waste veggie /bio-diesel etc.

falling-out-with-my-car · Post by **falling-out-with-my-car** » 31 Aug 2009, 15:25

Dave,

you say your heater heats to 80 degrees C constantly, my stanadyne inline heater only heats to 50 degrees C and then cuts out automatically (orriginally a diesel heater). if i want to raise the temp what should I be looking for as a heater please/what have you did you make it yourself etc?

cheers in advance Nigel.

davetherave · Post by **davetherave** » 31 Aug 2009, 16:01

Have a look at this.
130328003910

Mine is not quite as good as this one and cost me about 60 quid, so this could be a bargain!

Mine is a 2 plug single pass, the one in the auction is 2 plug 2 pass which is much better!

They are easy to wire in, i simply have a switch on the dash, although it is possible to wire it into the ignition.

falling-out-with-my-car · Post by **falling-out-with-my-car** » 02 Sep 2009, 18:14

Right Iv'e created the space and found the veggie oil source

I'm off tyo get the barrels tommorrow, 3 plastic and one steel 55 gallon drum.

do I need to heat the waste oil to seperate off the water or is this unecessary? it seems a fairly complex and expensive thing to do.

thanks in advance Nigel.

Post by **myglaren** » 02 Sep 2009, 18:51

Have a read through this site, everything you need to know is in there - somewhere!.

Penguin · Post by **Penguin** » 02 Sep 2009, 19:07

falling-out-with-my-car wrote:Right Iv'e created the space and found the veggie oil source

I'm off tyo get the barrels tommorrow, 3 plastic and one steel 55 gallon drum.

do I need to heat the waste oil to seperate off the water or is this unecessary? it seems a fairly complex and expensive thing to do.

thanks in advance Nigel.

All you really need is time! The water will separate out on its own eventually. The first batch will take a while if you are just utilising time, gravity and filters (the cheapest and simplest way to do it). Follow Myglarens link, there is an awful lot of useful info there.

Welcome to the world of veggie burning.

davetherave · Post by **davetherave** » 02 Sep 2009, 19:40

Ive never needed to heat it, but ideally it would be better if the container was in a shed, as during winter it will get very very cold!

falling-out-with-my-car · Post by **falling-out-with-my-car** » 02 Sep 2009, 20:30

my shed gets pretty cold during the winter months I will have a gander at Myglaren's link as you say.

I was going to insulate the 55 gallon drum anyway.

thanks for your patience and help with this everyone.

regards Nigel.

KP · Post by KP » 02 Sep 2009, 21:29

To be honest if it were me, and i've been there for a while with Veggie in my older xantias, then those VOW things are a waste of money. Once you heat the fuel it still has to go into a cold injection pump, then out of that and into the cold fuel injector lines. Add to this the fact that on cold mornings in winter with the damp air often about at that time of year, air flowing over the engine bay will itself cool things very easily while driving, then they are worthless.

Best is to follow the modification of the heated fuel filter housing, then just making sure you dilute a little in winter, i've tried both RUG and Dino dilution in winter, RUG worked out cheapest but using a good diesel fuel like Vpower or BP Ultimate works better due to the more appropriate additives in the fuel.

Also when you go down this route make sure you get your pump fuelling sorted by someone who knows what they are doing and maybe think about upping the turbo boost, now the fuel is costing you peanuts you may as well reap the full rewards the engine can give you. I only ever played with the off boost fuelling and it alone helped a lot in pickup.

Post by **admiral51** » 02 Sep 2009, 21:41

falling-out-with-my-car wrote:if I could source SVO at those prices I wouldn't bother thinking about making boi-diesel. any chance of a hint via PM of the brand and source please i might be able to get wholesale through a friend down here.

Hi Nigel
I dont have access to a Bookers/Costco/Macro card but i get my SVO through my local corner shop

I pay him £15 for 20litres of KTC SVO and he gives the empties to the Take Away next door so i dont even have the problem of disposal

OK i pay a little bit more than if i went to get it myself but its only pennies its worth asking around

Colin

falling-out-with-my-car · Post by **falling-out-with-my-car** » 02 Sep 2009, 23:05

KP,

you'd be surprized how much heat is transfered along the fuel line with an electric inline fuel heater, mine doesn't use glow plugs like the Vow system, its an old renault stanadyne inline diesel heater, it heats to 50 degrees c and has its own thermostat.

leave it on over night and the fuel lines are beautifully warm in the mornning even in snowy weather.

