cooking oil in a Di

[yossarrian]

Sorry, could I just to return to the original post for a second?

Do any modifications have to be made AT ALL to mix diesel with rapeseed oil? The reason I ask is a friend's band in the States basically travel for free using the waste oil from McDonalds on tour (it costs them $$ to have a specialist company collect and dispose of it so they're glad to get rid of it!) - it sounded so bizarre I just assumed he'd had a conversion.

I knew Diesel engines were originally designed to run on sunflower oil, but just assumed it'd ruin the engine if mixed...

(I drive about 70-80,000 miles a year so anything to bring the cost down is worth a try in my book!)

[FredTransit]

Sorry, could I just to return to the original post for a second?

Do any modifications have to be made AT ALL to mix diesel with rapeseed oil? The reason I ask is a friend's band in the States basically travel for free using the waste oil from McDonalds on tour (it costs them $$ to have a specialist company collect and dispose of it so they're glad to get rid of it!) - it sounded so bizarre I just assumed he'd had a conversion.

I knew Diesel engines were originally designed to run on sunflower oil, but just assumed it'd ruin the engine if mixed...

(I drive about 70-80,000 miles a year so anything to bring the cost down is worth a try in my book!)

As far as I can tell, there are two ways of using used oil, which is the best veg oil to put in a diesel engine as using it for frying makes it thinner and nearer to the consitancy of diesel. Some engines can cope with this alone as a fuel, it just needs to be filtered to get out the bits of food, and then allowed to settle as the food puts water into the oil which can do damage long term to the bores, and shorter term to the filters (not so serious). Merc engines tolerate used veg oil well, none DI engines generally better than DIs, which have to have some spirit (white spirit commonly) 2ml in every 100ml of oil. Secondly, you can make biodiesel from it, but to my liking that's a bit too fiddly and time/space consuming, though there is no reason you couldn't make it in a garden shed, it's no where near as dangerous as as distilling bioethonal, or biopetrol which involves a still. Of the DIs, bosch pumps are supposed to cope with veg oil better than the lucas pumps, but not fuel managed types including the fly by wire TDIs, though you can run any diesel engine on processed veg oil, ie biodiesel.

[scottie]

so are we all agreed ....

a 20% mix of rapeseed oil it is then in my 95 van?

of to asda in the morning then

scottie

[Daveathome]

I have a r reg 98 2.5 Di which i run on 80% veg oil 20% diesel I do about 1000 miles a week and all runs fine i have no fuel heater just buy it from sainsbury's and put it in the tank and off i go.

[chrisuk]

:? 2.8 capri engine????????????????? you meen essex???????????????// would have abit of a job to get the gearbox to go to the 2.8

it is the 3L essex, amd a mistake on the 2.8 bit. The original is the 3L essex too, the SVO LC tranny engine. Wasn't the 2.8 a cologne?

They've been using this engine in South Africa for along time but its been jacked up to a 3.5l, not sure what it would be like trying to import one if you really want more power and you can buy a cam conversion from Ford there too that includes Heads, cams and all the proper running stuff to turn it into a over head cam jobby, believe me, they fly and yes its fuel injected too, rock solid engines these are

[madmark]

its a great idea but i would not put anything near a lucas epic pump as they are so tempremental! if mine was normal i would be putting in the veg oil!

[chrisuk]

So part mixing not ideal for a X reg 2.4 Duratorque turbo, is this correct

[yossarrian]

Ok, this is pretty wierd but the magazine I contribute to in the States has just offered an article on running your vehicle on veg oil.

With all the posts on here about running diesels on alternative fuel I'm going to take up the article, so if anyone wants to be interviewed for this and in turn providing lots of technical knowhow, please send me a PM.

Thanks.

[madmark]

chrisuk i dont know mate , on the erly di engine turbo the pumps are a pain in the bum!

[Daveathome]

Went to Perth in scotland yesterday ( I live in Kent) 1005 miles round trip,

Ran her on 100% veg oil cost £65.00 for the whole trip and ran like a dream 70mph there and back traffic allowing lol

[Andrew-v4]

Hi mate what van you running?

[jamsandys]

Does anyone know how many litres one acre of rapeseed will produce? I mean, in the long term is there enough land space in the UK to grow the crops to produce the oil to keep all the diesels running?

[softlad1971]

I tried my 89 MK3 Di on Veg Oil today. It was only a 33% mix. I could not believe how bad the smell was. The engine ran fine. The smell was so bad, I went and filled it up with diesel just to try and dilute the veg oil and the smell.

How bad does yours smell?

[FredTransit]

Does anyone know how many litres one acre of rapeseed will produce? I mean, in the long term is there enough land space in the UK to grow the crops to produce the oil to keep all the diesels running?

Dunno about rapeseed oil, but there is a suprising amount of interest in america in using corn to make the base oil, and europe has surplus mountains of most food!

[madmark]

yes it does wiff! i put it in the steam cleener at work as it was cheaper than diesel .god i thout the thing was gona blow up! the smell as well was just discusting!