Diesel on Vegatable oil

Anybody running a diesel on vegatble oil, or biodiesel for that matter.

John

I hear that there is a feed mill in Gettysburg, Pa that is using soy oil in there trucks.

I've ran my Indian Listers on straight cooking oil, 5050 diesel and used motor oil, and even straight crude oil. Canola oil smells awfull! my favorite cooking oil to use is "Mazola" corn oil. Come to think of it, I ran one of these engines last summer on Citronella oil, works great to run off the mosquito's! The only down side to useing cooking oil as a fuel is below 45 degrees the cooking oil becomes thick and doesnt want to flow thru the fuel filter very well. Just to let you know, cooking oil is bad on the paint job. Thanks Harry

Been experimenting with used fryer oil and have had some good success. I heat it up to 150 degrees to drive off the moisture, strain it, use a formula I got off the net, using sodium hydroxide (a form of lye) and methanol ("Heat") brand gasoline antifreeze and a few hours time and I get what seems to be a good clear diesel fuel. I do agree that in cooler weather it tends to cloud up and flow slower, but I offset that by blending the mixture with light weight fuel oil. My estimated cost per gallon of the mixture is around .60 cents ( still alot cheaper than the pumps) I own two Lister "clones" that seem to like the stuff but I have yet to pull the heads off for a look see. I must stress that in the process, filtering the stuff is a must or you will be working on your Injectors. Just Waiting for SPRING up here in MN.

I've heard of people getting into problems with their injection pumps when using veggie oil if they let the engine sit with the oil in them for relatively long periods.

What happens is that the oil gets rancid and the acids in the rancid oil attacks the pump.

Otherwise, if you make sure to process the oil and filter it, you should not have any problems.

I wonder what can be used to retard or stop the spoiling process.

Take care - Elden




Elden's Junky Web Page

I Think there was an article on bio diesel in Mother earth news not to long ago .Rob

The University Of Idaho Runs a shuttle bus around campus using only Biodiesel. They have quite the program for biodiesel.

How about distilled alcohol? I was able to keep a F/M 2hp dishpan running for about 10 minutes on straight alcohol. But it finally stalled due to the water separating from the alcohol and the spark plug fouled. The grain alcohol was about 170 to 190 proof. The choke shutter also had to be almost completely closed. I think they experimented back in the 70's once and mixed grain alcohol with petroleum gasoline and sold it at the pumps?

Kid -

You're right...back in the mid/late 70s, they mixed 10% methanol (I think it was methanol) with gas and sold it as "Gasohol". Problem was, the alcohol absorbed water. It was supposed to be the wave of the future, but it lasted for less than a year as best as I can remember...I was only 8 or 10 at the time.

Chris

I used to run that gasohol in my vehicles back then and it was great. It did remove the water from your gas tank. The only problem I had was it also removed all the varnish and junk from your gas tank and lines. Had to remove the carb and clean it a couple of times, after that it was OK.

I would not be surprised to see Gasohol back as an additive to make gasoline a cleaner fuel. I think the corn farmer of the mid-west will be happy to see it on the market again. Dick in the warm today, cold tommorow Finger Lake of NY.

There are some other problems with Gasohol. Certain types of rubber don't like it (It's really hard on accelerator pumps in old carbs) and some fuel injectors don't like it either. It tends to disolve seals and plastic parts in them and then they start to leak, or stop firing completely. I think that most manufacturers have pretty much worked around this in the last few years, but am not sure.

Dave in KCK

you can get gasahol in iowa i have a 99 saturn and a 98 dodge van with a v6 the saturn runs ok on it but the dodge doesnt.both engines have about 90000 miles on them

I saw 10% methanol at the Pilot gas station in Knoxville TN last week. I don’t like to run it for the reasons listed here ie. it knocks to much gook loose.

Pretty hard to find anything but 10% or more Ethenol blend in MN. There may be someone selling something else but I haven't seen it. Then do sell an unoxygenated for older car and lawn equipment and such. You usually have go in and let them see what your putting it in before they turn on the pump. It also has a large nozzal so it won't fit in anything that is suppossed to use unleaded. Right now it is also 2.00 a gallon. Cheers Paul Hokanson

Diesels were originally made to run on vegetable oil. The petrochemical industry horned in on the action, selling their low ends as "Diesel Fuel" and the rest is history. Vegetable oil and transesterified vegetable oil will run perfectly well in a diesel. As with modern petroleum diesel fuel, the fuel must be kept clean to prevent wear on close tolerance injector parts. Also attention must be paid to coking on the injector nozzles, best to run these fuels at medium to full load.

Here in the northern plains farm country, gas with 10% ethanol is available nearly everywhere. The plain, simple, truth is that it works just fine in everything from an old tractor to the latest model car.

I find it no better or no worse than regular unleaded gasoline. The only real problem I've ever seen with it is if it is left to get "old" in a seldom-used engine or vehicle. In all the years I've used it, I've never had a single problem in a daily driver vehicle, or regularly used engine. Any problems I've ever seen were with units that sat unused for a year or two, and the ethanol blend got "old", or whatever, and caused corrosion in the fuel system.

To sum up, I have no reservations about using ethanol blend in any engine that is run on a fairly regular basis, but for "toys" that often sit around for long periods of time without being run, I feel safer with regular unleaded gasoline with Stabil, or equivalent added.

I feel that it is time the people of this country learn to get along with the resources we have, instead of depending heavily on costly (in more ways than one) foreign sources, and ethanol produced from renewable ag resources makes sense. There is potential to produce it from waste (non food-grade) products, which makes even more sense.

I would absolutely NOT try to run a Diesel engine on alcohol, gasoline or other light hydrocarbons.

One of the properties of #2 fuel oil, veggie oil, etc. is that they have lubricating properties. Without lubrication, the injection pump will soon turn into an expensive piece of junk.

I suppose you could mix a relatively small volume of alcohol with a lubricating fuel but I don't think the engine will run well on it.

Take care - Elden

Elden,

I beleive Fairbanks Kid brought up the gasohol topic with reference to a gas engine, and I replied to that thread.

In the instructions for my Ruston Hornsby HR6 diesel they talk about using banana oil or any other kind of vegetable oil.They sold injectors for about anything that would burn.their idea was they could sell an engine for use anywhere in the world.Rob