No Start!

My car won't start! We had a couple of really cold days a week and a half ago. My car started, though it took several tries. I was bogging a bit, so I put some diesel in the tank to mix with the veg oil. It was around 40% diesel at that point. The car ran fine for a day or so and then, about 5 days ago, it just wouldn't start. The battery is fine. It turns but won't start up. My Davco filter is a little dirty but I don't think it is clogged up with debris yet. I'll try tomorrow in the warmest part of the day.

Hmmmmmm.

More environmental benefits of wvo

I was thinking yesterday. I realized that in all of the information I have seen on the environmental benefits of running a car on vegetable oil, no one includes the added benefit of reducing the number of petro-diesel powered vehicles on the road by one.

I have posted previously on the benefits of wvo, trying to consider the whole picture - from the oil well (for petroleum) and the soybean or rapeseed plant (for veg oil) to the exhaust pipe.

Here is a synopsis of the carbon cycle, in an intentionally simple example:

The process of growing plants removes carbon from the air. Some of that carbon goes back into the air when it is burned in a vegcar. This cycle reduces the amount of airborne carbon. Petroleum takes 100% of the carbon out of the ground where it is sequestered. Then, when it is burned in a diesel or gasoline powered vehicle, a great deal of that carbon is released into the air. This increases the amount of airborne carbon.

The net effect is that vegetable oil has a much smaller impact (even a net reduction) on airborne carbon than diesel or gasoline. The benefit is even greater when you consider that the vegetable oil has already been used once to make onion rings or french fries.

There is however one more benefit that I have never heard mentioned. The diesel vehicle that was converted removes one petro-diesel powered vehicle from the road. So, in addition to the fact that the "new" vehicle burns cleaner (total cycle) than a gasoline or diesel powered vehicle, one less vehicle is out there burning petro-diesel.

Have you seen this mentioned? Am I double counting? I would appreciate your comments.

Vegtruck blog

As many of you may know, a couple years ago, I named this blog Vegcar because the domain was available. I had heard the term used a couple of times but it wasn't (and still isn't) part of the lexicon.
Today, I became acquainted with a blog called Vegtruck that started up at the end of May 2007. Clearly a cousin of this blog, it has some good information and stories. Kudos to its author Clayton (pictured in photo)!

Mercedes on ebay

To see recently completed ebay auctions for Mercedes 300 series cars, click here. Note: if the price is in green it means that someone won the auction.

VW Beetle Conversion in Process

A Vegcar.net reader sent in this link to a new blog documenting the conversion of a Volkswagon Beetle TDI. They are using a kit from Frybrid. Good luck guys!

MPG and power running on veg oil

A vegcar.net reader asks:

I [am] interested in running a diesel pickup (Ford F-250) on WVO. What kind of performance-MPG, HP can I expect? could you tow a small boat or plow snow effectively? I realize the engine size,vehicle weight, climate, altitude etc. can make a difference. can you give me some guidence with these issues?

I'll try. To the best of my knowledge, diesels running on vegetable oil usually get just about the same mpg as when the run on diesel. As far as power, I have seen Ford diesel trucks running on veg oil pull a trailer with 1,000 gallons of veg oil on the back. Together with the trailer, this is over 9,000 lbs. I have heard some folks claim that there is a 5-10% loss in power when running on veg oil but I haven't seen any data on that. If anyone out there has some information on this, please send it my way and I'll post it.

What is the whole story?

I received the following comment on my April 29th post. She wrote:

What happens to your mileage (miles per gallon) and net emissions when you figure in the energy expended (fossil fuel or otherwise) to deliver the filtered WVO to your door?

It is a great question. I don't have an exact answer as far as net emissions and my mileage, adjusted for the delivery. But how many Americans really know their true efficiency or pollution for any fuel? How much energy is consumed extracting the oil, delivering it half-way around the world, refining it, delivering it to the stations etc. And how many deaths and injustices are committed in the process of bringing petroleum to our gas tank?

In my case, the guy who delivers the oil, runs his truck on biodiesel. He trades filtered wvo to the biodiesel makers for the fuel. Ian drove approximately 350 miles round-trip in his Powerstroke Diesel. I'm guessing (conservatively) that he got an average of 10 miles per gallon on the trip. That means that he used 35 gallons to deliver 1,000 gallons to us.

It is difficult to calculate exactly how much energy and emissions are attributable to producing and burning one gallon of diesel fuel or vegetable oil. The information that I have read, indicates that it isn't even close. The process of growing plants removes carbon from the air. Some of that carbon goes back into the air when it is burned in a vegcar. Petroleum takes 100 of the carbon out of the ground where it is sequestered. Then, when it is burned, a good deal of carbon is released into the air. The net effect is that vegetable oil has a much smaller impact on the airborne carbon.

I read something else recently that was very interesting. The energy required to build a new car is tremendous. This guy's assertion was that to save the energy that went into producing a new Prius, one would have to drive that prius several hundred thousand miles compared to buying a used car that had mileage in the mid 20's. I love Prius's and am not knocking them. I am just pointing out that the whole story is a big and complicated one.

If anyone has seen any data on this, please send it along.

Filling a tote

Here are a couple more photos of us filling our totes with the filtered WVO from Sphere Energy. I just returned from a 400 mile roundtrip to the Bay Area on the new fuel. The car ran great.

Great souce for filtered WVO

I get emails from time to time from people asking where they can buy filtered wvo for their vegcar. Today we got our second delivery from a company out of San Luis Obispo, CA called Sphere Energy. The owner, 23 year old Ian Hoover, is a very bright mechanical engineer who is devoted to alternative fuels an wvo in particular. I have a short video interview I made today that I will post to the blog soon.

