Gentlemen,

4 years ago I bought a 1985 300SD. To my astonishment the car had ABS brakes and one air bag.

I planned on converting the car to run on WVO.

As luck would have it, a local enthusiast pointed out the diesel things that needed immediate repair and fearlessly helped me convert to a 2-tank system. Other than replacing the solenoid valve, the WVO kit has never been a source of concern or repair. During the latest smog test, the opaquity was .1%. 2.5% is street legal. That should speak to the alleged harm WVO does to a 233,000 mile engine.

I just filled up the diesel tank today after 1078 miles. 7.5 gallons. 143 miles per gallon, if you don’t count the WVO as fuel. Add a couple diesel gallons to account for the energy spent during capture and refining the WVO and the mileage is still a robusto 113 miles per gallon. Crummy city miles in Las Vegas where every traffic light is continuously glowing red. Not bad, but such a car requires an enthusiast’s commitment.

I encumber myself with this WVO bargain because our great nation imports too much oil from the treacherous Mid-East. Quislings here in North America disingenuously dismiss alternative fuels so they can wring out every last dollar from the homefront while our soldiers fight and die to subsidize the petroleum addiction.

I never expected to fall in love with the SD, but I did. Every day I can’t wait to drive it again! Realistically, though, it is one major repair from the crusher. Even if my SD was a cherry, a unibody car is really not restorable. So our time together is dwindling but no less precious. I am even buying $100 seat covers because I can’t find leather seats better than mine at the Pic-A-Part.

In J.D. Rockefeller’s time 100 barrels of petroleum could be realized from the energy equivalent of one barrel. Now, one barrel gets the energy of four. I am using recovered energy to propel a 3700lb hulk seemingly in defiance of Newton’s 1st Law and 21st century market forces. History’s greatest genius might be amused by such a claim, but I am sure he would ultimately approve.

In closing, I want to encourage every tinkerer and dreamer to look at alternative energies including converting an old Mercedes diesel. All of the admonitions by the diesel purists regarding WVO are true to some extent. However, proper design and maintenance does, in my experience, mitigate polymerization of crankcase oil and carbonizing of the combustion chambers, the 2 WVO mortal sins. Sure, the 613 is sophisticated machinery that was NOT designed to run on vegetable oil. But it does, quite well, thank you; and to discourage the adventurous souls amongst us against doing a conversion is a great pity. But, let me make this very clear and unambiguous, these are 25 year old cars that are worth less than 2 or 3 thousand dollars. What is the big deal? To hear the caterwauling, you think the National Mall was being desecrated.

I purposely left out any mention of vendors and manufacturers because to do so invites angry (territorial?) responses. Anybody interested in a conversion and WVO refining can contact me through email.

Joe Marroso

Things must be a bit quiet in the alt fuels forum !!!!!

__________________
Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club group

I no longer question authority, I annoy authority. More effect, less effort....

1967 230-6 auto parts car. rust bucket.
1980 300D now parts car 800k miles
1984 300D 500k miles
1987 250td 160k miles English import
2001 jeep turbo diesel 130k miles
1998 jeep tdi ~ followed me home. Needs a turbo.
1968 Ford F750 truck. 6-354 diesel conversion.
Other toys ~J.D.,Cat & GM ~ mainly earth moving

Well --- we are a peaceful lot---- On forums and on foriegn soil.

__________________
John Schroader
bio burnin' 83 300D, '83 300 SD, '79 240D
"I've never met a man who was good at making excuses who was good at anything else" Ben Franklin
"You cannot permanently help a man by doing for him what he could and should do for himself" Abraham Lincoln

Nice one John !!!

One of the best things vstech did was to get the alt fuel sub forum going. Good to see he moved this thread to where it should be !!

__________________
Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club group

I no longer question authority, I annoy authority. More effect, less effort....

