  Many people in these areas run single tank kits.

And that is it,  the control panel is in the console and I don’t have a picture of it yet!  I will discuss this car more along with posting more pictures soon.   We have a in-line temp sensor just before the Injection pump the WVO gets up to 170F very quickly,  Just a couple minutes after the system is turned on and stays even at 65mph with very little line insulation.   Later on a better fuel tank(s) scheme may be put into action along with more modifications.  This system was intended to work better thank a single tank for little additional cost.  The diesel fuel cell was only $30 for example.

So far it seems to be a very simple and robust system that is easy to understand and follow.  I am very happy with the results!

I had to get towed near BakersField CA earlier today.  My veggie filters clogged up pretty bad in a hurry so I was forced to change them at a gas station.   Warning to all,  cheap Supertech ST8A (fram PH8A) filters apparently have a by-pass.   So instead of clogging up tight after they get completely full they start to let particles past.  This is really bad!    Shortly after getting towed off  the high-way I was able to get the car running again after getting a quick jump.   I had worn the battery down a bit trying to start it on the side of the high-way.

I made it to vegas safe and sound.   Vegas is symbolic for me as it is the location my WVO dreams came true and where I bought my beloved 300D.   I am here staying with my uncle in which I am going to do some work on his 240D and do some other work around his place.    I will post more soon!

2 days of fairly dedicated trouble shooting have uncovered many things.

First,  My air leak was caused by several small holes cut into my small vacuum line that runs to my in-car gauge.   Some of the hoses slack must have gotten caught up near/in the hood hinge and it pinched it so much it cut up a large section of the hose badly.  I have spliced in a new section of hose and hope my fairly hasty fix will hold up.

Second,  Temperatures in excess of 180F warp/melt the small sacrificial filter.  You know the clear one just before the injection pump.  It usually only costs a few dollars at the auto-parts store.   Ideally in a good system this filter is almost not needed as nothing harmful should make it that far down the chain.   However I have noticed that on several occasions I have found black/slimy/flaky gunk starting to build up in the filter.   After some experimentation I discovered that this was coming from the diesel side of the system,  SCARY… the only thing I can think of is that the WVO contamination that happens over time with a 1 switch system like mine is clearing out more junk in the diesel loop?   So I have found a solution.  I found a re-usable filter housing with re-usable filters at a auto parts store here in Oregon.  It wasn’t cheap ($10.00) but I suspect it will save its cost in the next 6 months.   I boiled all the plastic components for 10 minutes in a rolling boil (212+ degrees?) and the parts did not even soften so I suspect they will hold up to my WVO temps.  I will post pictures as soon as I can.

Third,   That diesel is thick when its been contaminated to 50% or more with WVO at 40F.   After a severe hot snap of I think a almost record breaking 97F a few days ago last night it got down to 40 degrees here in downtown Bend.   I had only put 5 gallons of #2 Diesel in my tank roughly 5 weeks ago and driven 4,000+ miles.  The gauge was nearing empty but not totally.   Looking at the thickness of what I was pumping out of the diesel side I would say it was 50% or so WVO.    I am curious as to the possible harmful side effects to running so much WVO in the un-heated side of my fuel system.  When I am doing heavy town drivng I suspect half of my driving time is on Diesel not WVO.    Am I coking things up?  and if so how can I reverse the effects.

Fourth,  As soon as possible,  buy the largest bag of GOOD hose clamps I can find.  The cheap ones you get everywhere are just junk.  I have, maybe upwards of 50 of them in my system if you tighten them to much they can actually cause air leaks themselves not to mention they cut-damage the hoses.   Several different types of clamps exist.  I need to do more research.

Fifth,  It is lonely traveling,  alone.   I need some companionship in a dire way.   Having many lovers scattered about the continent is great when I can expect to see them soon,  But when I am not sure where I will be and for how long the distance starts to hurt.