He separates the oil after heating and filtering it. The "sludge" is picked up by another renderer. The creamy stuff is sold to a biodiesel plant and the "amber" is sold to vegcar drivers like me. We purchased three 330 gallon "totes" filled with 5 micron filtered wvo for $1.75/gallon (delivered 200 miles!).

I recommend Ian highly. I have already run 165 gallons of his oil through my car (a previous test order). The oil performed perfectly, even through the 20 degree winter weather.

Fuse box connections

Like many 300D owners, I have experienced jealousy of the 300SD fuse box. The SD has a fuse box that allows very easy access to the underside, to connect wires for various components added to the car. In my 300D, a 1984 W123, accessing the underside of the box has been impossible so far. So, I have had to connect wires to the top. I have done so primarily by using a ring terminal and connecting it with a screw to one of the threaded holes beneath one of the fuses. It was necessary however, that the screw in that hole, from the underside be missing. I had a couple of these but not enough.

I saw this photo on the fattywagons site today and I think it is a brilliant solution. I never connecting them in this way. So simple. I am curious however, how they plan to replace the cover to the fuse box without pinching these wires. Any ideas out there?

Watcha got in the truck?

Here is my truck (yes, it runs on gasoline!) full of cubies of wvo and a couple of new barrels. When I collect oil I do so in my vegcar. On this day my friends and I were divying up the 330 gallons of filtered wvo we purchased. I could haul more in the truck.

For those out there who haven't started collecting wvo from restaurants here are a couple of truths:

1. Unless you are incredibly fastidious, everything gets a little sticky and starts to smell like old, used cooking oil. I recommend having some clothes just for collecting oil and wearing rubber gloves.
2. Collecting oil is fun (at least I think so)
3. Be gracious to the restaurant staff
4. Leave the area as clean or cleaner than when you arrived

Injector heaters are certainly hot

A friend (and vegcar owner) recently got a laser thermometer thingy. I measured the temperature of my injector lines, after driving about 4 miles with the injector line heaters on. The temperature varied depending on my aim, but 173 was the highest.

I haven't been using the heaters much. I sometimes switch them on for 10-15 minutes after starting on a cold day. I am concerned that for longer periods they might be too hot.

If anyone out there has any information or thoughts about these injector line heaters (from fattywagons), please let me know. Use the contact us link at the top of the page or submit a comment on this post.

330 Gallon Totes

We have started using 330 gallon "totes" to store and dispense wvo. Here I am with the 660 gallons we purchased a couple of months back. As the season warms up, I will likely get back to collecting and filtering my own. Filtering in the winter is just too slow with my current setup. I am still reluctant to put additional energy into heating the oil to facilitate filtering.

Winter snow

This was taken on February 27 of this year. It is hard to believe it since it has been in the 70's and 80's all week! I got the car started a couple hours after this photo was taken. the only problem was I couldn't get up the driveway (it gets pretty steep beyond the view in the photo). I have chains but blew off my meeting and worked at home.

Pouring jelly into the tank

It has been pretty cold here, dipping below freezing at night and rising to the 40's and 50's during the day. As I filled my tank yesterday with wvo, as has happened repeatedly this winter, the bottom half of the cubie was kind of like jelly. New veg oil from Costco had the same consistency.

I have been using a 3 to 1 wvo to diesel mix and it has been performing very well. I have had no bogging lately. I don't have a tank heater, nor a heated fuel line from the tank. I do have a booster pump that draws the wvo forward from the tank, taking some of the strain off of my injector pump. As I wrote in an earlier post, I purchased that booster pump from LovecraftBiofuels in LA.

A couple hundred more miles on veg oil

I drove to the Bay Area yesterday - about 190 miles. I put 5 gallons of diesel on top of 13 gallons of wvo. The car ran great all the way. I had the injector line heaters on for a good portion of the trip. I don't know how to tell if they are doing any good but it still makes sense to me to heat the oil as close to the injectors as possible. My tank is showing slightly over half full now. I'm looking forward to the drive back home tomorrow.

Visor light

I finally figured out what was happening. Several times in the past year, my battery was largely drained and I couldn't start the car. My alternator did die last year and I had it replaced - twice. But I never figured out why at seemingly random times, my battery just drained while the car was parked.

Today, in the midst of a snowstorm, I got into the Mercedes and tried to start it up. It was no use. There was enough of a charge for the pre-glow light and other dashboard lights, but it just couldn't turn over. It was then that I noticed that the passenger seat visor was down. And to my astonishment, the mirror light was on!

My visors are both missing the door flap that covers the mirrors and lights and turns the lights on and off. In fact, in 18 months of owning the car, I had never seen either of the visor lights on at all. This is certainly the culprit. I think tomorrow morning I'll remove the bulbs from these lights so this can't happen again. Ever.

Davco Filter / Water - Separator / Heater

This is the fuel filter/heater that I have in my 1984 Mercedes 300D. This is the description from the Davco Technology, LLC website.

The Model 234 is the first Fuel Filter, Water- Separator, Heater of its kind developed for the Alternative Diesel Fuel Market.

This unique system uses heat drawn from the cooling system, or the automatic transmission, and routed through an internal radiator to provide the maximum amount of heat during operation and maximum life with its Plus sized filter.

My experience has been excellent with this system. I especially appreciate the transparent dome on the unit. This allows me to easily see when the filter is dirty and ready to be changed. When the car is cold and the fuel level in the unit is still near the top, it is time to change the filter.