1967 230-6 auto parts car. rust bucket.
1980 300D now parts car 800k miles
1984 300D 500k miles
1987 250td 160k miles English import
2001 jeep turbo diesel 130k miles
1998 jeep tdi ~ followed me home. Needs a turbo.
1968 Ford F750 truck. 6-354 diesel conversion.
Other toys ~J.D.,Cat & GM ~ mainly earth moving

The Promised Land

__________________
John Schroader
bio burnin' 83 300D, '83 300 SD, '79 240D
"I've never met a man who was good at making excuses who was good at anything else" Ben Franklin
"You cannot permanently help a man by doing for him what he could and should do for himself" Abraham Lincoln

Gentlemen,

I purposely submitted my thread to the general forum because I wished to challenge the conventionally wisdom of the purists.

But, I understand there is a proper place. Besides I feel at home here.

Was that the Koch brothers dealing with embargoed Iran in 2002? Not those patriots!


Joe Marroso

John,

If I recall correctly you were attempting a hillbilly centrifuge? Of course, you were making biodiesel and I run the grease, but the initial refining stages are identical.

Well, I have my masterpiece. The latest iteration I have been using for about 6 months. I use as many recovered parts as possible. The centrifuge was about $150. The Franz Filter was a gift but was expensive ($125 new). The pump is a Harbor Freight $30 special that provides 50psi. The Mercedes fuel filtration was scalped fromm a Pic A Part.

Small footprint because I use 5 gallon buckets for everything. I got the cart at Harbor Freight for $20.

So, whaddya think? Would I make an honorary mountain William?



Joe Marroso

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Could you provide the specifics of your setup with links etc to the parts? I have a ton of WMO/WTF that I need to run into a system like this before I can pour it into my truck...

ngarover,

Hmmm, specifics?

But first, a few observations:

WMO may be best used in another endeavor. I think the immiscible chemical crud in WMO is a potential air quality apocalypse. Just my thoughts, I may be incorrect. I am willing to listen, not lecture.

WTF has its challenges as well. You must examine the refined product closely to see that ALL the metal shavings are filtered out. If I had a "ton" of WTF I would be using it as fuel additive for the cleaning properties alone. I think you do have a shot at making Grade AAA fuel with this setup. (If any chemists are reading, let us know if WTF100 presents pollution problems.)

Plan of Attack:

1) Get a centrifuge. Start with PA Biodiesel. Check out everybody else but I liked their selection and service. If you plan a "ton" job you will need a gear pump. The centrifuge is about $150 and the gear pump is about $300.

2) I use a 3/4 hp Pacific Hydrostar water pump from Harbor Freight ($30) instead of a gear pump. I run ATF through it to keep it supple and it has been faultless for 18months. The cheapie pump provides 50psi and a gear pump will do 80psi easily. Any higher pressure and you risk damage to the centrifuge.

3) To clean WVO with a centrifuge it has to be heated. An expensive electric blanket can be purchased to wrap around the reservoir. Clever guys have retrofitted hot water heaters. Setups like this can heat the WVO to an ideal 160F. Because I only use 5gal at a time, Boyle's Law heats the WVO to 120F within 1hour. You make the choice, 120F WVO for free or 160F for tall bucks and an electric cord.

4) After the WVO is 120F, I open centrifuge valve and clean the WVO for 30 minutes. Then I pump 2.5gal through a Frantz toilet paper filter and through a replication of an OEM Mercedes diesel fuel filtration assembly and finally into my WVO tank in my 300SD. Why 2.5 gallons? Well, at this point, the remaining WVO in the reservoir is 120F. When I replace the filtered 2.5 gallons with unrefined WVO, the resident ambient heat helps in recovering operating temperatures. Hey, I know that this setup is not going to set any land speed records but in a couple hours I can refine and store enough fuel for a month.

5) Final Thoughts- If you decide to pull the trigger, I will create a valve schematic. I use only one pump; but I fill up, centrifuge, filter and deliver on a very small footprint.
Sometimes the centrifuged crud has the consistency of corrosion and needs a wire brush for cleaning. Buy those rotor inserts.
If your oil is very dirty you will need high pressure. So far, with 120F and 50psi I can make better out of good, but I can't make good out of bad.

