A non-slosh vent can be installed in the top of the tank near the center or in the filler neck. If you run it to the bottom of the tank it won't work properly...needs to be able to suck and blow air. You shoud run a rubber fuel hose from the vent to outside your trunk so any spillage is not inside. Rancid vegoil smell is nearly impossible to get rid of. Your fill neck should be outside as well since this is where a spill is most likely to occurr. If this is not possible at least build a spill tray around the neck with a large hose so it can drain to the outside if you spill.

WARNING! Drums do not withstand pressure well. And pressure prefilter units do not tend to filter as well. What type of filters do you plan to use. What micron level are wyou planning on filtering to.? 5 microns is usually considered adequate.

I also suggest before you proceed you search the archives of the forum Habenero linked to. It will save you a serious amount of time and money if you do so and do an archive search.

I know some like to tinker and figure things out for themselves...but if you are results oriented and your time has value at least check out that forum. Of course if you don't want to tinker...check out my designs.

Dana

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Dana Linscott
Vegoil converted truck...vegoil converted 1987 190DT, 300 series next.

http://vegoilconversions.netfirms.com/

Hose on hose, huh? That just doesn't seem like it'd work very well, perhaps I ought to look into this at the forum you listed.

I was hoping if I kept the pressure under 20psi all would be well. I would think that the filter would fail before the barrel would. It seems like my most coarse filter was 1-5micron, the other were a little less. It would probably deal better with pressure than with vacuum wouldn't it?

I was thinking of making a filler hose from the tank, one which would have some sort of a quick coupling on the end and hose long enough to make it out of the car then have the barrel with the hose to make it there. There is quite a bit of room in front of and beside the tank but none above it, perhaps I could still run a line down a little way for the fuel tank but just put little holes in the side of it. Good note about the wonderful arouma it lets off, fortunately my trunk is air tight but I still wouldn't favor opening it to that smell!

I will check out that forum, I've watched the topics before but never searched it. Thanks for all the suggestions.

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Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k

I wouldn't get too uptight about the temperature of the oil. Quite a lot of people now (myself included) just filter WVO and stick it in the 123 or 124 tank (unmodified car) and drive. I started mine last winter in -7C without difficulty.

The only thing I have done is run the fuel line through the radiator water which constantly dissolves the solidified fat out of the filter - but the -7C morning was before I put the heat exchanger in.

See the www.rerorust.de page as well - I just do what he does with WVO instead of new oil.

Also if you filter waste oil under gravity at roughly the same ambient temperature you are going to start the car in, it doesn't really solidify in the fuel tank nor wax the filter. If you filter on a warm day then the temperature drops overnight to the new winter norm it can be a problem if you don't have a heat exchanger.

I was amazed to find my 124 250TD has a factory heat exchanger in the fuel line already but it is tiny and looked like it used the engine oil to heat the diesel when a thermostat said the temperature was really cold. I pulled it out. I think it was broken.

Sorry, this turned into a waffle!

JK

Wow that is quite something. You put on 127k miles without heating it and still no problems?! Furthermore getting it to start at -10*C is quite impressive as well. Those are some nice 1000L storage units there to. What temperatures do you normally filter at then? If the filter is catching all of the wax instead then isn't there a problem with it clogging up or it isn't quite that bad?

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Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k

Generally speaking Mercedes diesels seem more adaptable to vegoil than many others. The limiting factor is generally at what temp you vegoil begins to "cloud". The cloudiness is esentially small crystals of fats that are solidifying out in solution. These tend to coat any in vehicle fuel filter and limit..eventually choking off entirely..the fuel being passed on to the IP.

Usually an inline heater can be added to melt these crystals before they reach the filter element..allowing them to pass through even in cool weather. Tank heater, coolant heated fuel lines,electric fuel heaters, and coolant/fuel heat exchangers will all allow one to run vegoil at temperatures cold enough to solidify it completely.

