Svo

[benmaggoswd1]

Hello all,

So yesterday was warm here in STL. I put some SVO in the tank cause I was on 'E' and drove around, the car ran perfectly and ran so much quieter. Anyhow it sat over night and today it wouldnt start. It got to 76 degrees today and the car still wouldnt start. What do I do?????


Ben
1986 300 SDL
173000 mi.

[Sbean]

Glow plugs operational ? Glowing them for a full cycle (about 40 seconds, you can see dome light get brighter when cycle ends) before cranking ? Cranking good and fast ? How much fuel is in tank? Primary (plastic in-line) and secondary (spin-on) fuel filters not clogged ? Screen in fuel tank not clogged ? Steve

[bgkast]

What is the tempature there?

[gbrebes]

I think that the first thing I would do is fill the tank up with diesel in order to dilute the pure veg oil your are trying to run on now. And next time you put in veg oil, I would make sure to mix it with diesel. As for starting the car with cold veg oil in the IP and lines, I am not sure why it would not start at 76F ambient temperature. It should be able to start. I would also suspect some faulty glow plugs. But instead of buying new plugs just to get the car started, here is how two tank veg oil conversion people start their car if they forgot to purge the system with diesel before they shut down. You need to get the IP and the injector lines that feed the injectors hot. There are a few ways to do this. The most common is to heat up a teapot or some other vessel with boiling water. You then pour this hot water onto the injector lines and the IP in order to heat them up. You may have to pour hot water more than one time in order to get the lines and fuel up to a high enough temperature. Another way of heating that I have heard of is to use a heat gun or even a hair dryer and blow hot air on the injector lines and the IP in order to heat them up. There is even a way to heat up the engine in the bush or frozen tundra. You light a small fire under the engine on the ground and let the coals heat the engine with the hood closed for an hour or two.

Like I said though, at 76F your car should be able to start on unheated vegetable oil. It is not really good for your engine to start on unheated veg oil, but it can be done. What you are doing is called a single tank conversion (veg oil poured into the diesel tank and mixed with diesel). I highly recommend not doing this for the longterm health of your diesel engine. I would recommend looking into a two tank (seperate veg oil tank, fuel switching solenoid valves, heated fuel lines, heated fuel filter, and extra heat exchanger in the engine compartment all on the veg side of the system) conversion.

Gilbert

[GRIESL]

Originally Posted by benmaggoswd1

Hello all,

So yesterday was warm here in STL. I put some SVO in the tank cause I was on 'E' and drove around, the car ran perfectly and ran so much quieter. Anyhow it sat over night and today it wouldnt start. It got to 76 degrees today and the car still wouldnt start. What do I do?????


Ben
1986 300 SDL
173000 mi.

My theory is this: even though you were on E on the guage, there was diesel in there--hot diesel.

You ever seen how much fuel gets "returned" to the tank. It's phenomenal. I have a galon jug that I keep under the hood with plugged fuel lines and I use it to "test" homebrew b100. Once I forgot to hook up the return line, so I was running on my galon jug but the unused fuel was being returned to the main tank. The car at idle sucked up the entire galon in less than five minutes or so. Which means in stop and go traffic you're recirculating, what, five galons in just half an hour. Everytime that fuel goes through the system, it gets heated.

So your SVO got heated almost right away. Overnight cooled everything down. You've got to heat everything back up like Gilbert explained. And once you get it running, don't ever do that again. The single tank SVO system with no heaters, extra filters, etc. will kill your car.

Any chance there was water in the SVO? You're sure you don't mean WVO?

[dannym]

Originally Posted by GRIESL

.......The single tank SVO system with no heaters, extra filters, etc. will kill your car.

Any chance there was water in the SVO? You're sure you don't mean WVO?

OMG Where did you come up with this??
There was a member here from New Orleans who ran straight VO for weeks after Katrina hit. It did not kill his car.
Members here have run out of fuel and used VO in a pinch. It didnt kill their cars either.

His car should run with no problems on straight VO at those temperatures. WITHOUT having to heat it.
it' more than likely his glowplugs.
Try a double glow cycle.

Your probably right about the WVO. A lot of people don't know there's a difference.

Danny

[vstech]

I think he meant that long term use of unheated veg oil without heating the fuel can coke the injectors and gum up the rings, this can damage the motor in the long term. "kill the car" is a little misleading.
John

[benmaggoswd1]

Well right after i posted this the car fired up. I went and put in some petro diesel ands everything is as it should be. The car ran somuch quieter, did I lube everything up for the time being or willthe petro undo any lubing?????

[Old300D]

Originally Posted by benmaggoswd1

Well right after i posted this the car fired up. I went and put in some petro diesel ands everything is as it should be. The car ran somuch quieter, did I lube everything up for the time being or willthe petro undo any lubing?????

Diesel has lubricity, just not very much. Why not look into biodiesel? It's easy to make a test batch, it makes a nice fuel supplement; only 2% biodiesel in the tank will give you the lubrication benefit and none of the drawbacks of vegetable oil.

[Paulc66t]

Becareful with biodiesel and SVO/diesel blend when first running it in your single tank. Both of these are good solvents for all the crap that has accumulated in your tank for 20 yrs. Usually you will need to replace the fuel filters several times before it gets cleaned out.

[Old300D]

Originally Posted by Paulc66t

Becareful with biodiesel and SVO/diesel blend when first running it in your single tank. Both of these are good solvents for all the crap that has accumulated in your tank for 20 yrs. Usually you will need to replace the fuel filters several times before it gets cleaned out.

I ran B20 for a while with no consequences. You only need to be wary of this with higher biodiesel blends. VO is not a good solvent, and plugging with WVO is mostly due to poor filtering.

Originally Posted by Old300D

I ran B20 for a while with no consequences. You only need to be wary of this with higher biodiesel blends. VO is not a good solvent, and plugging with WVO is mostly due to poor filtering.

Agreed. I burn B20 when I can get it (infrequent, as I am aware of only 2 stations here in metro ATL that sell it) and the only issue I had was it accelerated the disintegration of the already prehistoric fuel hose on either side of the in-line fuel filter.

That's a $2 fix. I like those fixes!!

I think one would need a higher concentration of bio than B20 to dislodge gunk and plug up fuel filters or tank screens.

[benmaggoswd1]

I have run about 50 gallons of B100 before and changed out my inline and spin on fuel filters last summer. i dont have my bio diesel set up up and running yet. I just need to plumb the water heater and accumulate some oil, methanol and KOH. It was awesomely gratifying to drive around on a free waste substance.