Joe Marroso

When I say a ton, I literally have 500 gallons of wmo/wtf mixed right now. I'm even thinking about getting an oil burner for my shop. I figured your setup looked cheap enough to do what I wanted to, as most centrifuges I've looked at where closer to 1000 bucks. I'm not sure that I'm willing to dump the fuel into my MB's yet, but my F350 is more than happy to get it. The truck sits 95% of the time, and I really only use it to haul crap around. But if this worked, I would start using it as a daily driver.

The pickup lines are shot in both tanks, so I can only get about 12 gallons out of either, but thats still 90 bucks a fill up... At almost 4 bucks a gallon for fuel right now, I could see this paying for itself in no time.

That trucks already paid for itself and is worth more as scrap metal if I do happen to destroy the engine. IF it turns out that the stuff runs ok I may start dumping a little of it into my CD's engine, but I don't know that I could bring myself to do so with the new engine in my D.

ngarover,

500 gallons is a significant amount. Worth a look. Is the WTF/WMO settling in 55gal drums? ATF has a slightly lower specific gravity than WMO and could, theoretically, be skimmed from the top. But, you have 500 gallons of WTF/WMO/Anti-Freeze/Metal Shavings gumbo. I would draw off only the top half for diesel fuel and the bottom half for the oil burner. All 500 gallons will have to go through the centrifuge/filters. Don't mix the two sources.

That might work. I don't want to mislead you, I have never centrifuged WMO. Or WTF for that matter. I have a commercial quality source for my WVO and I still have to change the Frantz toilet paper rolls every 25 gallons. With WMO it has to be worse. The centrifuged/heated/WVO is Frantz filtered before the fuel is pumped through an OEM diesel fuel filter replication. The WVO fuel has been Mercedes filtered twice before it reaches the IP.

Figure, you will have $325-$350 hard costs to start, plus fittings and hoses. You may have to WVO after the WTF/WMO is gone to make the endeavor worthwhile.

Joe Marroso

Joe - time to rethink your setup - thats way too often.

__________________
-------------------------------
'85 300D, 'Lance',250k, ... winter beater (100k on franken-Frybrid 3 Valve Kit)
'82 300D, 'Tex', 228k body / 170k engine ... summer car
'83 300TD Cali Wagon 210k, wife's car

Sure. Kick off them shoes and let's make some fuel. Been way busy lately and haven't taken time to veer from the tried and true course of making bio the old way. Still wishing to improve on the centrifuge. My Harbor Freight pump will only crank out about 40 (sometimes 50) psi. I feel that I need more like 90 or 100. Just haven't shaken the bushes to find a bigger pump. The power steering pump worked beautifully, but the seals in it deteriorated quickly with the bio.

__________________
John Schroader
bio burnin' 83 300D, '83 300 SD, '79 240D
"I've never met a man who was good at making excuses who was good at anything else" Ben Franklin
"You cannot permanently help a man by doing for him what he could and should do for himself" Abraham Lincoln

Perhaps,

But a roll of toilet paper is cheap and I am scrupulous about the end product. It only take 2 minutes to replace the filter. I also change out the Frantz frequently because it is the first filter before the replicate Mercedes fuel filter assembly. I want the Frantz ultra effective so I don't clog my $8 fuel filter. The Mercedes fuel filter has lasted for many months.

Besides, 25 gallons @20mpg is 500miles on the old beastie. That is 2 weeks average for most of us. That's not so bad.

If you want speed and high capacity, this setup is not for you. But, like I said before, a couple hours on Saturday and I am set for a month.

Joe Marroso

John,

I just love this forum. I considered a power steering pump but went lazy and cheap with the Pacific Hydrostar water pump. I never factored the corrosiveness and the effect on the seals. That is one bullet I didn't have to dodge. Yes, I only get 40-50psi. Yes, I want 80-90psi.

So, John, get crackin'. The boys at the Gen'l Store are waiting on you for a fitting pump assembly. If you don't mind, I will keep my shoes on.

Joe Marroso