Hmm maybe I am thinking something different what exactly is methanol (will google it :-) I had just assumed it was "like" WVO ie some kind of otherwise safe fluid. Is this stuff highly flammable? or like vOil where its only flammable under the right conditions IE if I toss a blow torch into a vat of vegetable oil its gonna put it out.

I had assumed methanol was the WVO equivalent for gas cars (this flex fuel crap) but above you mention your 300D and Biodiesel.

Ahh I just looked it up and its for MAKING bioD out of WVO wow why in the world do you need sooo much of it ?? how much BioD are you making?

Methanol is highly toxic. It can cause brain damage, blindness ,rot your liver and all sorts of other mean and nasty things. It can be absorbed through your skin or you can breath the vapors. The vapors are explosive, it burns very readily, burns hot and you can not see the flame. No supplier in their right mind is going to sell it to you if you show up without a proper vehicle to carry it safely.

A number of dangerous chemicals requireing careful handling are involved in making biodiesel. Work your way up slowly making progresively larger batches as you learn. You are a young man with a lot of life ahead of you, and you have a lot to loose if you get ahead of yourself and make a mistake with some of this stuff.

I applaud your enthusiasm. Making biodiesel is fun, and there is the potential to save some money on fuel. But if you are going to make it you must be careful and pay attention to what you are doing.

Best wishes

Sedcrem

Waohhhh! alot of misinformation and misconseptions in this thread.

First there is no way in hell, that you can load a full 55gal drum on the back seat of a car! there is no way!

Now, on the other hand there is absolutely no problem putting 500lb in the trunk of a car. i know it because i do. When i go for biodiesel at a pump in fortworth TX i drive to the place with nine 7 gallons jugs.
So when i fill up that is 63 gallons plus the 16 gallons of the car's gas tank! The car feels heavy but those springs don't really have a problem with it.
Now a way to transport the methanol could be to reduce the size of the containers...

Now a common sense comment for Nerys: methanol is an alcohol like ethanol or isopropyl. go to the store and buy a fire starter bottle or a bottle of pharmacy alcohol and check how easy it is to set them on fire!!! Now imagine the same thing multiply a 1000 times and you imagine the effect of a drum of methanol (fire starter!!!!) igniting. or even better if you are talking about the flex fuel "crap". go get a gallon of E85 and check how it ignites with a spark!!! you may be up for a rude awakening to the physical reality, my boy!

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Aquilae non capunt muscas! (Eagles don't hunt flies!)


1979 300SD Black/Black MBtex239000mi
1983 300TD euro-NA. White/Olive Cloth-MBtex 201000mi. Fleet car of the USA embassy in Morocco
1983 240D Labrador Blue/Blue MBtex 161000mi

Lots of people have said that the main reason a full 55-gallon drum is a bad idea is because it won't fit in the trunk, therefore putting all the weight on the edges of the trunk instead of evenly distributed throughout the entire flat surface of the trunk like you do.

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-justin

1987 300TD, 1987 300TD
2008 R32, 2000 Passat Wagon

"Now a common sense comment for Nerys:"

No worries man totally my bad. I had incorrectly assumed because of the name (I did not know what methanol was) that methanol was the WVO equivalent for gasoline engines (I thought this because of the quantity he wanted)

Now Waste Vegetable Oil is NOT overly dangerous so I had again incorrectly assumed that the same applied to this what I thought was an equivalent for gasoline!!!

My fault for not googling methanol first! I am well aware of how DANGEROUSLY alcohols can be ESPECIALLY because the flame is usually not visible!!

I have not tried to make biodiesel yet so I never got far enough to know methanol was part of the process. :-)

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

Still lots of misinformation in this thread. Let me clarify a few things:

55gal of Methanol will be used to produce 275 gallons of biodiesel. In the summer I'll use a drum in a month. That's only about 6 good batches for me. Rusting drum from sitting too long is probably not an issue.

Heet (gasline antifreeze) is pure Methanol, Iso-Heet is pure isopropyl alcohol.

Windshield washer fluid is mostly Methanol.

Methanol and ethanol are flammable, like gasoline. Handle them like you would gasoline.

"methanol was the WVO equivalent for gasoline engines" That statement makes no sense whatsoever. WVO and methanol should never be in the same sentence with gasoline engine, we are talking purely about diesel fuel alternatives.

Ethanol is a fuel that will act similarly to gasoline, and will mix with gasoline, but has lower BTU content, so mileage will suffer.

In my mind the biggest risk of methanol is that it's odorless, so you may have fumes present and not know it. Gasoline is very evident when fumes are present.

Drums are very difficult to muscle around alone, even your two-wheeled dolly needs to be a sturdy one.

Unless you can get a proper vehicle or trailer for cheap, my recommendation would be to have the $4 meth delivered. It still puts your per-gallon cost of BD to be $0.80 plus lye, or roughly $0.92 total

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Mark in MA
05 MB E320CDI 402k Granite Grey Metallic
05 MB E320CDI 267k Black
05 MB E320CDI 232k White
05 MB E320CDI 209k Tectite Grey
99 Dodge 2500 Cummins 5sp 148k
62 Jeep CJ-6 120k

This is a new one to me and it's only a buck or so a gallon at WMart

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81 Mercedes 300SD 289k.......SOLD
82 Mercedes 300CD 252k......slow ride

82 mercedes 300 SD...mi Unknown
83 Mercedes 300D ????ksniff..gone too
84 Mercedes 300D 148k........SOLD
85 Mercedes 300TD 386k and holding some one elses project