WVO heating idea
 

When I bought my car it already had an extremely primitive wvo setup installed consisting of a manual valve and an outboard tank. Worst of all the system the guy was using for heating the oil was.... a tail-light bulb submersed in the oil! :eek: As such I am looking for another heating idea and truthfully I would prefer something electric over re-routing engine coolant. I've seen similar elements at farm stores for de-icing water troughs and I wonder if they would work effectively.
Low Voltage Electric Hot Water Heater Elements

Those look like they could work :P

How would you hook this up to heat wvo? Would you install it in the tank?

(I guess it is 12 volt so electrically it would be compatable...)

300 and 600 watts? 600 is right about what a standard alternator in our cars is capable of.....you'd need a much bigger alternator to handle that load.....even 300 would probably cause a massive battery drain, thats a third more power than the rear window defroster even uses.....

They are designed to be dumped in a tank/trough, I don't think vegetable oil would hurt it. Wiring wouldn't be to difficult, run a circuit from the battery/fusebox to a switch on the dash and a wire to the trunk....

They list those little harbor freight style ceramic heaters as 150 watts which plug into the cigarette lighter socket, the elements are 300w (possibly less, at 6v they only draw 75w) Secondarily the batteries put out a large number of amps (mine says 850 cold cranking amps):

watts/volts=amps
300w/12v= 25amps

Correct me if I'm wrong (which is probable, my vehicle electrical background is limited)

take a look at...
 

the veg-therm from plantdrive.com - 12V inline heater - also Dana Linscott has some nice ideas from vegoil conversions

hmmm.... not a bad idea. I have heard of guys heating their 50 gal drums with heat lamps submerged in their drums so why not this.

Do us a favor. Heat up a tank of veg oil with your existing system. Stop some where and stick in a meat thermometer into the tank and see what temp that bulb has things at. Do this over a time period to see where the temp rises too. I am very curious. Anyway. you got a 617.... those things love veg fuel. This may truly be all you need for this car. Other cars.... different story. History just seems to show the 617 loves alt. fuels.

Besides_ remember.. you dont heat the oil in the tank to opperating temps. You heat it only enough to make it easy to move thru the fuel lines. YOu heat it further to temps needed for using it as fuel up in the engine compartment. Check and see if he has a fuel return loop or something under the hood.

If the battery is in good shape, this shouldn't be a showstopper. It would need a thermo control switch in series with it to keep from overheating the oil. With this high watt rating, it would probably have a very short "on" cycle.

" Besides_ remember.. you dont heat the oil in the tank to opperating temps. You heat it only enough to make it easy to move thru the fuel lines. YOu heat it further to temps needed for using it as fuel up in the engine compartment. Check and see if he has a fuel return loop or something under the hood."

Good point by Coach Geo. I've been installing heated tanks, heated fuel line, heated WVO fuel filter. Just did a 300SD last weekend. However, the only place I'm worried about generating significant heat is at the WVO fuel filter. From there it's straight into the fuel pump/injection pump, so the filter is the place to assure sufficient heat (assuming of course the WVO will flow from the tank without excessive effort.)

It would be really simple to add a coolant circuit to the WVO fuel filter only. Tap into the heater hose back of the head (near the oil filter housing), run to the WVO filter, through copper tubing around the filter, and back into the "return side of the heater circuit (passenger side, along the fender near the turbo. This would only cost about $15.00 for about 3 feet of 3/8" copper tube, (2) 3/8" tube compression x 1/2 fpt fittings, (2) 1/2" mpt x 5/8" barb fittings, maybe 6 feet of 5/8" heater hose, (2) brass 3/4 x 3/4 x 3/4" tees, and eight clamps. ( I use "Quest" brand brass tees - they're for connecting plastic plumping - cheaper than making up your own brass tees).

I'll try to put a picture of a heated filter here for you.

It will run fine - just filter the old oil before you put it in the car.

Fred

brand of filter
 

Hey - What filter is that in the picture? I'm starting to collect parts for my conversion and there are so many different filters - figured i'd ask someone who is using one.

Thanks in advance.

First you would need a 12 volt rated heater. I think the heaters you are talking about operate on 120 volts. AC or DC doesn't matter.

If a 1200 watt, 120 volt rated heater was run on 12 volts, it would generate only 12 watts.

P E H

It is a 12 volt heater.

12v heater.
I have used a 100W halogen lamp in a drum of oil, in my car, to keep it from solidifying. It works well.
I would be very heasitant about using any higher wattage because the alternator on the 300D is not a high power unit (65A IIRC) and if you have an aftermarket stereo as well as all of the standard (in USA) electrical accessories - E Windows ,E Sunroof, Rear window demister, etc and you drive in the cold of winter and at night, you could easily find that the current draw of yet another device may be more than the alternator can supply.
It doesn't matter how big your battery is, if the alternator cannot supply enough current, the battery will eventually go flat and will fail.

Coolant heating of the Used Cooking Oil (UCO) is cheap to implement and free to run, provides no additional load on any part of the engine (except a little weight to carry)