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Getting ready to run veggie oil (WVO)- Slightly modified design

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Pookster

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Ok, i've secured my supply of high quality used veggie oil.

I've looked at the the kits from www.greasel.com and it looked a little costly, plus also a little permanant. So i figured, a little modification would work perfectly for my usage.

6 gallon standard red plastic fuel bottles are light, easy to carry, and easy to store. They are however, a little short on capacity for any distance driving. (averaging 16-22mpg, oyur range would be 96-132 miles). This is no problem for me, as I seem to need to take a break ususally after about 1.5 hrs anyways, so I could just stop, take a break, fill up the can, and keep moving.

Tank design is even simpler. Using another fuel can, Simply remove the air vent hole cover. Enlarge to fit a section of tubing that will reach the bottom. (Or not exactly all the way to the bottom so that sedements could collect there. )Silicone seal it.
Install another piece of tubing all the way at the top , and left hanging on the side (this is the breather tube) so it must be facing downward so water/rain cannot get into your tank.

Heating the oil:
So the big thing as far as everyone says about using strait veggie is that it must be pretty hot to be burned effectively. The best way to do this has been stated to be using the hot coolant lines. This however, does not appeal to me, as I would rather not touch or increase the amount of lines going to the coolant system.

choices: electic in tank heater, or using the exhaust as a heater.

Im thinking exhaust. Exhaust heat is substantially faster than coolant heat. (even though coolant heat is steadier later). Either way, a plummed long section of 3/8th copper tubing along the exhuast should provide more than adequate heat. Plumbing will then go to a holley blue pump to ensure adequate pumping, and then go through a cleanable racor, then through a 2-3 micron regular racor filter.

Tank: <10
pump: 40
All tubing:20
Racor: cleanable: unknown, spin on, 50-80 dollars (ebay, boat stores)


questions? comments? anyone?
 
Don't forget to plumb the fuel return line back to the veggie tank.

I worry the exhaust heater would be too inconsistant.
 
Yeah, about that return fuel line- is there one? If there is, I havent figured out exactly how they do it in the 6.2.

For the MB diesels, they recommend you "plug" the usual return like area with a solid bolt- not sure how you are supposed to do it with ours. The question is, if you change the sending line to have a switch to switch from your petro tank to your veggie tank, what do I do about the return? have yet another switch?

As far as the heating goes- Im not *too* worried about it. the racor is a heated filter, so it will bring up temps anyways. Just great to try and pickup some excess exhaust heat.

I might still go for the black tanks though- its 18 gallons, comes with an in tank sender unit, and since its black, it should absorb a lot of heat.
 
Yes, there is a return line for the 6.2L. The fuel is constantly being sucked out the tank, pumped through the IP, and back to the tank. This accomplishes two things: cools the IP in the summer, and heats the fuel in the winter to prevent it from gelling.

On the stock dual tank trucks, they use a 6 port valve, one suction line from each tank, one return line to each tank, one suction line to the front, one return line from the front. You might be able to use this type of setup, but I'm not sure. You'll have to do some more research to find out if it's compatible with the WVO. But don't plug the return line. In fact, you'll probably benefit from it by circulating the oil around and keeping it warm.

Casey
 
Ok, looks like I might be switching ideas again.

It looks like either a mounted side saddle tank or taking the spare out and mounting it over there would make sense.

Some have even recommended installing a suburban IFS tank inbetween the rails by the spare. Seems to make sense. Im guessing I could make a "flip down" old Monte Caro Center gas cap in the license plate to fill it. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

In regards to the "return line" greasel basically just re-routes it back into the injector- While I dont seem the particular harm in doing this, maybe you all can tell me something that I just dont recall. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
I know this is an old post but this has me interested. I know you said you didnt want to mess with more heating lines and such, but I just thought I'd let everyone know that suburbans were available with rear heaters. To get the heat to the back, they had T-fittings in the heater hoses right on the passenger side inner fender. If you got your hands on some of these fittings, then it would be a sinch to route the lines back to your WVO tank.
 
I guess you could, but you'd certainly need a seperate control valve either way- Otherwise, you'd have hot coolant running through the heating system, which is not a good thing in the summer.

Ive acutally since redesigned the in tank heater. I had qualms about running any rubber components inside a fuel tank, as water in fuel is a terrible thing to have.

