Running Car on Vegetable Oil

[Tatey]

Has anyone done it?

I was talking to someone this weekend who converted his car to run on the stuff, meaning fuel is completely free as he sources used vegetable oil from his local pubs, and you don't need to pay fuel duty on it unless you produce more than 2500 litres. Or you can buy new vegetable oil from the supermarket.

I've had a quick look into it and it looks like my Corsa 1.7Di can be converted (i knew there was a reason i got a diesel :p). So being a right cheapskate, I think this will be a nice project for me when I finish the roadster.

[gingea1pom]

Tatey,

I ran my Mitsubishi L200, Land Rover 300tdi and my wife’s 53 plate Renault Laguna on Bio Fuel for 18 months.

I make the distinction between Veg Oil (VO) and Bio Fuel (BF) as BF I made in my shed with methanol and potassium hydroxide which means there is no engine mods required. If you run straight VO you need to start the engine on diesel and stop it on diesel with BF you have none of those issues.

I could write for hours on Bio fuel It is probably better to give us a ring if you are serious about it.

It is quite an undertaking, a trailer with an IBC container to collect the Waist Vegetable Oil (WVO), loads of stinking 20l containers to get the WVO to your reactor, a 120l container that has a thermostatic heater (an upside down emersion heater works well) with a pumping system to mix everything, a stock of methanol (20l of methanol makes 100l of BF) and potassium hydroxide (1kg mixed with 20l of methanol)

I could go on but you get the picture.

[Tatey]

Cheers for that Ginge, I'm starting to have a look into BF. How much do you think it cost you per litre of BF?

If I don't need to make any mods to my car i think it may be a better route to go down, as I'm not too fond of modding my only method of transport at the moment.

[gingea1pom]

About 18ppl it is a complete ball ache but I was well set up to do it ie; somewhere to store the stinking trailer a 16’ x 12’ shed that didn’t have a roadster in it etc and I didn’t buy diesel for 18 months.:D I used to take jerry cans of it on long trips as I refused to buy any diesel. Bit of a shock last January when we move and I brought a Range Rover!:eek:

[Tatey]

18p/l?! That means it should only cost me 1.5p per mile :D So 9p cheaper per mile than what im paying now, saving me about £900 a year :eek: :eek:. The only issue now is the fact that i'd need to buy a trailer + tow bar + IBC container + 120l container + immersion heater + find a place to keep it all.

With limited space at my house due to the roadster that may be an interesting thing to do, I suppose I could do all of the processing off site and just keep the finished product at my house.

How many places did you need to visit to fill the IBC container and how hard were they to find?

Also where did you get your methanol and potassium hydroxide from?

[gingea1pom]

I would be quite hard to do ‘off site as you start heating the WVO up to 50 odd degrees (just before the boiling point of the methanol which is 60 degrees I think) which takes and hour and your shed will smell like the establishment you got the WVO from then add the potassium hydroxide / Methanol mix (whilst wearing long sleeves and a decent respirator) mix it for 2 hours then let it stand for 10 hours trying to keep it as warm as possible without having the heating element on as that creates convection which you don’t want as you are trying to let it settle.

Then drain 20l of gunk of the bottom and get rid. What you are left with is BF with a certain amount of methanol still in it.

Now if it is going in something agricultural like an old Land Rover you are now good to go, if however you are planning to fill up your wife’s 53 plate Renault you need to wash it, this bit is clever.

Carefully pour 20l of water into the BF then get an aquarium air brick and create bubbles in the water which is at the bottom of the tank (water is heavier than BF) as the bubble which is wrapped in water passes up through the BF any methanol in the BF is attracted to the water because methanol is hydroscopic then at the top the bubble bursts and the water and now methanol as well falls back to the bottom. 2 hours of this then tap the waste of the bottom and you have clean BF.

You have got me started now.

I went every wear for WVO but by far the best place is a Tie restaurant there WVO is like brand new and they change it allot so they have loads.

I got my methanol from a company called Jenny Chem they don’t ask questions as it is commonly known that it is an ingredient in BF.

The potassium hydroxide is the dodgy stuff, if you stick your head in the tub an breath in hard you will throw up instantly. Methanol isn’t much better. Mixing them together is great too as it creates an exothermic reaction that is to say it gets warm and you are adding it to hot oil and it’s flash point is 60 degrees ish.

Sounds rally dodgy but I made over 4000l without a hitch I have done more damage to myself whilst building the Roadster.

Cheers Ginge

[baz-r]

i ran my 306td 8v on 100% rape oil in the summers ans 50/50 in the winters back when it was 55-65p/l :) and it had mor torque and higher mpg than derv just the top speed was down i small amount
no smoke just crakled a bit more when it was real cold

made a bit of bio too i liked the way it smelt of where ever the oil came from
the best batch was from a curry house :cool:
i did go of chips for a long time tho:(

if any one is thinking of going bio i would look into if your injector pump can handle it
bosch is good lucas is bad

[Enoch]

The taxi company that used to be next to our offices ran their Mercedes fleet on biodiesel but their reliability was appalling. They were always coming in smoking and running like dogs. The mechanic said the Merc pumps didn't like bio at all. Don't know if this is the case or not but something was killing the pumps / engines. Kind of put me off somewhat.

[bobbyh]

My dad ran his 52 plate ford mondy TDCI on rape seed oil for about a 9 months but it packed up in the end and cost more then he had saved to fix because the fuel blocked the injectors.

my friends old ford fiesta did the same thing as did my other friends citroen.

gingea1pom you said you used it for 18 months why did you stop? and did you have any problems with it killing your cars when it got a little cold?