Bio Deisel, Interested?

[Mikey P]

from AshleyMckendree.

We run 100% Waste Cooking Oil straight from a Restaurant where we have a contract (No modifiing!) They use it LESS THAN A DAY, So all we have to do is strain the chunks of food and bits of fish fry out. (Then filter down to 5 Microns)

I have access to 320 Gallons a week from this company (4 restaurants total) I sell what I don't use to a guy who makes NICE Bio-Diesel processors for about .90/Gal.

We stuck a 10 Gallon home made WVO tank next to our Heat exchanger, and the oil stays around 150F in the summer. 90F in the winter.
This will be our 1st year running 100% WVO, for the past 2 years we mixed 15/20% diesel but realized our engine ran BETTER on just straight oil, used less per hour cleaning (1/3 GPH - One third gallon per hour instead of Half a gallon per hour) and got better MPG From 17mpg to 19mpg In town.

We also have a separate 5 gallon tank with straight Diesel that we switch too when we are about 2 miles from our shop after a long days work... cause it does NOT like starting on the WVO

The van is a 1997 E-250, We installed a Modified & Rebuilt 7.3 NON TURBO Navistar Diesel, with a 5 speed Manual ZF HD Transmission with Dual PTO ports.
(It was a B**** making a clutch petal for this VAN) beefed up Suspension etc.

And as far as Pics I will be posting some soon for the Mytee contest, just right now the van is a disaster area...

Me and dad have been working NON-STOP all summer, and needless to say a Neighbor kid walked by my van when it was opened the other day and said "It looks like a bunch of cats threw up in your van".

Unfortunately he was right.

 

[Shawn Forsythe]

Isn't using Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) relatively rare?

Is it worth it, I mean the risk, on a commercial vehicle on which steady income is derived and depended?

What is the added cost of transesterification to actual BioDiesel?

 

[rhyde]

Terraclean run's their Vortex on a SVO system it saves them 5-700 a month

 

[steve g]

Terraclean run's their Vortex on a SVO system it saves them 5-700 a month

is that the people who hit terrys van and never paid for the damages?? if it is maybe they will have enough money to pay now, If I had an old 7.3 non turbo navistar motor like that, I would do even better, I would just run waste oil from the lube and oil places

 

[steve frasier]

I don't know that much about it. TriMet, local city buses, were running bio fuel. Not sure what is meant when people say biofuel but they had to switch to a different fuel filter to combat problems.

I have been buying low sulfer B5 diesel and the truck seems to run smoother and get better gas mileage, I also changed the fuel filter and that is when I noticed the difference

When I get my oil & oil filter from FMI they try to push fuel filter changing at the same time. I have resisted so far. Not really sure how cost effective it is to change the fuel filter every time I change the oil

 

[gasaxe]

il try and make this simple to start with...

straight wvo can be ran on any diesel. there are system that can be purchased or you can make your own. basically you need to let as much of the junk settle out of the oil then go through a series of filtering to get down to a 2 micron filter level. you need a way to heat the oil up the systems ive seen do this through a coolant loop off of the engine. You can run the coolant loop into the holding tank similar to how the older v,s heated the freshwater tank. You need a seperate pump filter system and switching valve to turn the oil on and the diesel off. You have to start the truck on diesel and once up to temp then switch over to oil. when the truck is going to be shutoff primarily for extended periods it needs to be switched back over to diesel.

now biodiesel,

to make biodiesel you use the same wvo as above you settle it then send it through a reactor. (old water heater plumbed to circulate oil...aka appleseed reactor ) when making bio you titrate a sample of your batch grease to figure mixture ratio of methanol and lye. once the reaction is complete the crap settles to the bottom of the reactor and the good "fuel" is on top. the crap on the bottom can be turned into lye soap. from there the "fuel" goes through a wash station which further cleans it.

there are pluses and minuses to both ways., if you run straight wvo you have to have a "system" on every vehicle you run it in. with bio you just dump it in the fuel tank.

runing straight wvo is cheaper once you absorb the initial investement of installing the needed hardware on the vehicle. bio will still cost x amount per gallon because metanol,lye and other stuff figure into cost to make. a reactor can be made for much less than what a system will to run straight wvo. Both can be hard on rubber fuel lines. My opinion is that newer diesel run extremely complex fuel injection systems that operate under extremely high pressures with very tight tolerances. Not sure how these systems would interact with straight wvo. I have a friend who has a wvo system on a newer duramax and has been pleased so far ( only a couple months use so far) I have been on the fence for a LONG time about making bio just havent pulled the trigger yet... I have several restaurants that i clean that i can get oil from so thats no problem. I have a 3/4 ton diesel truck along with the bering/vortex that i would run it in so i think i would rather brew bio than come up with two wvo system on each truck.

You also have to consider a oil collection system that will make it easy on your restaurants to empty into. You will have to have a way to pump out of the container at their facility and into one that your transporting the oil in. You need to keep ahead on the oil bcause its much easier to filter/batch if the oil has had time to settle.
some restaurants get paid through a contract by some comercial outfits to collect their grease so you may have to pony up some $ for the grease or trade out cleaning.

I have been very general in these discriptions so if somebody know more please dont rip me on my descriptions. you can google appleseed reactor/ how to make biodiesel and get a ton of info...

 

[rhyde]

Don't forget to pay the road tax on your home made fuel


some of the money your saving on road tax and not paying your fair share for the roads which we all need to pay for


T

it's easy run a % of bio diesel that makes it as a "fuel additive" and not a fuel...... fuel taxesare not assesed on aditives

 

[steve frasier]

Don't forget to pay the road tax on your home made fuel

as soon as the bicycle riders pay their fair share for the roads, get bike insurance and get a license to ride on the road I will be the first in line to pay the tax

 

[AshleyMckendree]

gasaxe brought up allot of good points. Even with the oil I get being used so little, we still let it "settle", What we collect usually sits for up to a month before being used.

We have been doing this almost 3 years now and ran in to every problem you could imagine (99.9% of the time It was filters failing) , BUT now we have a "System" worked out and have gone almost a year without any down-time related to our using WVO.


Our first two vans where 1988 Ford E-350's 7.3 Non turbos, with Over-drive and Highway differentials. Those beasts got 27mpg HWY when not loaded with water.
They where our guinea pigs.

We get about 20mpg hwy on our current van because our differential is geared insanely high... Redlining the engine at 75 mph almost, even with a 0.53 final gear :|

 

[renegade_cowboy]

 

[AshleyMckendree]

That image is very eye catching!

is that your logo or a Google image find?

 

[renegade_cowboy]

That is one of a few logo's I am trying to deciding on. I made it, I like it the best over the other I made. Thanks for the input.

:mrgreen: