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Rivetedude · 08-24-2005, 07:06 AM

I think you guys are reading too much into this. I read an article about a guy who has over 250,000 miles on his diesel motorhome and all he has ever ran through it is used vegetable oil from restaurants around the country. He hasn't paid one cent for fuel. The article went on to say that all biodiesel is is a close equivalent to cooking oil with the glycerol removed. Now I'm sure everybody is going to talk now about how bad it is for you engine...yada yada yada. This guy's got 250K miles and still going strong. The interviewer reported that the man's exhaust smelled like french fries!

Just my $0.02

Rivetedude · 08-24-2005, 07:48 AM

Still looking for that article, but this one is very informative!

http://www.noendpress.com/caleb/biodiesel/index.php

Rivetedude · 08-24-2005, 07:52 AM

Here's another:

http://www.boulderbiodiesel.com/john/SVO/index.jsp

and another:

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.p...a4_caravanwart

greenrvlife · 02-23-2011, 12:19 PM

Hi all -

Great topic. We just installed a veggie oil system designed to run on svo or wvo (we are using filtered wvo that we get for free from a local restaurant). Only have a few hundred miles on it so far but all is going very well. No loss of power and the engine is actually quieter when running on veggie oil. It is a 2 tank system with the 2nd tank in the truck bed. There is more info. about this and as well as additional pics on our site listed below.

mello mike · 02-23-2011, 12:40 PM

Sweet! Does the truck smell like french fries?

Lothlorian · 02-23-2011, 01:42 PM

I would like to have a tow vehicle that ran on Veggie Oil. I have been shopping for a tow vehicle. Just can't afford it. We had a girl in High School where I used to work who turned a diesel bus into Bio Diesel. She had three 55 gallon drums full of veggie oil. I was totally impressed. She and her boyfriend drove it to Bonnaroo.

Brian

VIKING · 02-23-2011, 02:02 PM

I see tons of these at Burningman also. Mostly waste oil burners. They go through a lot of filters, but the fuel is FREE!

Rich the Viking

greenrvlife · 02-24-2011, 02:25 PM

Hello... yes the veggie oil smells a little like fast food. We will also be collecting and filtering our oil. If you get good quality oil and filter it, then let it settle for several weeks, you can actually get a long lifespan out of the vormax filter. I have heard 9,000-10,000 miles and several folks went way longer than that (including our installer). It remains to be seen how this will work for us. We will always carry extra filters for both fuel systems as a precaution... more to come. Take care.

dljosephson · 03-05-2011, 04:42 PM

I see a lot of threads about plans, hopes and new installations running on waste vegetable oil or straight vegetable oil, but not so many with actual experiences. Here on the left coast, WVO is seldom free -- the restaurants here want $5 for a jug and then you have to filter it, find a place to discard the gunk, etc. I have several neighbors who have started these projects (either filtered WVO or biodiesel) but still buy petro-diesel at the pump. Wholesale soybean oil in jugs is around $6 a gallon; on the commodities market (60,000 pounds at a time) it's around $4.50. It is all a good idea but depends on there actually being a good source of inexpensive plant oil and I haven't seen one yet.

It is a complicated question though with a lot of fingers in the pie. Reclaiming oil from ethanol production is promising and there are a lot of other schemes that bear watching. But be cautious about assuming you can pick it up for free, particularly on your travels.

One of the advantages of having an old Airstream diesel motorhome is that the Isuzu has a simple mechanical fuel injection system that will burn about anything you give it.

GREENovaters · 05-17-2011, 02:12 PM

Wow, it's surprising how little has been done to make a moho run on bio or svo.... anyone have thoughts and/or experience converting a Cummins engine?

Dave Park · 05-17-2011, 02:49 PM

A neighbor has a bread delivery truck with a cummins diesel - they converted it with a WVO system, and collect the waste oil form the places they deliver bread to. They filter the oil (overday - they deliver at night) and then run on it almost full time. They run on WVO so much, the main diesel tank is a WVO tank, and the small WVO tank holds the diesel they need just for starting/warm-up.

Mike Leary · 05-17-2011, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dljosephson

One of the advantages of having an old Airstream diesel motorhome is that the Isuzu has a simple mechanical fuel injection system that will burn about anything you give it.

Who you calling "old"?

Actually, that's true, I've resisted burning any bio stuff without really researching filtration. Gawd knows, I've had enough filter problems "at the pump".

ALANSD · 05-17-2011, 03:34 PM

I ran my F250 on Bio bought locally. It smelled way better than regular diesel and semed to run just fine. With the current price of diesel, I am happy to have a v10 gasser, though regular ain't cheap either.

rock60 · 05-17-2011, 05:09 PM

you can't run straight vegetable oil in a diesel, its to thick. and in cold weather you have to have a heated tank. and it still gets thick in filter and lines in cold weather.10 to 50 percent vege oil mix to diesel fuel is onlyway to run it.

Lothlorian · 05-17-2011, 05:24 PM

I have been doing my internet inquiries and reading up on all this. Here is the problem. The conversion of grain and beans into biofuels only drive food prices up. The more we use this to fuel our vehicles the more the price goes up. We end up paying for fuel one way or the other. Feed for cattle, humans and poultry just will keep going up. Farmers have no problem selling their grain at higher prices.

Brian

warbler5 · 05-17-2011, 05:27 PM

On the West Coast, we have a 5% biodiesel fuel called Propel....we run this in both our Audi A3 TDI and our GMC Duramax Denali. They also sell a B20 (20% biodiesel) in Washington State, and I hear it is soon to come to Oregon and California. We can run the B20 in our Duramax, but not in the Audi. I have noticed no difference in performance, but the cost of of the Propel fuel is the same as "normal" diesel.

We see a few old Mercedes-Benz diesels running around that run vegetable oil that has been processed in some way....perhaps it is mixed, as rock60 says, or perhaps they use a block heater (our Duramax has a block heater)....or, maybe it doesn't get cold enough in California to cause problems.

I have mixed feelings about biodiesel....I hate to see us using fields, that would otherwise grow crops for food, being used to grow crops to run cars! Propel claims they don't do this....I wonder.

warbler5 · 06-12-2011, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by warbler5

On the West Coast, we have a 5% biodiesel fuel called Propel....we run this in both our Audi A3 TDI and our GMC Duramax Denali. They also sell a B20 (20% biodiesel) in Washington State, and I hear it is soon to come to Oregon and California. We can run the B20 in our Duramax, but not in the Audi. I have noticed no difference in performance, but the cost of of the Propel fuel is the same as "normal" diesel.

We see a few old Mercedes-Benz diesels running around that run vegetable oil that has been processed in some way....perhaps it is mixed, as rock60 says, or perhaps they use a block heater (our Duramax has a block heater)....or, maybe it doesn't get cold enough in California to cause problems.

I have mixed feelings about biodiesel....I hate to see us using fields, that would otherwise grow crops for food, being used to grow crops to run cars! Propel claims they don't do this....I wonder.

In an update to this post.... Our local Union 76 station, which also carries Propel, now carries the B20 biodiesel! When we return from our trip from CA-OR-WA, we plan to give it a try. Biodiesel is supposed to have increased lubricating properties, which makes your diesel power plant run quieter. A friend running an old Mercedes-Benz 300D wagon tried it and was amazed by how quiet his vehicle ran....not sure whether he tried the B5 or the B20.

I also talked to some folks who are wholesalers for used vegetable oil, and they told me they sell to Propel. So, perhaps Propel does indeed use only used veggie oil and no crops are involved!

greenrvlife · 06-28-2011, 05:05 PM

Howdy all - another update on our wvo 2 tank system. We now have over 2,500 miles using wvo (this is oil we pick up for free from a local restaurant and we have a source where we buy it for $2 a gallon when we need it). The truck runs flawlessly, however you have to do a few simple things. We must start and stop it with diesel and only switch to wvo once the engine is 175 degrees plus. We have to switch back to diesel a few miles from our destination to purge wvo from our lines and fill them with diesel. Great power, smells good, no loss of mpg.

Foiled Again · 06-28-2011, 06:24 PM

www.greasecar.com does conversions of standard diesel vehicles.

Have seen this in actual use on vehicles with +200,000 miles, (older diesels without all the fancy anti-pollution stuff on them. My favorite uses filtered used Mexican restaurant grease. Smells like tacos, but does require a separate tank, and starting/stopping with regular diesel.

Restaurant grease can be recycled into soaps, etc. but most restaurants get so little money for this and have to have a separate dumpster that they're willing to give it away free by the "cube" a 7 gallon bottle they buy it in, or sell it for a small amount of money.

Paula

1civilengr · 05-08-2012, 02:29 AM

Just got back from the maiden voyage of our new AS (along with our "new" TV - a Dodge Ram 2500 w/5.9 Cummins). After several $125 fillups, SVO sounds like a pretty good option!

I checked out the Greasecar site, and they have a specific kit (includes a 40 gallon tank, fuel pump, injectors, automatic controller, etc.) for my truck. The cost is ~$3K, so I would have to get the oil cheap or free for the economics to work out. My thought is to have a "collecting day" during which I would visit restaurants and pump out their grease to a tote in the truck bed (300 gallon totes are available for cheap). This would be filtered and stored until ready to use. For long trips I would need to be able to filter on the road (or have an additional auxiliary tank).

Not sure if any of this will make sense when I run the numbers, but it is definitely worth the time (and curiosity satisfaction) of digging into oil availability a little.

With a cheap source of veggie oil, my big-honkin-truck could become my fuel-sipping daily driver!