100 MPG

[Erik712m]

http://www.kansas.com/203/story/229052.html Man it would be cool if he could upgrade the pinz 60mpg out of a h1. Are any of you guy's making your own diesel? Is it that big of a pain to make in a garage?I finally broken down and bought a VW for a daily driver Thinking of making my own bio-diesel.

[Kiwibru]

Erik, We looked into it a few years ago. I was going to set up an AppleSeed processor but decided to forgo it as I could buy ASTM rated B100 locally after pushing my local fuel jobber to carry it. There is a bit of fuss in the processing and you have to make sure the WVO source you get the used oil from is keeping it clean of beef fat and such. Then there is the washing required to remove all traces of the glycerin. It turned out that it was going to be a labor of love compared to just buying B100 made from soy oil. Also of note is the need for a heated room if you live in the north lands where freezing is an issue. I do wish the Pinz had a diesel engine too...sigh.

[lindenengineering]

Eric
Go to Youtube.
Then go "TOP Gear,Vegetable oil for diesel". Hit search.
There are others on there too. All will work.
Also you can look at the University of Idaho web site. They have done alot of research on this and have posted their findings on it.

By the way i have just bought a Benz to do just that, Find out waht is the best veggie oil fuel manufacturing combos.
Dennis

[lindenengineering]

Eric
If you have purchased a used VW diesel make sure you have a history on the timing belt. The engine MUST have the belt inspected ay 40K and the belt CHANGED at 60K miles "de rigour".

We have just fixed a 2002 TD N/Beetle with the ALH engine that let the belt go. Repair charges amount to $4k and that is mostly parts.

Special tools are required to do this excercise effectively.
Dennis

[Kiwibru]

Dennis is right! In addition make sure you get the updated long life timing belt and then you can go 100k before worrying again. Also good to swap out the water pump and all the associated bearing rollers. Check out Dieselgeek.com for kits, more info. found at forums.tdiclub.com
We have a 2000 Golf and just did the TB in August. Special tools needed for sure including the VAGCOM software and a laptop if you want to dial in the final timing and other parameters.

[Profpinz]

We had a talk on "home made diesel" at the Land Rover Club some months ago as a lot of members showed interest in the subject.

It looks good, especially from an economic point of view, but recently one member mentioned a friend who had injector problems with his LR Discovery which they said was caused by this fuel.

I don't know all the details and I'm no expert on the subject what so ever but I do know the new set of injectors is worth big bucks

...so I guess the thing is be VERY careful and get expert advice before running it!

[lindenengineering]

Peter
We fix alot of diesels some running on 'Bio" some on the distilled stuff.

With the change of sulphur content %age in the pump fuel of late we do see alot of "O"ring seal leakages, especially from the pumping chest on both jerk and rotary pumps. Most pump shops blame this on the fuel change or switching from Bio to Distilled and "Vicky Verky". It's frustrating; I fixed a leaking sensing/signal injector on a 5 series Beemer only to discover the pumping pressure chamber "O" ring seal let go under test.

Going back to the Bio I have a bulletin issued by all the major pump/injector manufacturers worldwide and the bio fuel was found to be acceptable according to them PROVIDING it was suitably refined. The biggest problem in the report sited the suspension of animal fats in the waste veggie oil "Cholesterol" as they called it causing coking of injector needles, pintle assemblies, and sacs. The emphasis was removal of animal fats from the fuel to improve injector service life.
From my experience there appears to be alot of fat in chicken carcasses/parts that gets rendered out during the frying procedure here in the USA and this MUST be removed to make the fuel acceptable.
As a fishy story we changed a pump & injectors on a Dodge/Cummins Ram 2500 plus the in tank pump mod. The fuel was some concoction of waste oil and rotting fish oil. The owner a Korean restaurant owner thought it was great we thought otherwise, wondering why we took the job on, Struth talk about hold you nose mate!
Dennis

[chapel]

