Vegetable oil as fuel

Rudolf was right back in 1900 – fuel can be grown, & it can be carbon neutral.

Diesel said that “In 1900 a small Diesel engine was exhibited by the Otto company which, on the suggestion of the French Government, was run on arachide [peanut] oil, and operated so well that very few people were aware of the fact. The motor was built for ordinary oils, and without any modification was run on vegetable oil

By converting my Mercedes to run on vegetable oil I have saved 10 tons of CO2 in 5 years – a ball 68’ in diameter, and $5,000 in diesel cost.

The 1986 Mercedes 300D

Bought 5 years ago for $5,000, she had ~ 175,000 miles on her clock – which promptly stopped! She was a ‘senior’ lady.

he dual tank convertor from ATG  Advanced Technology Group GmbH was added with an extra fuel tank for the vegetable oil. $1,709 for that and fitting costs by Joe Mercorella of Uraidla totalled $2,757.

A wheelie bin was bought as a settling tank

and 2 restaurants found happy to give me their waste oil.

Siphoning off their oil from their storage bin

A difficulty I had with the car was getting the fuel clean enough, leading to fuel starvation when the fuel filters clogged. So I fitted a small RYCO Z14 $8.50 filter before the engine filter- and carried a couple of spares and a spanner in the car. When I felt her ‘holding back’ – I’d pull over and change it – a 5 minute job.

Prefilter – a drum with the top cut off, and a couple of inches of fibreglass in the bottom.

Another problem I had was filtering the dirty oil in cool weather up at Mylor. I fitted a thermosyphon system with some solar water heaters I had with a loop through the settling tank – which didn’t work very well, especially in the winter.

So at someone’s suggestion I went for a gravity system draining down the hill, which worked well.

11am – 4pm filtering then anhour for the clean oil to drain into the tank !

   And we were off again.

Early on I had difficulty with the electric fuel pump for the dual fuel system being erratic. So, one day – I bit the bullet and put vegoil in her main tank. ‘No worries’ – she started first time every time once the glow plug had done its work. A little down on power, till the engine was warm and the fuel was being heated – so hills were avoided for the first 10 minutes. – but then the fuel was free, and time is a less valuable commodity when you are a pensioner…

In Adelaide, where frosts seldom happen, I have shown that it’s quite OK to run it on pure vegetable oil. No need for a dual tank system but with the oil going through a engine water heated pre-heater before it gets to the injectors.

And each gallon of oil was lifted 3 times in total – in the sunshine… beats any gym!

I used about 1 jerrican per week

Calculations:

2015   182 days

2016   366

2017   365

2018   365

2019   31

Total   1308 days = 187 weeks @ 1 jerrican/week = 3737 litres used

Price of diesel $1.48/L – =$5,531 dollars saved

2.65 kg CO2 per litre of diesel burnt = 9,903 kg Co2 saved – approx. 10 tons saved

Density: 1.98kg/m3 – a ball 5002 m3 ie 68 feet in diameter

To purr through the Adelaide hills, behind that smoothest of all engines – music every mile. My wife had given me a CD player for Mercedes. Seeing a new lane, turn in and gently explore it, mile after mile, with the Satnav leading us back to the shed – for free and carbon neutral, immersed in music. What a dream.

Only terminated back in Adelaide by a 4WD – Mercedes and her dreams, wrecked – but without a scratch to the driver… a ‘senior’ but tough old lady that car.