What "level" of conversion you need to employ depends mainly on whether you live in a warm or cold climate. The cloud and "freeze" point of your vegoil fuel is the second factor. Unused canola oil seems to have a very low freeze/gel point...around 20*F. WVO on the other hand can solidify at temps as high as 45*F..higher if there is a high fat/tallow content.

I had to convert to deal with solid fuel for 5 months of the year...I live in Minnesota. The economics of paying over $1,000 for a kit did not work for me so I designed my own simple to fabricate componets usign common plumbing, automotive, and hardware bits. My conversion ended up costing less than $200.
30,000 miles so far!

Dana

__________________
Dana Linscott
Vegoil converted truck...vegoil converted 1987 190DT, 300 series next.

http://vegoilconversions.netfirms.com/

Thank you Danalinscott for such an erudite summary of the IDI merc engines running on anything vaguely oily!

Certainly I would never get temperatures like Minnesota, but then my heat exchanger is very simple if you can do a sweated joint.

Boostnbenz...that german page isn't mine, by the way, it is just the reason I stopped making biodiesel for my 123 and 124 and started putting straight WVO in. The only thing that concerns me is the acidity of the WVO (I know...oil can't be acidic, only aq. solutions, but the oil shaken with water makes the water pH3), but it doesn't seem to have had any negative effects yet. I've only done about 10,000 miles, maybe 15, but the engine certainly performs better and runs quieter and smoother on vegoil. I'm told that the acidity doesn't matter unless there is water present, and also that acid attacks steel, whereas the injector pump is alloy (corroded by alkalis). The injector nozzles are certainly steel, though so I guess if the performance ever declines I will pull the injectors and look at them under a microscope. Stay tuned!

Anyway, impressed with Danalinscott's website - I like the first princliples approach.

Oh, and Boostnbenz - if you filter at ambient temp. of about 0-10 C, then "yes" the filter medium (I use a pillow case) does wax up immediately, but then the solid fats actually become the filter medium. It takes about a week at 0-10C for 20 L of oil to come through the built up solid oils, but the resultant filtered oil is crystal. In summer it flies through - 20L in 6 hours.
JK

I didn't think that was as much of the problem as the pump sucking that thick crud through or better yet it getting it up to pressure so the injectors could spray it through. I think I'll run the line through the interior just so I don't risk damaging it, I now know how to take the back seat apart so now the only thing will be going through the firewall which shouldn't be that bad. Yes a $200 kit sounds quite appealing, I hope to be around that same mark maybe even a little lower.

I was going to say your english is spectacular for someone who knows primarily german. Sorry, I guess I must have glanced over "I just do what he does with WVO instead of new oil." Even if there is a little bit of a problem or accelerated wear I'd be fine with that if I saved enough on fuel. If I had to change my IP or injectors every 30k miles I'd be perfectly happy with all of that money saved on fuel. Truly I'd just add the stage of bubblewashing if need be, but worst case scenario of new IP every 30k doesn't sound all bad for the money saved.

Interesting, I didn't think it could go through at such a low temperature especially after it waxed up. I'd still put a little pressure in the barrel to speed things up a little bit but that is nice to know that it always works as 5gallons a week would be to slow. What size plumbing is this in?

__________________
Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k

WVO in the Benz is a piece of cake. I built a "kit" like the Greasel setup (greasel.com) in an afternoon and have been running the 300D on WVO and/or diesel for 30,000 miles. Fuel line in a hose was simple and does a great job of heating the oil. I just have a boat tank in the trunk with a trans oil cooler in it as the heat exchanger. Veg oil filter is a VW rabbit/golf metal canister type with copper coolant line spiral wrapped around it to heat fuel in the filter on cold mornings. Can switch to veg oil as soon as there's heat. Bottom line is that the older Benz diesels will tolerate darn near any oil as fuel - WVO just smells better than the rest of 'em. fmb

Are there fittings to put in the end of the hoses or what? I don't understand how a person would go about making the ends leakproof whether under pressure or vacuum.

__________________
Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k