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