WVO through radiator transmission cooler
 

Back from my daily treck to the self service junk yard and radiators are on sale this week. I brought one home to use when I fire up the 2.4 diesel I bought when engines were on sale.

Auto trans radiators are common but the manual shift ones are rare, so I brought home a radiator for an auto trans.

To run waste vegetable oil in my 240D I have to preaheat it to 150 degrees. At least that's what I have read. The transmission cooler would have no work to do if I swap an AT radiator with the one in my manual trans car. Is there any reason not to run the WVO through the transmission cooler then to the IP?

It would seem like a simple solution.

BTW there's a fresh 82 240D in the yard today. It was wrecked in the front left corner. Radiator is already missing.

Sounds like an elegant solution to me. Might be hard to purge with all that 'down there and back' fuel line.

guess it matters how hot the coolant is at the bottom of the radiator where the WVO would flow thru. The whole idea is to COOL the tranny fluid soooooooo???

Yeah coach, that was my first thought as well. Since that is on the cool side of the radiator, I don't know how much heat you would really get into the oil. May work as sort of a preheater, though.

If you are using liquid oils and ambient temperatures never get to it's solidification temp., you could be OK. I doubt that you would get any heat from that modification in the winter, if temperatures get to freezing (water).
This is the coldest part of the coolant system, & thats why they put the tranny cooler there.
It would be better to use the heater connections from the engine to the interior heater, Tee into the lines and run a heat exchanger to heat the veg-oil.

flash,

Here's a better idea. Take you radiator to a radiator shop and have them install a copper pipe thru the top tank of your radiator to run your WVO thru. This would be an easy thing to do and wouldn't even require removing the top radiator tank. Just drill a hole in each side of the tank, poke the copper pipe thru and solder the space between the copper pipe and the tank.

This would put the WVO in the hottest part of the radiator instead of the coldest part. However it would only work when the engine was up to a temperature high enough to open the thermostat.

P E H

I think Tony has it right. There is really little to be gained from messing with the radiator. Particularly when it is so easy to tee into the heater lines.

I could modify the radiator myself. It's ABS. Copper would be easier.

But I'doe'wanna.

I have heard that there are real radiators around but I haven't seen one.

The comment about purging the air from the system is what I did not think about B4.

A heat exchanger in the top hose is something else I was thinking of. A coil of 3/8 copper tube soldered around a copper pipe spliced into the hose. There's a straight run of at least a foot.

I think I will leave the radiator alone.

I have experimented with heat exchangers in the lower hoses for a fresh water heater in a dog grooming van. The tests were productive. The bottom of the radiator gets plenty warm. In fact maybe a heat exchanger in the bottom hose might give me closer to the temp I want. Coolant runs at a little over the 85 degrees C. What's that about 175-190 f ? Fuel temp is supposed to be 150 f.

Anybody run into problems with fuel temp too high?

What is your location? That will make a difference in the amount of heating you need to do. Also, you probabbly don't want to send the oil to the front, that will create a extra issue for the lift pump, unles you are adding an extra one. There are simple heat exchangers you can make, check out biodiesel.infopop.cc for more info. Danalinscott has plans for a simple one you can make, or you can modify a glow plug to help heat things up even further. Good luck!

If you are flowing any amount of oil at all, it will not approach reaching equilibrium with the coolant temperature.

I believe I read ideal fuel temp is 170deg, any higher and you can run in to problems, lower and it won't flow well enough.

I think this is a cumbersome and problematic solution.

First of all, you NEED to run coolant to the tank for a heat exchanger anyway (or an electric heater). You need to heat the fuel in the tank so it will be able to flow through the hoses to the filter (which might be trunk mounted, too). Any additional heating of the fuel would need to be in addition to the tank heat exchanger, not instead of.

If fuel is still not getting hot enough for injection, you might need to run a 12V heater, like the Veg Therm. The veg therm is a 12V fuel heater specifically designed to heat WVO. It has an internal thermostat, so it will never burn up your fuel. It is an excellent product, but a little pricey at $140ish.

I am in Sunny California, and have no problem running SVO with nothing but a coolant heat exchanger in my tank, Greasel 3B insulated hose, and a Racor heated filter (which only kicks in at really low temps).

FROM Flash123!

I am in Riverside CA., the real sunny California. But I want to be able to drive the car anywhere.

I don't want a tank of hot oil in the trunk. I don't believe I need to unless the weather gets fairly cold. Well, for me cold is low 70's. So a heat exchanger could have a valve that I could open and preheat the tank if I need to. For now, I shouldn't need to. Is there any reason to keep the oil in the trunk above 80 d f. or so? I can run a line large enough to keep room temp weevo flowing easy enough.

For now I need to re-read the sources listed, and invest in a $6 thermometer from Harbor Freight, and put it in the lowest part of the radiator I can reach. So I can see what the operating temp really is.

Ideal temp can be achieved, but what is it?

Has anybody heard of, or thought about an auto purge system? Something that would dump the WVO in the IP and pump dino-juice if the car was shut down long enough. OK way ahead of what I need to deal with right now. It's just that I could see someone driving home on a cold night and forgetting to purge the WVO before shutting the car off.

And the glo plug idea? It may work OK but glow plugs are designed for short term use. I would hesitate to power one up and leave it on indefinatly. Light bulbs, on the other hand are ment to stay on a long time.

electric fuel heater
 

Cazzzidy,

The car will run without a battery, without an alternator, without any electricity at all. I like that. Without electricity I can run the car from dawn till dusk as long as I have a small hill to park on in the evening.

Nothing wrong with an electric fuel heater if you are already dependant on a working electrical system, but I think not being dependant on the electric system is a plus.

OOOuuh that would mean no electric pumps wouldn't it? The challange thickens.

Sorry to break it to you, but you pretty much need an electrical system for WVO.

Unless you want to figure out how to plmb a manual 3 port valve and hoses into the cabin, you are going to need an electric solenoid to flip between fuels.

And no, you don't need an electric pump. The stock lift pump will generate enough vacume to achieve good wvo flow, assuming it is hot enough.

Even on a 70deg day, the car cannot start or run on wvo untill the coolant is at 65C or so.

Your auto purge system sounds too complicated to be worthwhile. You would need a 6 port solenoid with returns for both tanks (as opposed to a looped system like most wvo conversions.) Your best bet is a modified turbo timer. Turbo timers allow people with high performance turbo cars to remove the key from the ignition, exit and lock the vehicle, but keep the car running for a preset amount of time after they are done driving. The few minutes of idle allow the turbo to get some cool oil and/or coolant through it so the turbos don't fail prematurly from overheating problems.

You could modify one, and set it up to run for 30sec or 1min, or however long it takes to get wvo out of your injection loop.

Good luck. Sounds like you have some crazy plans. I think you would be best off using a tried and true solution.

Actually I was thinking about using vacuum actuated valves. Manual valves with door lock actuators. Those suckers are pretty strong. Valves that could be forced manually would be another solution.

In any case I certanly do not intend to run without electricity, I just like the idea of thinking I could do so. Valves that could be forced manually would be another solution.

I ofter think about "What if XXX failed"? How could I get home? How could I prepare myself to make it easier to get back to port on my own power?


As to crazy, when I told my brother I was looking to convert my car to run on trash, he was relieved to know that all the money I have spent on doctors and medication has not been wasted.