Ive got a spare heater and Im considering running that from a 12 volt DC mains transformer when the car is parked up overnight in colder weather.
I'll just need to fix a second socket to the tow bar hitch, and a sticker on the steering wheel to remind me to unplug it before driving off.

Colin.

That KTc oil you are talking about is £15.65 over here for 20 litres, if i ask someone with a discount card to buy it for me they want a cut and that will put it up to £18.50 for 20 litres.
20 litres of WVO will work out about 11pence a litre including the economny 7 electricity used to dry it out.

regards nigel.

jgra1 · Post by **jgra1** » 03 Sep 2009, 00:05

Nigel, I am paying 40-50ppl for processed WVO..

I buy it in 25L barrels which suit me quite well.. so far..

If you could get down here and bring a van load back, at 40ppl, then you may have months of fuel for only that price plus a hire of a van for a day. The guy I buy from supplies a lot of people, my present TD is about 18 months in, and about 35K .. the first few months were 50/50 and otherwise more like 70/30 and in summer I run 85/15 WVO to Derv.

I change fuel filter when I get warning signs, always carry a spare in boot, and do a cheap oil / filter every few thousand miles

John

falling-out-with-my-car · Post by **falling-out-with-my-car** » 03 Sep 2009, 14:14

Ok, thanks for the info but if Im going to do this I'm going to filter used oil and do it properly at minimal cost.

thus far Ive found steel drums with lids £4 each. I will need four.
a hole has to be cut in 2 drums a third of the way down and a emersion 3Kilo watt heater has to be fitted to dry the oil, i have ordered the mechanical 2 & a 1/4 inch Bsp socket fittings for the drums £6 each.
thus no welding required.

I already have some 3Kw emersion elements.
I also have a central heating pump knocking around.

the cost of the filters is bugging me at the moment I might experiment with three xantia fuel filters from the scrappy, the only thing is the fuel inlet and outlets are a little small, maybe I can sort something out though with my knowledge of plumbing fittings..

has anyone else done anything different when it comes to filters to save money building such a system? the filter housings are expensive and three would be about 90 quid waaay over the top.

thanks in advance Nigel.

KP · Post by KP » 03 Sep 2009, 14:36

Im sure there are cheaper places than that to buy filter housings?!?

I'd not bother with the ones of scrapped xantia filters as they will block quickly or fall apart with the heat of the oil going thru them as some cheap ones have done.

Could always buy just two filter housings and make sure you filter your oil thru an old bedsheet or pair of jeans to get the worst of the fats and bits out???

It also really depends on how much WVo you will be using as 90 is just over 1 and a half tank fulls now so factor in say 3 tankfulls of fuel if your getting it for free, and thats your break even point.

Filtering all the bad bits out of the oil is really quite important, more so then drying i would imagine as those bits can cause more damage than a little bit of water in the fuel...

falling-out-with-my-car · Post by **falling-out-with-my-car** » 03 Sep 2009, 17:57

KP,

I'm considering buying some airtight containers and plumbing in a 15mm flow pipe at the bottom and inserting a simple washable bag filter made from old denim jeans.
the exit pipe has to be at the top of the cylinder in the centre and full of holes along its length.

providing I can get a decent flow rate that should suffice and it would be cheap to.

Any water should settle at the bottom of the filters.

I will shop around and see what I can find preferably in clear plastic, maybe some plastic sweet jars of some kind?

Im nearly always problem solving when I build model R/c Boats so this shouldnt be any more of a problem providing I can get the containers.
if I do manage to make some substitute cheaper filters with washable elements and home made casings I'll post some piccys.

(friday) picked up drums today they had cosmetics in them and had been rinsed with liquid soap to neutralise the chemicals washing them out Ive never seen so many bubbles before, at least not since someone put a packet of soap flakes in the portsmouth city centre fountain.

regards Nigel.

falling-out-with-my-car · Post by **falling-out-with-my-car** » 07 Sep 2009, 22:29

I'm still pondering over filters maybe I'll do the decent thing for the car and buy the proper filters I am slowley warmming to the idea.

broke a hydraulic pipe yesterday so the budget has been affected temporarily.

regards Nigel.