But just think of how clean her tank will be when its all done

__________________
'84 300CD Turbo 132k (Anthracite Grey) - WVO - My daily driver - Recently named coo-coo-coupe by my daughter.
'84 300D Turbo 240k (Anthracite Grey) - Garage Queen
'83 300D Turbo 220k (Orient Red) - WVO - Wifes daily driver

I'm not a certified mechanic, but I did stay at a HolidayInn Express last night.

My samples were used veggie oil straight from the waste bin. No filtering or anything.

I was thinking about the best way to settle out used veggie oil before I filter it.

It appears that when cold/cool the most stuff falls to the bottom. Heat/sun seems to make the crap rise up though the "cleaner" oil.

I wonder if this cycle repeats daily, does the top oil get cleaner each additional cycle? Or does the crap at the bottom mix the same every day with the sun?

__________________
1987 300TDT
1981 VW MKI Caddy 1.6 diesel, waiting on engine swap
1983 D-50 Power Ram 4x4 "Mitsubishi" 2.3 turbo diesel
assorted gas powered crap and motorcycles

RIP: 1984 300TDT, 1982 300TDT, 1984 190D 2.2, 1992 300D 2.5, 1987 300TDT, 1982 Maxima LD28, 1983 Maxima LD28, Isuzu C223 P'ups X3, 1983 Holiday Rambler 6.2 Banks turbo diesel, 1984 Winnebago LeSharo 2.1 TD, 1985 Allegro 6.5

I think stuff settles out faster in warm oil, provided that warming the oil doesn't cause stirring by convection. I have dozens of 4-ounce samples of oil beginning with the first that I collected in November of 2003. Some of the cleanest clearest ones are the very first, that sat in cubees for several months before I took the samples off the top with a baster.
The other day I looked at two recent samples: one from my big settling tank, undisturbed for over a month, and the other some of the same oil after the 0.5 micron bag filter. Both looked very good, but the 0.5 micron was a little clearer. The more settling, the better. Filters last longer.

I have a jug of oil that goes cloudy to clear and back again, I think it varies with the temperature, I will try to verify that. It is from a chain burger joint and I am sure it is hydrogenated and/or has tallow in it. I think R Leo has it pinned.

At this time of year, those who use unheated blends will start to notice that their fuel becomes cloudy and starts to clog the filters.
This is because of the high melting point oils (tallow, huydrogenated oil) cooling below their melting point.
There are easy remedies:
1. Cold filter your oil. With the oil at the coldest of the day (early morning?), filter the oil. This will leave any oil which has a melting point highrer than the temp of the oil, in the filter. When the filter fills up with solid oil, use an electric immersion filter to melt it into an open topped bucket. This effectively removes the high MP oils from the fuel system. If there is a cold snap, the oil in your tank may have some high MP oils, not removed at the filtering temperature - in this case, blend in more liquid fuel.

2. Make the oil into biodiesel, (or just the high MP oil) as the MP of biodiesel made from the oil is usually 10 - 15'C lower than the MP of the source oil.

3. Heat the blend using HIH or HOH fuel lines, or a heat exchanger in the engine bay.

4. Buy a Gasser
Just foolin

__________________
Tony from West Oz.
Fatmobile 3 84 300D 295kkm Silver grey/Blue int. 2 tank WVO - Recipient of TurboDesel engine.
Josephine '82 300D 390kkm White/Palamino int.
Elizabeth '81 280E, sporting a '79 300D engine.
Lucille '87 W124 300D non-turbo 6 cylinder OM603, Pearl Grey with light grey interior


Various parts cars including 280E, 230C & 300D in various states of disassembly.

Another experiment...

I put my samples in the fridge. The samples were all dark brown, no visible sludge, at the time because the bottom layer had melted back into the oil.

I a short time the whole sample turned gravy.

I guess the rapid cooling caused the suspended fat to resolidify faster than it could "fall" to the bottom before the oil started to thicken & gell.

Probably the slower cooling at night allows the fats to solidify and fall to the bottom before the oil thickens up.

I bet the best thing for setteling is to place the barrel in a place that has minimal tempature variation. A cool, but not cold place. Without sunlight to prevent convection currenct inside the oil drum.

Once the oil has settled and been filtered, it probably doesn't matter much if it's stored where the temperature or sun varies as there is probably not much, if any, fats left in the oil anyway.

__________________
1987 300TDT
1981 VW MKI Caddy 1.6 diesel, waiting on engine swap
1983 D-50 Power Ram 4x4 "Mitsubishi" 2.3 turbo diesel
assorted gas powered crap and motorcycles

RIP: 1984 300TDT, 1982 300TDT, 1984 190D 2.2, 1992 300D 2.5, 1987 300TDT, 1982 Maxima LD28, 1983 Maxima LD28, Isuzu C223 P'ups X3, 1983 Holiday Rambler 6.2 Banks turbo diesel, 1984 Winnebago LeSharo 2.1 TD, 1985 Allegro 6.5

Where did you get the drum pump with goldenrod filter?

I'm just getting started myself, so still have a lot of things to sort out. I get my WVO from a restaurant in 16 litre pails- perfect for handling.

First step for me is settling the oil. I set each pail up on a concrete block, then suspend an electric charcoal bar-b-q starter into it- making sure it doesn't touch the sides of the plastic pail. I use this to heat the stuff to about 225 degrees F, then let it cool down, heating each bucket in turn. This allows all food particles to settle to bottom of bucket, and hopefully gets rid of any water present.

