Graham - what car are you trying this on? Are you pre-heating the oil / white spirit mix? What exactly clogged the filter - are you sure it's not just cold oil? I.e. you didn't do any form of pre-heat..
There's an excellent web site with quite a bit of technical detail on the use of veg oil in diesels; check out:
journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html
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I don't use any diesel, unless I haven't had time to put the vegoil in or its raining too hard etc.... and then when I put the oil in, it will be mixed with whatever diesel is left, but I don't use it as a rule.
During winter, I would use ~10% white spirit (I do most of the year round)
You can buy 2 litre bottles from Wilkos at £1.75 each, each one will allow you to add 20 litres of oil (7 3 litre bottles approx)
I replace the fuel filter every 9 months (10,000 miles)
Never had any fuel filter problems though.
Make sure its new food grade oil and supermarket stuff is much nicer than the wholesale catering stuff.
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What is the comparative cost of veg oil/diesel and would a 106 1.5 engine be suited to this?
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.>> What is the comparative cost of veg oil/diesel?
Veggie oil about 45p/litre in Tesco, plus 17.5p of white spirit, so let's say 62.5p/litre.
Then of course you have to ring Gordon Brown and tell him you are using a foodstuff as fuel and would therefore like to pay some extra tax on it.
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Thanks for the reply's.
Sharan 110tdi. Done 70 000 miles. It wouldn't start on Friday with a 50/50 mix. Waited until the afternoon when the sun had been on it, still no joy. Tried putting hot water around the pipes in desperation - nothing. The symptoms were that the engine would catch but die immediatley.
Changed the fuel filter, after fist priming the filter with veggie oil to remove as much air as possible. After a few tries fired and ran no problem.
I've had a look at the topgear site and am too stupid to find the forum!!!
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P.S. Is there a market for 3 litre plastic bottles? They could accumulate quite quickly!
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What does the exhaust smell like? Fishy?
No, seriously, I'm intrigued.
--
groups.msn.com/honestjohn - Pictures say a thousand words.....
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Graham, I'm surprised you had a problem, what kind of oil did you use? It wasn't sunflower or corn oil was it? Or tripe? :o)
Don't use petrol, as this is added to diesel to stop it gelling, but this is negated by the fact that the self-ignition temperature of petrol is higher than vegoil or diesel. It may have a much lower flash point but this is of no matter in a CI engine which has no spark sourse of ignition, basically while hard to imagine, petrol added to the fuel in a diesel makes it harder to compression ignite!
DL, the exhaust doesn't smell exactly like a chip shop like many claim, it also smells pleasently sweet though, the oil is being cleanly burned not just hot like a fryer, or burned dirtily like in a chip pan fire it can alsmost smell of soap sometimes!
I change the oil more frequently, and when I do, it smells of barbeques that weren't cleaned before they were put away!
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With the biodiesel I've found that the exhaust can smell different from car to car - running it in a 6 year old BMW 525 TD produced the most barbecue-like smell (bring on those juicy rare steaks), whereas the Clio dci and the Leon just have a very mild odour of frying - much less choking exhaust than on derv. Most pleasingly of all, the Passat exhaust smells like doughnuts. Mmmmm, doughnuts .....
andymc
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LOL, yes, I remember last winter, it was snowy, and I was parked on a car park on top of a shop, and had been on the phone for a few minutes with the engine running to keep warm, when I finally got out of the car a couple walked past, and he said to his girlfriend, "Mmmm something smells nice!" - "Doughnuts!" she proclaimed. I agreed it smelled like a Dinky Donut van, and smiled to myself. Little did they no.....
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I've been looking into this, and want to try it on my zx td. It has bosch fuel pump so is apparantly compatible.
Can I use vegi oil (I think rapeseed oil is best?) mixed with approprate amount if thinner without any preheating mechanisim?
Will the use of thinner or spirit negate the use of the pre-heater conversion kits?
Also does the use of spirit/thinner have any detrimental effect on engine?
Thanks for any help.
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Sooty: I first bought a 20 litre can of veggie oil from the warehouse. It worked out at 45p/litre. But I then had to decant into something manageable to get it into the car. Tesco's veggie oil (rapeseed)is in more manageable 3 litre bottles and works out at 46p/litre. For less hassle thats the one I'm running with at the moment.
I also tried white spirit yesterday. I mixed it first with the oil to see the effect.
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Hello Shaz, well, there is no lhard and fast rule of doing this, all I can say is I have no problems at all without any mods or heaters even on these cold morning, using 10% white spirit and ASDA/Tesco/Morrisons Pure Vegetable oil. Most people are sheep and everything they do, wear, eat, hate etc... is dictated by what they are told to do, There are also those who think differently.
I usually just put the white spirit in the tank, and then pour the oil in on top.
BTW. - I use Wilkos WHITE SPIRIT, not brush cleaner, cellulose thinners, or turps etc...
I would suggest adding this to a tank which already has some diesel in it for the first time you do this, and also leave room to add more diesel if you get any problems.
All cars are different, and there is little or no research into how different cars bahave other than what ordinary people are doing off their own backs, to try and help Tony Blair meet his Kyoto targets without wholescale oppression and expenditure..
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Thanks for the info sooty,
Will be trying this soon.
As mentioned earlier, had been reading up on this from various sites. All seem to mention rapeseed oil as the best cheap vegi oil. Is this the normal vegi oil available at supermarkets?
I will be trying it all the same.
Once again - thanks.
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NoDosh: I work it out to be a lot less than that!
2 litres of white spirit @ £1.75 to 7 x 3 litre bottles of oil @45p /litre.
Gives 21 litres @ 45p = 945p
plus the 2 litres for 175p
Gives 23 litres for 1120
or 1 litre for 48.7 p
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Actually I made a mistake. Use £1.37 / 3 lt bottle x 7 etc.
Gives 49.3p/lt
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Sooty - how many miles have you covered on vegoil (in the one car), and how many miles were on it in the first place? I'm asking because I'm interested to know whether piston ring coking has been/may be an issue for your motor. Also, any thoughts on the side effects of combusting white spirit? Finally, how does the engine behave in terms of mpg, power, etc? I got rid of the 525 TD because it was too slow and only achieved around 35 mpg - the Passat that replaced it isn't as nice to drive, but it's got a lot more kit and goes faster while returning 55 mpg. Hope you don't mind all the questions, I'm always interested in other peoples' experiences with renewables.
andymc
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Just a note on cold starting - I looked into this and the professional systems feed diesel into the car until the engine is warmed up then there is a small switch you flick and the car then uses the vegetable oil. It means you ahve to have two tanks, a small one for the diesel and the normal one for the veg oil mix. It's a bit expensive to have installed and with the lower cost of diesel here in Eire I wouldn't have got a return with two years or so for the effort.
I also know that chipshops have to spend money on getting rid of the used frying oil (Our local recycling place take it all and uses it in the council trucks), if you know a guy in a chippy it could be advantageous for both. You just need a good sieve (with muslin cloth type filter on it) to strain the batter/debris out.
This is also one of the places where leaving the solution to settle came from (Smaller debris that has passed through the filter will slowly move via gravity to the bottom to be disposed of e.g. don't pour the last 500ml/liter out just leave in the bottom for the next lot - In biodiesel, there is a by-product of the reaction that precipitates out and can effect efficency of the fuel).
There was a guy in Wales (I think it was), who was doing it for years then had to pay tax (It was in the papers). Alledgly a policeman thought it was odd that the car he walked past smelt of a chippy...
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