Newbie here, OM603 on Veggie? - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

matteus · #1 03-04-2006, 10:46 AM

Hi guys, new here.

Some people know me from the benzworld forum, on which I'm active most of the time.
But I stumbled upon this forum and it seems absolutely great! The amount of knowledge, wow!

hehe

Well, to get to the point, I drive a '91 S124 300D as a daily driver. 474.000kms and still going very strong. Driving this baby is magic.
But, as you all will have experienced, fuel prices are going up. And I was wondering if I can (in any way) run my engine on something else besides diesel fuel. I was thinking WVO, mixed with diesel (heard about B20, B50, etc?). Is this possible? Will the engine handle this good? Injectionpump, injectors, fuel filters, lines?
Do I need to ad anything to the filtered WVO oil before putting it in the tank with diesel?

Lots of questions, I know, hehe, but I hope you guys can guide me a bit on this one. Seems like the diesel knowledge is pretty extensive over here.

greetz,

matteus

Austin85 · #2 03-04-2006, 11:05 AM

1st thing is where are you? Is it warm tropics; cold???

I've heard the post 85 300D's weren't perfect for running WVO but not sure on this.

Use the search tab and look up WVO, you will find alot of info...

You shouldn't have to change any hoses or lines, most important thing to do is have a couple of good sources of 100% liquid/ non hydrogenated oil. Preferably not used to fry meats or very littlle if at all. This will make things alot easier for you later on. Do you already have a good source??
Best to have them empty directly from the fryers into your pails so there is no chance of water getting in the WVO.
As far as adding stuff; I use 2oz of Powerservice cetane boost; 1-2 oz of Acetone and 1 oz of Startron (boating supply store item) Diesel additive for every 5 gallons of WVO.

hahn rossman · #3 03-04-2006, 11:06 AM

I'm interested to see what other responses you get. My take on it is that there has been a fair amount of research on blending (see university of idaho), which has concluded that injecting cold (or room tempature) vegetable oil into a diesel engine will do it harm. The major problem is that the higher viscosity oil doesn't completely burn, creating excess carbon usually in the upper ring lands.
The solution is to pre heat the oil to 60-80C. At that tempature the viscosity approaches that of petro diesel or bio diesel. This works great. Unfortunately you eventually want to turn off the engine, and then restart it cold. So there has to be some way of purging the lines, injectors, injector pump or vegetable oil. You should really go read some of the other forums. My favorites are
www.frybrid.com
www.biodiesel.infopop.cc
It helps to read a bunch before jumping to any conclusions. One of the main complaints I have is that diesel engines are remarkable tolerant of poor quality fuel (at least in the short run) which has the effect of encouraging people to dump all kinds of crap into their tanks, drive 500 or a 1000 miles and think they are on to some great revelation.
Christopher Goodwin at Frybrid has converted several mercedes of your era, along with many,many earlier ones and despite the fact that his kit is the most expensive I think it's the best...hmm maybe like the cars we drive?
So in conclusion, read a lot about grease conversions before hacking into a perfectly functional car. Decide how you want to convert it, figure out how you are going to source, filter, and dewater your oil, then do it! It's amazing to drive for close to free, while also doing something good for the planet and it's peoples. Lets us know how it works out for you.
Hahn Rossman
www.alkifoundry.com
1981 300td awiting it's conversion
1984 f250 4wd Frybrid conversion version 0.8

Austin85 · #4 03-04-2006, 11:13 AM

"...surrounded by newbies...."

Al Magaloff · #5 03-04-2006, 11:57 AM

Matteus, take a look here: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html

vwbuge · #6 03-04-2006, 12:30 PM

Welcome to the best damn motorhead/fixit forum on the web.

Do us all a favor.....learn to use the search!

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=137616&highlight=wvo%2Fdiesel

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=141222&highlight=wvo%2Fdiesel

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=98548&highlight=wvo%2Fdiesel

There is tons more....this is only a taste......

Welcome.

andmoon · #7 03-04-2006, 01:32 PM

I now have 11K plus miles on 2 tank veggie in a 3.5 603.

Austin85 · #8 03-04-2006, 02:04 PM

Again....
1) Where are you located?
2) Do you have a source??

vwbuge · #9 03-04-2006, 03:59 PM

Austin has a good point. How warm is it there?