From then on, I do three steps of filtering. First one is through a gravy strainer, simply pouring into another pail through the strainer, until I encounter the sediment at the bottom. The sediment then gets dumped into another bucket marked "waste", and I clean the first pail out real good with a bit of Kerosene. Second pass is through the gravy strainer lined with cheesecloth folded double with the oil heated up again, this time to 100 F. The cheesecloth catches smaller particles, and also begins to exhibit a waxy build-up. Finally, I do a room temperature pass through a cone-shaped Filter-Queen vacuum filter. The filter laying in a large funnel will hold about 10 litres of oil and takes about 2 hours to pass through. Then I put my remaining 6 litres in- at this point the vacuum cleaner filter is so saturated with wax it takes overnight to finish running through. One of these kinds of filters for every 16 litres is expensive over-kill I think, and I will most likely adopt a more recommended approach real soon.

Basically, my approach is to let it settle, then filter it every time you move it.

Haven't used it in the car yet. I wanted to do Bio-D, but have yet to find an affordable source of Methanol. Barring that, I will have to get a 2 tank conversion done, but in the meantime, I may experiment with mixing my cleaned oil with gasoline, and putting it right in with the Diesel about 20/80.

Dave

1976 300D

I am still looking for a low cost, less messy, and low hands on time pre-filter system . It seems like the pressurized bag filter housing ( aka bag filter vessel ) is the way to go except for the low cost part (being hard to find in junkyards ).
R. Leo - have you made any headway on you DIY bag filter housing ? -thanks

I am new to this list and so am not sure old these posts are but what I have been using for a filter bag housing is a Gallon Apple juice container with the bottom cut off , inverted and the bag stuffed down iside that. The *funnel* end of the jug is then lowered into a funnel. Works well for me.

I burn sunflower or canola oil direct from the supermarket, in 30% to 100% concentration. Love the exhaust (BBQ) smell !!

It's clear and golden and free of anything you'd need to filter. But then I live in France where taxes make diesel about $5 / gallon, so virgin veg oil is about 25% cheaper.

fyi

__________________
Thx/Reno
An American in France
88 300TD 5spd Sportline (lowered factory susp) - totalled by a flying deer
89 Range Rover V8 - the 4wd beast
02 Toyota minivan
05 Peugeot Partner 4x4 Dangel
88 International Harvestor 633SA
--Gone but not forgotten:
1970 250/8 C (sold to buy 450 SLC)
1972 450 SLC (sold after battling wiring harness problems too long)
1971 300 SEL 6.3 (sold after destroying two *very* expensive rear LS diffs)
1986 560 SEL (now my little brother's pride and joy)

I pick up used oil in 5 gal cubbies and after letting it settle at ambiant temp for a few days I pour the top off into a five gal bucket setting over the bung on the 55 gal container. The bottom of the bucket has a hole with a pvc fitting that a swimming pool cart filter will fit snug over. These filters cost around $10 for two, have a large surface area and have worked well for pre-filtering alot of oil. From the 55 gal drum its pumped thru a goldenrod filter straight to my tank for a 80/20 blend with diesel
In the winter I run a 50/50 blend. One tank system with no heater has worked well in the '92 Dodge Cummins for sometime now. Maybe 20K+ miles.

I have about 120 gal. of wvo to be used. I pick up more than I burn once a week.

This simple system has worked well for me. I just need to figure out what to do with all the leftover cubbies. I thought of filling them with cement and building a shop. Soon I'll have enough.

Updated prefilter (10/05)
Bedsheet "rachet strapped" to the top of the 55 gal drum. Punched down in the center to make a cone shape.
Holds about 15 gallons. I pour in three cubbies, return a few mins later and pour in more.

Was that a typo, or do you really run more veggie oil in winter than in summer? Isn't the clouding temp for veg oil higher than diesel #1?

I'd figured the opposite, that I wouldn't run veg oil in winter. Maybe I'm ignorant of the relevant facts. My wife is always saying that, or that I don't listen to her, or something like that.

__________________
Thx/Reno
An American in France
88 300TD 5spd Sportline (lowered factory susp) - totalled by a flying deer
89 Range Rover V8 - the 4wd beast
02 Toyota minivan
05 Peugeot Partner 4x4 Dangel
88 International Harvestor 633SA
--Gone but not forgotten:
1970 250/8 C (sold to buy 450 SLC)
1972 450 SLC (sold after battling wiring harness problems too long)
1971 300 SEL 6.3 (sold after destroying two *very* expensive rear LS diffs)
1986 560 SEL (now my little brother's pride and joy)

I interpret the 80:20 as 80% Used Cooking Oil and 20% diesel in summer and 50% UCO and 50% diesel in winter

__________________
Tony from West Oz.
Fatmobile 3 84 300D 295kkm Silver grey/Blue int. 2 tank WVO - Recipient of TurboDesel engine.
Josephine '82 300D 390kkm White/Palamino int.
Elizabeth '81 280E, sporting a '79 300D engine.
Lucille '87 W124 300D non-turbo 6 cylinder OM603, Pearl Grey with light grey interior


Various parts cars including 280E, 230C & 300D in various states of disassembly.

Correct.