Instead, I've just wrapped copper coils, enough to stick the fuel pump in. Then, using the same segment of hard line, plum it outside of the fuel tank. This leaves me with no welds and no places to leak inside the tank itself.

If you acutally had fittings in there, it would rock- Just plumb from there.

I checked the flow rate through the heater hose- its in the range of several gallons every minute- Which should make everything quite nice and hot. THe only question is of course- heating the oil up right before the injection pump.

I've gone the wayside of using a racor 900FG- To give you an idea of the size, its competitive with a 2 liter bottle of soda. It has a turbine to help centrifuge large debris, and also seperates water. It also has a 300 watt 24v heater built in. I really dont even need to run it in the summer, the lift pump and DB2 get plenty of heat.
 
Ok, I'm not quite sure how you have your system done, and would like to know. I sounds like you have a copper coil inside the WVO tank to heat the oil first, then its on to the 2L bottle sized filter, which heats it again/somemore and filters it (is this the only filter in the system?), then, I'm not sure. What is the DB2? Where do you have the Racor filter mounted? I have saddle tanks in a truck I am converting to diesel, and want to use one for diesel and one for WVO. How did you run heat back to the copper coil in the tank? Is it electrical or water heated? This conversion looks really cool, I cant wait to get started. Thx
 
The copper coil is standard 3/8th hose I got in a box at home depot. The reason for its purpose in the tank is (in my opinion) to help in sub 50 degree weather where the viscosity of the oil is too thick to pump properly. (thick oil will: a, wear out the fuel pump, and the extra length+ thickness+ temperature may make the oil not want to flow through the filter as easily.

The DB2 is the Stanadyne DB2 injector system. All the 6.2's have them.

Racor mounting has been a big pain in the arse, as the damn thing is too large to fit reasonable anywhere. I have mine mounted against the battery right now, but I have to move it cause its still too large in that area (its not striight).

in your situation, since your lucky enough to have dual tanks, you just have to separate the tank hoses. You may need to add a filler neck to the second tank, if there isnt one, and then you have to install a sender (if there isnt one, im not too familiar with the saddle tanks). I recommend adding an inline pump (about 40 bucks from any autoparts store) that will generate about 5-7 PSI's, and that will help pull/suck fuel. You can mount it after the fuel filter if you like, most of those pumps are self priming. I prefer to mount the fuel pump as close to the tank, and the fuel filter as close to the engine.
 
Its a gasser right now, but when I'm done with it, it'll be a diesel, veggie machine. The factory saddle tanks have a filler neck on each side, and when you slip the switch between tanks, the fuel gauge tells you the level of each tank individually. Ultimately, I'd like to replace the 15 gallon WVO saddle tank with a 40 gallon burb tank in the rear, and leave the other 15 gallon saddle tank for the starting and shutting down with diesel. So, what heat source did you use for the copper in tank heater? Earlier you were talking about using the exhaust as a heat source, did you end up doing that or something else? I think I'll do a basic drawing of the fuel system later just to get an idea of what everything needs to look like. Thx
 
If you have a switch avaliable, and they have separate fill necks, just double check that they dont run into each other at some point.

Other than that, i'd keep the saddle tanks- If you take any long road trips, your just going to kick yourself if you "have to fill up" with fuel. Adding an extra burb tank would then give you 40+ gallons of veggie, and will let you run for 600-800 miles between fill ups.

Ahh yes, heat. I decided to still plum the coolant to the back- The heater in my truck pumps out way more than enough heat to heat the cabin in the winter so I might as well. Also, i just picked up a 1000 watt coolant circulating heater for 10 bucks (new) off ebay, Which is just overkill in addition to my block heater- but since all this is so new and expermental, I figured I'd be better off doing that.
 
For the heat, did you T into the main heater lines or do something else? What exactly does the 1000 watt coolant circulating heater do? Does it assist pumping the engine coolant or does it heat its own water and then you plumbed that into the tank? Thx
 
It doesnt do either, it acutally circulates your existing coolant that you have, but it circulates it based upon thermal expansion I think. So basically its very very slow, but it is enough to keep the bitter edge off the cold of winter. I havent really tried it as, well, its still summer. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
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