GreaseDrive

This morning bright and early we began doing a ‘warm weather’ dual tank conversion on my uncles 240D. The car is virtually identical my 240D I am currently selling on ebay here: 240D Ebay Link Wish me luck on this auction! :)

I say its a warm weather conversion because he lives here in the high desert of Nevada. Now it does get cold in winter. He might even get a few days of below freezing temps. But for the most part he does not have to worry about the kind of weather conditions I do in the mid-west and up north. In the southwest single tank conversions are much more common but I am of the belief that vegetable oil should never be used as a cold starting fuel. My first conversion was a single tank, and I could start it up easily on straight veggie oil even in the low-mid 40’s. Now I had to wait several minutes for the system to warm up enough to give me adequate power but it worked.

The only way to really make single tank work when it gets into colder temps (Lets define colder as mid-50’s or below) is to blend the veggie oil with normal Diesel. (Biodiesel can gel/thicken up too!) Granted unless it was ‘REALLY’ cold outside (below 20’s) a 50/50 blend in a single tank would probably suffice. But see what is happening here… Lots of IF’s and Maybes. That is not good enough for me. I want to be running on pure veggie as long as I possibly can as quickly as I possibly can with no blending. I am not trying to knock on single tank conversions. But the more and more research I do the more and more I become convinced that starting and stopping the engine on the fuels it was designed for is the only way to go. It makes the conversion obviously more complicated. But when it is done right it makes your car more reliable, better in adverse weather and could possibly increase your engine life. Don’t forget veggie oil contains all sorts of acids/compounds/fats etc etc. Not found in normal diesel. It is still unknown what kinds of effects letting that veggie oil sit cold in your engine/injection pump for days/years could have on component longevity.

Sorry for the long-winded paragraph but we are just scratching the surface here. I am not a tribologist, nor a professional diesel/injection pump mechanic. I learn new things every day so do your own research and try to draw upon a large pool of good minds.

System Overview:
We are going to use his stock fuel tank as the veggie tank and add a small 8 gallon fuel cell for diesel to start and stop the car. Fuel cell is going to go into the trunk inside a fender well. We are going to reuse the steel fuel lines under the car and extend them into the trunk essentially keeping the stock diesel system the same just moving the tank farther back. We are going to use a wrap of coolant hose around the stock tank to add a small degree of heat (for the coldest days) and use a heavily insulated Hose-on-Hose line to the stock fuel tank from the engine bay. This will serve to add heat to the veggie oil soon as it is pulled from the tank. We are using a PlantDrive Racor filter housing to pre-heat and filter the oil. A standard Ford fuel selector valve for switching between tanks. A 12v Vegtherm in line heater to add more heat to the system and a looped return on the veggie line. A control panel will be installed where the ash-tray used to be. That is basically it.

Here is the engine bay before we touched anything. Gotta love how simple it all looks, To me anyway!

Here is the insulated Hose on Hose connection that will run from the engine bay to the stock fuel tank. It will be nicely tucked away once it is installed into its final location.

Here I am using a small section of 3/8″ fuel line I cut down its length to act as a grommet to keep future fuel lines from rubbing on the bare metal. This hole will be used for the fuel lines that run to the new fuel cell in the trunk.

Many, MANY more pictures and posts to come on this project.

Yesterday I finished installing the roof-rack on my 300D.  You have to love finding good deals on Craigslist.   I also installed a small Temp sensor on the final hose to the Injection pump.   Not the hose with the stock clear fuel filter but the one from the Primer pump TO the injection pump.    This is the last bit of fuel hose left before it hits the system.

So far with some short distance town driving the temp only got to 142F.   This is kind of concerning as it really should be 165-170F.   This is with a looped return in “loop” mode.  And a 12V in-line heater just before the IP.  I will update with my attempts to get the temp higher.  Along with some pictures.

Here is a basic layout of my current WVO system designed for Dumpster Fill. Meaning I needed a system robust enough to handle unprocessed/unfiltered/untreated or un-settled WVO. Literally pump/scoop or pour raw WVO into my grease tank and drive.

The Car: 1984 Mercedes Benz 300DT Turbo Diesel @ 103k miles.

The system is a mix between GoGreenEarly.com and PlantDrive.com components with a few custom twists.

Important System Components:
a) Custom ‘20mm Ammo Can’ 8.5 Gallon Grease Tank of GoGreenEarly design (entire top can be taken off)
b) Hose-In-Hose grease input line
c) GoGreenEarly Heated Dual-Filter Housing
d) Off the shelf ford dual-tank switching valve
e) PlantDrive 3-way Valve for Looped-Return
f) PlantDrive VegTherm 12V 3/8″ hose in-line heater

Numerous other small tweaks and modifications.   The whole point is to get the grease in the tank as hot as possible as soon as possible and keep it hot until it gets into the injection pump just like with most WVO systems.   A in-tank large particle filter catches heavy items such as fries and chunks of food.  The dual filters on the heated housing catch everything else.   Using a Hose-in-Hose fuel line allows you to prevent gelling in the fuel lines under the car.  Effectively allowing me to burn even hydrogenated oil in the dead of winter.

Many concerns exist about dumpster-fill.  Such as suspended water, fats, tannins and possible contamination.  A growing number of people issue concern over something called ‘Cativation’.  In short it is the process of tiny droplets of water suspended in the oil boiling explosively in the chaotic zones of positive and negative pressure inside the Injection Pump.  These micro-explosions may have enough power to pit and scar the metal surfaces inside the IP.  Causing wear that will act like Erosion.   A very large number of people still doubt its over-all risk in WVO systems it is something I am keeping a close eye on.

Considering that when I dumpster-fill I am not doing any pre-tank filtering at all.  I do NOT advocate dumpster-fill as the safest way to protect your engine while running WVO.   Infact I feel is much more risky and should only be done when you accept the risks.   I do believe however that the system I am running will allow me to reduce some of the risks.  The heated tank gets up to 160F causing water to evaporate and steam off or sink to the bottom of the tank to be cleaned out later.

So far this system has proven to be very robust,  I have logged over 20,000 miles almost exclusively on dumpster-fill.   Obviously when I am able to I heat and filter before running I will.  But it is nice to have the freedom to just drive.   It remains to be seen if in another 20k I will have to face a Injection Pump rebuild.

I will go into much more detail soon with numerous pictures of the system and how it works.  But its a beautiful day outside and I hope to go take some pictures!