I run up to 50/50 blend without any mods in my car. But I only run it in the summer months here. It really doesn't get below 50 here and can go as high as 100.
In a very warm climate like Southern Cal or Southern Florida you can probably run a little higher % of WVO. I wouldn't chance running 100%WVO without heating it though, No matter what the climate.

greasybenz · #10 03-04-2006, 05:11 PM

Its simple to run one tank in pretty much any climate, well at least not the north pole

All youll have to do is mix the veggie oil with 10-20% gas and add a inline glowplug heater. Now you will get clogs from the diesel film residue left in the tank and it may take a good amount of filters to finally get all of the film gunk out but the veggie/gas is cleaning out the tank and fuel system. Im still getting clogs and broke down because of it so id suggest if that happens to you take the fuel tank out and have a radiator shop boil the tank to clean it all out.

here is the link on a glowplug heater.
http://smallglowplugheater.blogspot.com/2005/12/small-glow-plug-heater.html

my 2 cents

imagesinthewind · #11 03-04-2006, 05:26 PM

The bestest place to get info in wither making biodiesel (my choice) or running your car on WVO, you need to go to

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/groupee/forums

Someone listed a site called Journey to Forever and it's really full of bad information. The infopop site is by far the best place with the most info and more people ready to give help, advice and troubleshooting.

I've just finished making my first full batch of bio and it turned out great.
And I owe it all to the infopop forum.

Here is another tutorial place for making bio, not much info about running pure WVO (which needs two tanks, one for the WVO and your standard tank (for perto or bio diesel to start the car and go to right before you turn off your engine). Here is that link:

http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/

Good luck!
Ginny in Denver

matteus · #12 03-04-2006, 05:47 PM

Thanks so much guys for the advice so far.

Weird of me that I didn't mention my location in the first place. I'm in Belgium, Europe. Climate is a bit to the cold side, but we still get warm summers. In general, no big temperature differences over the seasons.

I'm still a bit confused about what all the possibilities are.
- I can built a two tank setup, with which I can run on 100% heated WVO
- Or I can make a blend (which seems to be not as simple as it speaks) with 'it' and diesel in my basic tank.

These are about the options, right?
Right now I'm mostly intressted in the latter option. Perhaps in the summer I can focus on a two tank setup, but not for now.
What is possible and what not? Mixing WVO with diesel, or SVO with diesel? Just to mention it, Biodiesel is not available here in Belgium, so I guess I can rule that one out.

I don't have a source yet, but I'm working on this.
Lets say I make a 20/80 blend between WVO and diesel, would it work? Or do I need to add gasoline, acetone, octaneplus, or something?

I'm really appreciating you guys helping me, because I'm really intrested in this subject.

(P.S. My english is not perfect, so sometimes I have difficulties understanding the chemistry terms and names, but I hope I'll learn...

)

greetz guys and thanks again for the links!

matteus

Al Magaloff · #13 03-04-2006, 06:07 PM

Four or five posts up IS a long way to go, eh Ginny? I'm a little beyond my first test batch

, and have never found any "bad information". If you'd like to provide sites for alternative reading, though, go ahead.

Skippy · #14 03-04-2006, 06:10 PM

You left out the other option-make your own biodiesel. It isn't terribly difficult or expensive, but you do need some space to set up your processing equipment.

Here is another source with lots of information on making and using biodiesel:
biodiesel forum

vwbuge · #15 03-04-2006, 09:29 PM

OK, here is the deal.

People have mixed WVO with Regular Unleaded Gasoline (RUG) with alot of success. I can't tell you what the proper mix is, someone else that had success with it probably could.

IF YOU WANT TO RUN WVO/DIESEL (this is the easiest)

Find your WVO source. First I let mine sit for a week or two so all the sediment settles to the bottom. I then siphon the brown liquid off the top. I filter this through a pillowcase. Depending on your source you may want to now boil this oil to remove any water. (some say this is not a good method but it works)

Let it cool and mix with Diesel.

When I go to fill up with diesel, I take along about 10 gallons of my filtered WVO. I dump directly into my tank then add the rest with diesel fuel.
In the summer months you should have no problem running 25% WVO/75% Diesel.