Yes, another one dreaming of the holy grail - free fuel forever , but I may have a case ?
One of my cars is a US Ford F250 pick up truck of 1986 vintage, with an International 6.9 V8 diesel ( factory standard, this engine ) . Now, this is used sparingly as it's big around London's streets and on a limited mileage policy. It used to be an only vehicle used for my business around 1994 - 2000 , I've owned it for 14 years now .
It is IMHO suitable for a veg oil ' conversion ' as : a) It's an old style engine , not a high pressure common - rail . b) The truck has 2 diesel tanks , with a dash mounted switch to move between the two , so one can be used for the Veg oil. c) I am a part owner of a restaurant business and we have free waste veg oil every week, that at present gets collected .
I actually went to see a company that does these conversions in Wolverhampton about a year ago, when diesel was a bargain 80p a litre . They said the reason it wasn't feasable was that this truck comes with Stanadyne injection pumps and these are prone to snapping their shafts under the strain of running veg oil. It's now 132 p and rising ... have found out that Bosch and other diesel pump makers can and do run on veg oil, this from an outfit in Germany that fits these veg oil jobs. So the question is , who can advise whether fitting a replacement Bosch diesel injection pump is possible without much tinkering , and who stocks/ fits them ? I know it won't be cheap, but it will have paid for itself in no time , in the grand scheme of things and I won't need to go near a forecourt more than once a year ..
Anybody out here know this issue in detail ?
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Have a nose around some US veg oil groups and see what they suggest.
One solution is to set up a standard twin tank system, starting on diesel, and switching to oil once the engine is warmed. In conjunction you fit a heat exchanger for your veg oil line, which could be a coolant-heated filter unit. That way the oil gets to the IP hot, and much less viscous.
Your only problem would be the time taken to get the coolant up to heat, and so getting the veg oil nice and runny.
Finding, fitting and timing a Bosch IP could be impossible.
Edited by oldnotbold on 20/06/2008 at 14:34
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If you can get hold of a magazine called Auto from Germany it specialises in US motors with umpteen companies doing conversions.My brother in law has a Ford V8 diesel engine in his mobile home and that runs on nothing else but cooking oil as do all his vehicles.
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motorprop
What about thinning the filtered WVO with mixed fuel waste from mis-fuellings? At the mo; most garages just dump it into the waste oil tank, as it's usually mostly petrol and, as you're in the trade, there should be no waste regs.
There was a plastic governor component that hardened and broke up in early Stanadyne pumps; I'd think that you have the later one and it should be petrol resistant - given the common US practice of winter de-waxing with petrol.
Somewhere like Watson Diesel would be able to confirm.
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