I use DSE. Diesel Secret energy. Basically you add non-hydrogenated vegi oil, kerosene, gasoline, Diesel Kleen and the secret DSE additive, fliter it good through 3 filters and pump it into your tank. It seems to work better than dino-diesel and my engine is quieter. We use vegi-oil in our concession business like 100 gallons a year so thats all I process.
Greg

[TurboJim]

theres a guy here running straight dextron 3 in an old diesel vw rabbit pickup they say he is pumping right out of transmissions into the tank ???
guys down at the truck shop fill there new fuel filters up with it also sounds to easy

[pinzwheeling]

A friend of mine at a Ford store takes all of their used tranny fluid from tranny services and puts it directly in his F250 Diesel. Apparently he's been doing this for about 5 years and hasn't had an issue yet. He blends about 30% pump diesel with it for some reason.

[lindenengineering]

Guys
On burning drained oil such as Dexron. This is perfectly ok. In fact with big rigs that have had their fuel filters changed it is perfectly acceptable to fill the new filters with Dexron and fire the beast up; Saves bleeding out gallons of diesel to eradicated air in the system.

Not so long ago alot of bus companies around the world disposed of crankcase drains by diluting the fuel by up to 10% with what came out of the sump!.
Interesting subject this.
Dennis

[Pinz Enthusiast]

I like others loved the "idea" of making my own fuel, and now that we have a big diesel pusher motorhome the idea sounds even better, being that I paid $3.79 a gal for #2 yesterday, but I have over time been reading up on the subject both in print and on some fourms.

Seems there were some stories of people geeting fined for making and using their own Bio-Diesel. excerpt from Mother Earth News, Dec 07/Jan 08 issue, story titled "Would you use Veggie Oil to fuel your vehicle" The skinny on home brew Bio-Diesel is it's technically illegal, though that may soon change, the reason it's illegal is that the home brewer is not paying any road taxes on the fuel being used in the vehicle, and the EPA is worried that the emissions from home brew could cause toxic air polution....( yeah right), Two cited cases of enforcing the law. May 2007 in Charlotte N.C. Robert Teixeria was fined $1000.00 for failing to pay taxes on the veggie oil he burns in his 1981 Mercedes, March 2007 David and Eileen Wetzel, of Decatur Ill. were told the needed to be licensed as a special fuel supplier if they wanted to keep driving their veggie powered car or face felony fines for not paying fuel taxes.

Further in the story a gentleman who sells veggie oil with raod taxes paid $1.95 a gallon for his oil depending on the state states numerous goverment forms to fill out lots of taxes and epa compliance, damn and I only wanted to make a 100 or so gallons to fill up to get me out of California so I can then refill for less, but lets look at some of the math, asume you by the oil with road tax already paid, thats $1.95 and if you follow the advertising on the make it your self bio-diesel companies that say you can make bio for about $.70 a gallon thats $2.65 a gallon to make it myself, is it worth possible fines from the IRS and EPA and whoever else wants to jump on your case to save a $1.10 or so per gal for fuel.......you decide.

[chapel]

I understand you can make up to 400 gallons a quarter before you are subject to taxes. Plus I don't think you need to put up a sign advertising the fact that you are running non-taxed fuel.
Greg

[Pinz Enthusiast]

Yeah I have heard that you are allowed a certian amout though not sure if it's a state by state thing or federal thing, and by all means if your running home brew in your tank don't be an idiot and advertise the fact, I belive the two cases cited in the article were one's I had heard of this summer, and they both had "veggie oil powered" stickers on theri cars, what fools....

[M Wehrman]

is it worth possible fines from the IRS and EPA and whoever else wants to jump on your case to save a $1.10 or so per gal for fuel.......you decide.
_________________
Another side would be if we "go along" all might be well,but that the American and creative spirit would be lost..........
Allow me to modify a board member's quote...
All it takes for corporate america to succeed is for the creative to roll over and give in.
"Another helpfull hint from the committee", from A Boy and his Dog...
"Resistance is futile,you will be assimilated"' one of the Star Trek things.
I will turn over My soap box to the next member..