veggie oil diesel?

just wondering if anyone has a truck running on the veggie oil, Ive been toying with this idea, i know its a hassle to get and filter the oil (my father had a buddy that did it in his old mercedes for a while)but if I could get a constant supply from a diner and completely eliminate my fuel costs, man I would be in business! Ive also looked at the wood burning trucks, but just because those are cool

I have ran my '90 F350 idi on veggie oil that i got from different sources. What i did was filter the oil, filter it again and again to get all of the floaters out of it. I actually had a filter system set up that would filter it down to a smaller micron size than the filter on the truck. After that, just dumped it in and ran it straight. But i only did this in the summer when temps were 75 degrees plus or it would coagulate aka thicken up too much to even pump. The truck seemed to like it, only problem i really had was that i would be hungry for wings or fries alot for some odd reason. Hope this helps.

what exactly did you have to do mechanically to get the truck to run on it??

since i did it in the summer when it was liquid, it was slightly thicker than diesel but i just dumped it in straight, didn't change anything on the truck. take this with a grain of salt, i did some research and such before attempting it. this method might not work depending what year, make and model your diesel is.

dont have a diesel yet looking for an older cummins though...

It would be my second pickup, i have a small mazda I use so id just use that one

Don't do it if you care about your engine, especially in cold weather. And it's way more trouble than it's worth. Feed your diesel properly and it will give you good service.

veggie oil is too hard to mess with.I would suggest you running black diesel which is used motor oil.Just filter it and run it.

Personally, id rather run veggie over used motor oil. IMO at least there's definitely no metal particles floating around in veggie oil.

There's really two parts to going used oil, either veggie or dino-oil.

The first part is that you need to deal with the oil to filter it and remove any water in it. Then adjust its viscosity so it is not too thick. The filtering thing is real important because some of the orifices in a diesel injection system are so small that bacteria have to go single file through them.

The second part is to set up your truck to handle the oil, especially in cold weather. Thick or gelled oil can seriously ruin your day.

While none of these items is too hard in itself, you need to be willing to set yourself up to do it...it takes some dedication to get to that level. Setting up your truck, setting up your filtering/cleaning/oil storage area, collecting oil, prepping it, getting it into your truck, dealing with the filtered waste, etc, etc.

Having a big monthly fuel bill is a huge incentive!

That being said, it is a bit of a natural fit for anyone that scraps vehicles or industrial stuff. Oil, gas, and other liquids need to be removed from the equipment anyway, so why not re-use it yourself?

There is a decent, simple discussion of using waste oil and some of the details here. Disclaimer: I don't have anything to do with this guy, except having bought his books and am considering purchasing his centrifuge. He is a Mechanical engineer and explains everything clearly enough that you can check his logic against other information sources. (ie, no "Majic") I might be biased 'cause I'm a Mechanical engineer, too.

Hope this helps,
Jon.

I thought about doing this and bio and I took a class on it at the college and decided it was more trouble than it was worth. Bio you need methanol and Koh or something else to break the esters down in the waste oil to make it work. That stuff has become more expensive since the bio movement started. If I'm paying $1.50 a gallon for methanol and then I have to make batch every week that takes a couple hours of my labor I just don't think it's worth my time. Running straight waste grease is another headache. It's dirty and needs to be filtered, it will clog up everything unless you have fuel line heaters, etc.. Just not worth it either IMO unless you like screwing with your truck more than driving it.

Originally Posted by jennija

dont have a diesel yet looking for an older cummins though...

I'm not sure this is accurate. I had a buddy/coworker up in New Hampshire who setup a early 80's Mercedes to run on cooking oil and he ran it in the winter without issue. I believe he would run it on diesel until it warmed up then would flip a switch and it cut over to the cooking oil. Not sure if he was heating the fuel lines cooking oil tank or not.

While it's not quite as cold in NH as it is in MN, I'm sure it can still be done.

LOL I meant to quote mechanic:

You might have to move to a warmer climate to run that all the time, definitely won't work in Minn. winters.

I've looked into this many times and have been trying to find out if compressor oil from fridges would work as i have a guy that cuts open his compressoers dfuring thewinter and drains the oil into a barrel and has 4 barrels full waiting that i can just have but i need to get a diesel first