Waste veggie oil conversion

[TheDubs]

We have a 82 Winnie Brave with a 6.2 diesel chevy motor and are going to do the waste veggie oil conversion. Does anyone have any experience doing the conversion. Or no a place close to Las Vegas that would do it? Or any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks

Justin

[RVThere]

Check out this site.

Liquid Solar Power

This guy converted a 40-foot DP to run on WVO along with a 350 Mercedes. He documents his ups and downs pretty clearly!

[Ray,IN]

There are several websites detailing the conversion. Of course they sell the equipment too. We live in a college town. There are many environmentally conscious students in addition to locals using WVO, so many in fact, that eateries now sell waste WVO instead of paying to have it hauled away. This has reduced monitary gains of burning WVO to the point that buying the conversion kit and processing plant isn't financially practical.
A conversion kit is the easy part, buying the equipment to process WVO is expensive. A few relatives and I are considering buying a processing plant by pooling our money.
That presents the issue of how to find processed WVO while traveling.
Some Full-timers carry a small processing plant and collection tank on their HDT, not possible with a smaller truck.

[Dr4Film]

Here is a gentleman that sells and installs veg oil powered systems. He lives in Ojai, CA between LA and Ventura. Only a few hours drive from Las Vegas.

Veg Powered Systems

I inquired a few years ago in regards to converting my coach. At that time it was in the $2K-&3K range.

I discovered him through a documentary presented by Huell Howser on TV one Sunday morning.

Dr4Film ----- Richard.

[TheDubs]

I found another place in utah that does the conversions if anyone is interested. Here's the link:

Welcome to Golden Fuel Systems! - PRODUCTS: Chevy/GMC Vehicle Computer Modules

Justin

[TheDubs]

Today my friend Matt came into town to do my veg conversion. We took measurements for the tank, and went over the install process. I picked his brain, and he is very knowledgeable about the hole process. He ordered all the parts and we are going to start the install mid next week. I plan on doing a blog post on the conversion, and ill get Matt's info if anyone is interested in having the conversion done.

[TheDubs]

I haven't updated you all in a bit. I have the veg conversion done. And have traveled 600 miles on nothing but waste veggie oil. it actually runs better on veg then on diesel. Check out my blog below for details on the install.

[sjkted]

Very cool. I just converted my Mercedes 300D just after the new year and have run about 400 miles in it. It seems this would be much more viable for an RV due to the high fuel consumption.

--sjkted

[jcthorne]

I agree when this was a new idea it was an untapped energy source, but now that every enviroweenie colledge kid knows about it, there really is no unused waste vegetable oil left. There are only so many chinese restruants that want to give the stuff away. Now that it has value the ecomomics of doing the biodiesel conversion yourself no longer makes financial sense.

[sjkted]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcthorne I agree when this was a new idea it was an untapped energy source, but now that every enviroweenie colledge kid knows about it, there really is no unused waste vegetable oil left. There are only so many chinese restruants that want to give the stuff away. Now that it has value the ecomomics of doing the biodiesel conversion yourself no longer makes financial sense.

I'm not so sure about that. I just started up with it, but the first two restaurants I approached freely gave me oil. From what I've heard, the best places are the mom/pop restaurants and smaller operations, as they have to pay to dispose of the oil. The larger operations such as McDonalds and other fast food places all have contracts where they get paid to take the oil away. If you find a smaller operation that does not have massive oil volume, they will be more than glad to offload it. I also see listings pretty frequently on Craigslist where various people/organizations have oil to offload.

Also, a lot of greasers haven't been active for a while because of the low fuel prices. It seems that when fuel prices rise, a lot of people become more involved. When fuel drops to <= $3/gallon, many people just return to the pump. Obviouslly, motorhome owners would always be interested because it's still friggin expensive to fill up even at $3/gallon.

--sjkted

[azloafer]

I can see myself driving up to the McDonald's drive thru and saying, "one Big Mac and a gallon of oil please." Joe

[EngineerMike]

When WVO was free and easily obtained, home conversion made some sense. Maybe. The time invested amounted to another job, and of course there is the hardware cost. And most guys had to overhaul their hardware setup once they figured out dramatically better ways, so they wound up w/more than one setup time & hardware cost invested. It is still costly to get set up, and time consumptive to "make" fuel this way; and you still wind up w/waste product piling up that needs disposal (filters and a sort of grease slag that won't make fuel). And then you have the question of how your rig would react to the quality of product you finally produce (my rig requires ULSD standard fuel which almost certainly is met as to sulfur w/WVO but how about other req'mts? I don't want to chance problems w/high cost lift pumps, o-rings, gaskets, injection pump... This problem could be overcome w/maybe B20 (20% WVO/80%ULSD) but that takes a decent size outfit and takes you out of the garage level immediately).

I love the idea of recycling the WVO stream into fuel. It works well and efficiently on a mid-scale basis (local refiners in your town) but not very well on a micro basis with hobbyists when you want to generate efficiency. As to a macro-scale, I think local guys will beat out high overhead corporations all day every day for a long time to come.

[AZgl1500]

I tried the WVO for a while with my own Dodge CTD 1 ton dually.

As mentioned already, you just generated yourself a 2nd job that takes "full time" commitment in order to be thinking of where to get the oil, taking the time to go get the oil, taking more time to process the oil, and finally what to do with the waste that can't be used? Also, my truck uses the VP44 fuel injection pump which is all to infamous for not liking dirty fuel, and damned expensive to replace. Don't ask me how I know.

I gave it up, I was always smelly with oil , the back yard had dirty oil drums and tanks, and it was not a generally well thought of process by the fire department. A home burnt down near here last year when the sun shown its' rays through a bottle laying on the ground. The ground was well soaked with oil from that guy's WVO processing. Didn't take too long for the fire to creep over to his storage drums and boom...

I'll stick with diesel. at least a pair of Nitrile gloves which can be thrown away keep you generally clean.

Besides, what else am I going to spend my children's inheritance on?

[denochs]

Could someone clarify the "conversion" costs that several posts have in them? Is this a cost to convert the diesel engine to use WVO? Or, is it a conversion of the oil itself?

I ran a full tank of WVO in my 2000 F550 pulling our 39' 5er on a trip to FL about 4 years ago. Other than the smell it ran just the same with the same fuel economy. My diesel mechanic says the new diesel we get from the pumps does not have the lubricating capabilities that the WVO has.

Now that we have a mh with a pre-emissions engine I've been thinking of going with a WVO plant. Am I asking for problems? With a 150 gal tank the costs savings add up quick.

Dave