I thought the thread seemed a little disjointed.

If I read the whole thread from beginning to end, I really don't get anything out of it.

__________________
Michael LaFleur

'05 E320 CDI - 86,000 miles
'86 300SDL - 360,000 miles
'85 300SD - 150,000 miles (sold)
'89 190D - 120,000 miles (sold)
'85 300SD - 317,000 miles (sold)
'98 ML320 - 270,000 miles (sold)
'75 300D - 170,000 miles (sold)
'83 Harley Davidson FLTC (Broken again) :-(
'61 Plymouth Valiant - 60k mikes
2004 Papillon (Oliver)
2005 Tzitzu (Griffon)
2009 Welsh Corgi (Buba)

There was a bit of a tiff earlier and a lot of stuff got deleted...by the members adn a moderator....

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
---------------------
Section 609 MVAC Certified
---------------------
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

this thread seemed to go ugly over what developed into an argument between two camps: those that advocate certain levels of modification to run WVO, and those that run WVO without any modifications.
i am one of those that supports modifications: *at least* heating the oil before sending it to the ip. i have done this in the four vehicles i have converted and i have purchased the heaters from a small company called neoteric. i have come to be friendly with one of the two guys who run the company and have learned quite a bit from talking with him as he has lots of experience. he offered me lots of support and answered my stupid questions patiently.
if i were in colder climates (by colder i mean anywhere where it gets lower than 35*) (i am in s.f. bay area, northern california) i would be running a two-tank system.
i am actually running a two-tank system in my ford f250 because the ip is a rotary style pump (different than the inline style which my 300D has) and couldn't handle starting on the much more viscous veg oil so the WVO has to be purged from the lines if it is going to sit for more than a few hours.

before i started installing anything i spent quite a bit of time reading in the vegetable oil forums mentioned earlier. i arrived at three conclusions based on everything i'd read:
a) vegetable oil should be heated before being introduced to the engine. some people could get quite carried away and engineer these very elaborate systems, but there was an overwhelming (IMO) consensus on this point.
b) if using WVO it should be well-filtered before getting to the engine.
c) i was not going to reinvent the wheel in accomplishing these two things. i remember one thread in particular where someone was spending more time and $$ trying to get a system together that worked than i would really want to deal with. i enjoy tinkering but my time is limited and valuable, and i am frugal but not cheap so i felt okay with giving a company i researched well my $$ in exchange for quality components and support.
from what i have saved in fuel costs i have paid off the system for my truck 1000 miles ago and i had someone to call when i ran into problems.

i read many threads as well of those who were running blends or straight oil in an unmodified fuel system but i wasn't comfortable with that idea somehow, perhaps because the vast majority were talking in terms of modifying the fuel system. i was (am) learning so i was listening to what seemed to emerge as the common wisdom. i did wonder about the issues of coking etc and how much of that was bologna and how much was true. (the german company elsbett even went so far as to heat the injectors.) someone i know through the WVO community here told me about his experience with running oil in his unmodified 99 Mercedes Turbo that i told earlier in this thread. this established for me a sort of baseline and offered me the evidence of someone else's experience that supported what most folks were saying i.e. that gumming and coking *were* a real issue. someone wrote that his 99 and our 617/603s are different animals which is fine and however true but it's the principle and a diesel engine is a diesel engine, both have valves and heads and the valves stuck and the heads coked. i don't know, it didn't happen to me and it wasn't perhaps the exact engine we tend to talk about but for me it's conclusive enough. as i said in another post, to spend $160 on a fuel heater that installs in an hour two for me is cheap insurance considering the still unknown, and considering the time & energy we put into these cars. having said that, i am the type that prefers to err on the side of caution when i don't completely know something.
if you're still reading this and you're interested in running WVO in your vehicle all i can say is do your research well, there's lots of good resources online and good luck in navigating all the opinions out there because there's lots of those as well (mine included. although i know better than most.....

__________________
Jeff
___
1982 300D Turbo 150K
PlantDrive Single tank WVO conversion
6000 veggie miles and counting!
-----------
1985 Ford F250 - 132K
PlantDrive Two-tank WVO conversion
15,000 veggie miles and counting...

Driving for FREE!

Twitch, I dont think you are accurate in your assesment that they will start taxing veg oil the same as other fuels, cuz as far as I know, other fuels dont double as "food", how would they know if you are buying your veg oil for consumption or for fuel?

Sorry about that, partially my fault. I had a lot to say about conversions and oil heating, but was getting slammed so hard for my opinions that I deleted all my posts here, in a moment of feeling majorly disrespected.
Veg_burner seems to share some concerns which I do, many in the SVO world have intelligent ways to address possibilities of long-range potential problems (i.e. heating oil to prevent coking). Whether coking occurs in these MBZ engines is quite a contentious thing to discuss, we have found so recently in this thread. We can agree to disagree whether this is a possibility, and I will leave it at that.
My theory is also to err on the side of caution- I do not have the luxury of finding out in 10,000 miles that I might have messed up my engine. That would mean goodbye car. So, I heat the oil. Out of concern for what MIGHT/COULD happen. Personal decision, you may disagree, that's cool, do some research, investigate the concerns, and choose the path that's right for you.
I have looked at many conversions homebrew and otherwise, and investigated what I think are the +s and -s of them, I have also re-plumbed my fuel system like 6 times for a variety of filter placements/looping the return options, PM me if you would like to hear more. Maybe I will make another thread at some point, if asked, where that sort of info would be better appreciated/tolerated.
Peace.

__________________
Think Alternative Energy!
300CD '80 (now gone but not forgotten...)

Taxes on the guys like me getting cubes out the back door of a restaurant or buying fryer oil at the discount store are probably a long way off and I agree it will difficult to collect.

There are people now trying to open facilities that convert vehicles to veg and sell the veg oil for fuel. Commercial fleet customers are the preferred early customers. I think that when the numbers reach a scale that attracts attention, taxes are inevitable in this type of operation.

Used veg oil is not sold as food, it is a commodity known as yellow grease and is currently used in the cosmetic industry and others. Search for "yellow grease". When tanker trucks full of yellow grease are unloading at fuel stops, taxes will not be far behind.

New veg oil that is not processed to food grade would be fairly easy to regulate also. Once again buyers would be buying tanker truck loads to distribute at fuel stops.

Here's to hoping I am wrong on this one.