Bio-diesel

My favorite part about the bio-diesel is that its free and I can walk the four blocks to grab the 5 gallon jugs of the stuff. I just found a filter/heater if I want to run it straight WVO or I could brew up some bio-diesel and run it on that

having two fuel tanks means I could run all three if I wanted to. Bio diesel or diesel through one tank or straight WVO in the other and through the separate fuel filter/heater

best of all worlds

B

 

it also is home heating oil

 

Im a total diesel guy and ran my passat for a whole summer on store bought bio until the co op closed, started at 20% and ended up running 100% and never clogged the filter.I also run a 7.3 powerstroke crewcab behemoth but up until i wrecked the TDI last week it was only when i needed to pull or haul something heavy. I also think its obscene to use a big truck just to haul asses around but when you have a real genuine need for a big truck nothing else will do the job. Boston, depending how you use the truck,you might just convert the truck and use wvo,it seems to me that the fords with 2 tanks are ideally set up for this.
Steve.

 

ya I'm exploring that now
separate fuel filter/heater and an in tank recirculating pump with heat exchanger off the radiator
apparently a fuel temp of about 130° has been shown to really improve mileage but I'm a little funny on boiling oil as a fuel source
I'd likely set the temp somewhat lower than that although nothing it decided yet and I kinda want to try making some bio diesel just for fun anyway.

cheers and hey
whats a TDI ?

 

how hot do french fries fry at?

 

TDI = Turbo direct injection, in my case a VW passat,all the economy of a Prius but able to tow stuff. My accountant runs a mid 90s mercedes diesel car fully converted by her husband to run WVO,i dont think she heats the fuel tank but rather the fuel lines,she starts on dino or bio and then when it reaches a certain temp she switches to wvo and then switches back to dino a few miles befors shutting down .It works great for her as she commutes about 20 miles to work, no good if you just run a few miles and shut down.Wouldnt work for me.
Steve.

 

Two things:

First: Most people I know who drive a big truck have several vehicles, including a regular car for driving. The truck is a business vehicle or it's used in some sort of maintenance role.

Second: A big 1-ton diesel truck doesn't necessarily get bad mileage. My dad's mid-80's Dodge seems to get 17 mpg no matter what kind of load it hauls. I once had a Jeep that didn't do that well, and it was a pretty tame one. A lot of mid-sized SUV's don't do that well, and just about any gasoline pickup with a V8 won't either.


It's not obscene to drive a diesel truck around. It's not really economical, but it's hardly as bad as having a full sized gas truck, unless you're talking about one of the more recent fuel efficient models. Point your finger at people who drive an SUV for no reason at all, they're worse.

On the other hand, driving a big truck around in Chicago, for example, is really dumb. You won't find parking anywhere, and it's utterly pointless unless you're moving something heavy.

Personally, I no longer have a need to haul anything around so I drive an econobox most of the time. I still get bent though when somebody makes assumptions about using a big truck as some sort of status symbol though. It's almost never true. Those guys drive Hummers or something equally stupid.

FWIW, as far as CO2 goes if you use biodiesel than you have net zero emissions. The plants used to make the fuel have absorbed as much carbon from the atmosphere as the fuel emits when it burns. Soot is still a problem but IMO not a huge one if your truck is running well.

 

Ken, i drive(drove) not just a regular car but a a TDI passat for 95% of my miles getting better than 50mpg on the highway and mid 30s in town,only one tank dipped under 30 in the 50000 miles i drove it due to a slow tire leak. I my mind this more than offset the mileage of the F250 powerstroke 4x4 i use for truck stuff,i do not average anywhere near 17mpg,i get close to 20 on the hwy but unfortunatly im getting about 10 in town with cold weather,short hauls etc so about 1/3rd of the passats mileage so i feel like an enviromental terrorist driving it just to haul my *** at the moment, i will be looking for a replacement for the passat as soon as i get back from vacation in Feb.
Unlike your observations i know of many contractors and the like who go out and buy the biggest diesel pickup they can as soon as they get their contractors lisence and while the family may have a car its the wife who drives it,they are not bought as a business vehicle,a real truck such as an Isuzu NPR diesel with a nice big flatbed and a hoist would serve that purpose better but wouldnt be cool. My son is a contractor and they used to have an NPR for years until it rusted out and they replaced it with a new Chevy one ton gas stakeside,they hate it and are looking to replace it, but then they are free to seek what is practical because they are a co op and the vehicles stay at the shop and only get used for business purposes.The co op members drive their own vehicles and most drive cars,my son drives a VW Corrado in which he installed a TDI engine so we are pretty much a diesel family. I wish i could run WVO but it just isnt practical for the type of driving i do. When i did run bio i paid a quarter a gallon more than dino and was happy doing it.
Does anyone know of any powerboats running WVO? If i had a diesel powerboat i would sure go that way as 1/ they burn lots of fuel 2/ they typically are running for hours at a time which is the perfect application for WVO 3/ easy to find a place to put a small seperate tank for the dino diesel for startup and shutdown.
Steve.

