Waste Veggie oil

[humding]

How are engines taking to this long term? I have heard reports of it being acidic and affecting IP's etc.

[jonflies]

Filtering is the key. I ran WVO in my 82 Burb before I did my IP change. There was a bunch of gunk in the inlet screen of the pump, but since my engine had over 130K on it, I'm not sure how much came from the WVO and just typical American lack of maintenance.

Otherwise, I had success with the WVO. Haven't torn down the engine to find out what was going on inside.

[convert2diesel]

Humding;

I agree with Jon in that filtering is important but above that it should be noted the temperature of the fuel (SVO/WVO) must be high enough to duplicate, or come very close to, the viscosity of fossil diesel.

The Stanadyne has two issues with using this stufff straight. First of all, timing and fuel delivery is directly associated with internal pump pressures upstream of the the high pressure plungers. If your fuel is too thick then all of the perameters are out of wack.

Secondly, the high pressure plungers are free floating and as such have no physical connection to the pump housing. The tolerances between the plungers and thier bores is very tight resulting in the plungers hanging up if anything restricts the movement. This was even a problem on the earlier models using #2 diesel in hot weather. The pumps got too hot and the plungers hung up in their bores until the pump cooled down. For the most part this problem has been corrected, but adding a thick fuel might just cause the problem to rear it's ugly head again.

Based upon imperical evidence, one must heat the incoming fuel to at least 80 degrees C (176 degrees F) to thin out the oil BEFORE it hits the IP. This normally requires you to operate a duel fuel system. Start and stop on diesel and switch over to a seperate, heated system to deliver the WVO.

From an engine standpoint, the 6.2/6.5 should be ideal given the limitations of the IP. Being a pre-chamber diesel it has been proven that this design makes for more succesful WVO operation. The jury is still out in regards to DI designs.

Having said all that, I discovered it is much less trouble prone to learn how to convert your WVO to home-made bio-diesel as this fuel at any temps over freezing, performs identically to petroleum based fuels with no conversion reguired. Another plus is that given the new "low sulphur" fuels being produced, bio-diesel actually enhances performance and is a better lubricant for the whole system. I have been running two 6.2s for the past two years on this stuff and also my furnace and two water heaters with no problems to mention.

For a the most comprehensive discussion on using vegetable oils for fuel, log onto http://biodiesel.infopop.cc. Make sure you have lots of coffee available as this is a large site but it's generally considered the best site for research on this topic.

Hope this answers your question

Bill

[gavio]

I second what Bill said about heading over to the biodiesel.infopop forum - I learned a huge amount there. I eventually ended up designing my own SVO conversion and have been running on veggie oil since - about two years now - my system is a two tank system.

I have friends with a 6.5 TD who have logged over 30k miles on SVO and the only problem they've had was an algae problem just recently, but it was mainly in the startup (diesel) tank and most likely originated there. I don't have the miles on my system they have (just don't drive all that much) but have been glad I did it.

As Bill said, biodiesel is a viable option if converting to straight veggie oil doesn't sound like your thing. Biodiesel may be hard on rubber components, though, so be prepared.......likely targets are injector return lines, old pieces of your fuel original fuel line (especially the lines where they connect to your tank - these are hard to get to and often don't get replaced) or old seals in your IP (if it hasn't been rebuilt in the last 10 years or so - with a Stanadyne this is unlikely).

Good luck!