crap in tank... Whats going on?
 

Hey Guys,

I need a little help.... I recently finished a om617 swap into a 1977 toyota land cruiser.... Truck runs good and i haven't had any issues. Its summer so i filled up with WVO (in the main think,) The oil is clean (filtered and centrifuged, I've been running my w123 on it for years and years with no issues at all.)

About a day after filling up i started clogging primary fuel filters with what looks like wax.... drained the tank and it was full what looks like congealed oil... My guess is that the wvo is reacting with something, could it be the steel fuel tank...???

Ive never seen this before, my w123 is still running like a top....

http://silentcycles.com/tiger-cub/crapintank

maybe some waste motor oil got in.

Could be demon poly. Does the wax melt? I've had poly in the form of chicken skin on a mild steel WVO tank w/ copper lines, but not blocking filters. Other have gotten bad woes, Oldsinner111, for one. Experiences vary widely, it seems.

I have not tried to melt it but it does "go away" if you rub it between you fingers so i suspect it would melt.... Does this sounds like poly..? I'm really not sure what else it could be, the tank is clean.... and with just pump diesel in the tank there was never a problem.

any ideas how to deal with this or do i need to start looking for an aluminum fuel tank :(

IME, poly is like chicken skin, or the crumbs from the bottom of the fryer.

Hello - The stuff you rubbed and made dissappear is fat that has a higher melting point that the rest. In winter, my outdoor WVO storage cubies get a lining of that whitish fat on the bottom, and in the summer it melts.

Steel tanks will eventually cause the WVO to polymerize and form that "chicken skin" which will make your life miserable. Aluminum tanks do not do this as much... but aluminum tanks that are not fully annealed after they are welded will eventually form micro-cracks in the welds and start leaking.

Keep the heat out of the tank, just use a heated pickup like a hot fox. Keep the tank as full as possible all the time. You can use a pourable tank liner in your steel tank to keep it from polymerizing your WVO. There are lots of liquid liner kits out there but I have had great luck with KBS.

chicken skin
 

Its bad stuff,I had my tank dropped and cleaned with solvent.Still after two years I'm cleaning my primary filter every 200 miles.Never use stock tank for wvo,unless you take oil down to 25 f degrees and filter out the animal fats.

I got some of that dreaded chicken skin in my tank. Rookie mistake to have a flat plate heat exchanger overheating the oil and sending back to the tank....

Car runs beautifully.... but would like to get the tank clean :/

Have you got a way to get in there? Once you're in there, a spatula or paint scraper works fine. Even a plastic one. Otherwise, use an aluminum or plastic tank.

I looped my hot fuel,so to retain heat
 

I looped my fuel,and still had chicken skin.You can't have a single tank system unless you have a plastic gas tank like most new cars.The protiens in animal fats will glue themselves to metal.

What am i missing? Been running unheated WVO for years.
 

Been running unheated WVO for 10 years, in 3 or 4 different unconverted cars. I add about 2 - 5% gasoline depending on the weather, but rarely run WVO below about 45 deg. F.

About 35,000 mi each in two different W123's. The only anomaly i've noticed is that after the first 1000 miles or so, i went thru a period of the primary filter clogging a lot, like every 10 or 20 miles, sometimes worse. But after putting up with that for a few hundred miles, maybe draining the tank once or twice, the problem went away, and now i clean the small filter maybe every 3 or 4 months, and change it out once or twice a year. I get a year or two on the spin on filter. This clogging problem did not happen to my diesel VW rabbit pick-up that i also run on unheated WVO in the warmer weather.

Why am i not getting this so called chicken skin? And why do the Mercedes seem to go thru a period of clogging and then not clogging?

the problem is when you go back to diesel.I've been on diesel over 4 years still a problem.I clean primary filter every 200 miles.

didn't go back to diesel.
 

The period of clogging had nothing to do with going back to diesel. I was thinking it might be that the small amt. of gasoline dissolved crud off the tank from it's previous life on diesel.

The few times i used diesel, or kerosene, if i had to drive it in very cold weather, there was NOT a clogging problem.

Wondering if the lack of "chicken skin" has to do with not heating the WVO.

I have started using a small magnetic heater stuck to the back of the tank in marginally cold weather. Hoping this will not cause a "chicken skin" problem to develop.

Also wondering about stuck rings mentioned as a possible downside to WVO use. How can you tell if you have stuck rings. I read somewhere that soaking them in Marvel Mystery Oil could alleviate that problem. Do you just take out the injectors and pour the medicine in each cylinder?

These forum have been a goddess send to marginally competent folks li,e myself.

listen I ran grease 3 years,I did notice my blowby increased.A year after diesel it was gone,I had a coolant heater,and injection line heaters.My fuel temp was 180f.I started on diesel,then switched to wvo when hot,5 miles from destination,i switched back to diesel.I cold filtered,that is at 28 degrees or lower,animals fats would be caught in my filters.
In my state the grease collectors lobbied the state,and every eatery has to use a renderer.They did it because or rats,so I quit getting oil.I ran wmo for a while mixed,but it stinks.I do have enough stored for nuclear attack to leave country.Biodiesel is really the safe way to use wvo.

Stuck Rings??
 

I've really had excellent luck with unheated WVO. I use good oil not cooked to death or thick or sludgy, with 2 - 5 % gasoline added. If my 3 main vehicles died tomorrow, the fuel saving would have paid for those vehicles 5 or 10 times over.

The 300 D, after 30 K + miles on unheated WVO, developed a condition where it starts fine, but smokes , and is kind of low powered until it gets up to speed. This happened after sitting over the winter ( i don't drive them in the winter),that's why i am thinking maybe stuck rings. I took the injectors apart, and apart from some minor crud in the pintel area, were remarkably clean inside.

The Diesel rabbit seems to need the block heater plugged in about 1/2 hr to start, this developed right after changing the fuel filter, and filling the new one with diesel purge. That vehicle has run only about 5 or 10 K miles on WVO, mixed with the bit of gasoline, and also kerosene in cooler weather.

I'm thinking of trying the Marvel mystery oil soak, esp. on the 300D.

Any thoughts?