 

@Steve,

That may be a difference between where you're at and where I grew up. Most of the guys who had a diesel truck needed a diesel truck. Some of them would rotate out and buy a new one every few years, and the old one turns into an around-the-ranch truck until the wheels fall off.

Dealers in rural SD USA don't particularly like diesel trucks because the guy buys them and they never hear from him again until they need another truck. No service calls, nothing. And it's pretty tough to find a used one that's still useful on a road.

@WickedGood,
You are the poster child of someone who doesn't need a diesel truck, unless your boat needs a permit every time you haul it. And even then, you'd have to haul it every weekend. My dad's truck is the 1985 version of what you have, not high output but still the Cummins. It hauls several times its weight nearly every time he uses it. If he doesn't need it, he drives the car.

 

exactly right Ken
I've often thought thats why diesels are so expensive even though they have a simpler engine design is because of the loss in residual profits

 

Boston,

Yes and no. Diesel trucks are made for people who haul a relatively massive load frequently. The bigger the load you get, up to the practical limit of the truck's
capabilities, the more efficient and cost effective it is to run it.

I don't know if you've ever torn the head off a diesel vs a gas engine for the same size vehicle. I last saw the Dodge comparison. You look at that engine and even though it's much simpler there no doubt which is the better engine. You don't need to be a mechanic to see it.

But that said, I'm sure the dealers are bumping the price a bit just to get SOME sort of return for selling the thing, when they know the buyer just vanishes for years at a time.

That's always confused me. I always figured that a buyer who only shows up when he's buying one of the most expensive trucks on the lot would be a welcome sight. There's gotta be a whole lot of padding between what the dealer pays and what the rancher pays.

Most heavy duty diesels, especially the one-ton models, have extra steel in places where heavy users of this model have had problems. The one my dad has has an extra heavy front clip to handle the weight of the engine, extra support for the custom bed, and where the 5th wheel goes. The axles are different, the transmission is different. The engine on the Dodge RAM diesels was something like $4500 between the Cummins and the V10, with the diesel being more expensive, when I looked last. That was over a decade ago, I don't claim current numbers.

Frankly I attribute a lot of that to the quality of the engine. The engines seem to be the last thing to wear out on Dodge diesels. Transmissions, on the other hand, seem to be particularly fragile. Every brand has its strengths and weaknesses, and IMO the ranchers pick the truck based on what they least minded working on during the cold winter months.

 

Boston

The MCA (in the UK) have in-service experince problems with bio fuels.
They have noted "...that an increase in bio content causes many more problems largely due to the growth within the fuel that may cause flexible fuel hoses to leak. Filters may be blocked and this could lead to engine failure...

 

ya but your supposed to be changing those filters every once in a while so its really a maintenance issue more than anything

around here the manufacturers voided the warranty on any vehicle that didn't use dino diesel, until they got sued into oblivion and the case proved that Bio-diesels was actually the cleaner burning fuel. Now there are issues with straight vegetable oil (SVO) and gummed up injectors and solidifying fuels as well as burned out fuel pumps "but" the topic is bio-diesel which has none of those issues. SVO isn't even classified as a fuel and its illegal to sell it as such, it is legal however to collect it on your own and use it in your own vehicles although its not an "approved" fuel.

really all you have to do is pre heat the stuff and it works great though which is the system I"m putting into my truck. should cost me about $200 bucks in junk yard parts and I'm off to the races. The burned out fuel pumps issue goes away when you pre heat the stuff cause it lowers the viscosity to aprox that of dino. The gummed up injectors issue goes away if you start and stop your engine on dino as well. an in tank resirculating heat exchanger solves the fuel jelling issues so really if you have any idea at all what the issues are with the different fuels its no big deal to run on alternative fuels and end up driving basically on free fuel

cheers
B

 

Bio-Diesel and Epoxy

Has anyone had any experience with Bio-Diesel in epoxy tanks?
I did read some anecdotal evidence a while back suggesting that the chemicals could break down epoxy, and as my underfloor storage tanks are made from epoxy, and are also the hull of the boat..........

 

I have no idea about that one