You can run heated SVO, it's not really a big hassle to do it either...in most cars. The trouble with the '76 is that it don't have the "circulating pump" in the heating system that the later MB's do. Therefore it is harder to heat up a second tank, in fact it is even hard to get heat out of the car if it is sitting still!

The later MB's don't have this problem, there is a circulating pump that pumps coolant to the heater core. How good is this pump? I haven't really taken the time to mess with it to find out as my W123 is not on the road right now. Nor will it be until the nice weather gets here!

Another reason a lot of folks don't mess with the SVO conversion is that they just don't want to fiddle with a second tank and the switches. YOu still have to warm up the car and "cool down" with either biodiesel or petro diesel. That is to say , you must flush the SVO from the system before turning the car off for longer periods of time. An hour or so this time of year could cause problems, in the summer you might get away with 3-4 hours if your second tank is insulated properly as well as your lines.

The SVO/WVO still has to be filtered down to 5-10 microns, for this it must be heated. Most people think, well as long as I'm going to expend the energy to heat this stuff I might as well make biodiesel from it...My case is different, I have 7 diesel vehicles. It would not be cost effective for me at this time to convert all of them. So I just converted one of my Rabbits ( the one I will use the most) and the rest get a pretty steady diet of B/D. I may convert the dually too as it has one leaky tank that I don't use right now anyways and it needs to be replaced. Maybe when I get some time and some sheeting I will make a heated tank to replace it, since all the switches and lines are already run to a second tank in this vehicle. Most of the work is already done. I only need to do some insulating and fabricate a tank.

Tanks need not be works of art...I'm pretty comfortable with using an old outboard motor tank. In a Rabbit I only use about 2.5 gallons per day, so the 5 gallon capacity gives me two days of routes per fillup. The Mercedes uses almost 6 gallons per day, in which case I would have to be creative and I'm just too busy for that right now!

BTW, Scott..go ahead and take that plunge. YOu will never regret owning one of these cars..it does make it harder to force yourself into something else to drive though. ( like your wifes car, or a friends) If you are as fortunate as me though, all your friends will ride in YOURS and decide they must have one too!
Tom