Outer Limits 4x4 Board

I was watching Top Gear on SBS the other day and they had a guy who bought a 2,000 pound diesel car in the UK.

He ended up doing a 2,000 mile trip only using cooking oil, he filled up on cooking oil there was some diesel left in the tank as well and he was driving around wondering what would happen, basicly he was saying it seem to run smoother and quieter than on dieel fuel.

Head had to refill along the way so when into a local chipper place and ended up with beef drippings and simply poured it stright into the fuel tank.

So he drove home on this beef drippings without any problems.

Now the question I have/had is, I thought you had to fliter the cooking oil first this guy didn't bother with any flitering at all, it was grab the stuff and pour it straight in even with bits of stuff in the oil.

I also thought you had to do something special to the oil you couldn't just use it straight up.

All up though the trip only cost him 70 pounds and that was to buy something to eat along the way or pick up somethings all the "fuel" was free.

If you dont filter it it will clog up the fuel filter pretty quick.
Also the "do something special to it" you mention is if making bio diesel, adding methanol etc to get the oil to sepparate into biodiesel and glycerine.
What they did is use straight oil.
It will work but to run it daily easily theres a couple of things you need to do.
1.you need 2 x fuel tanks, 1 for diesel (or biodiesel) and one for oil.
2.you do need to filter the oil before you throw it in if its second hand stuff.
3.you need to heat the oil tank to keep the oil liquid.

What you do is start the vehicle on diesel then switch to oil and before shutting off switch back to diesel. What this does is keep the fuel lines flushed with diesel when the vehicle isnt being driven so you dont have the oil going solid in your lines.

Apparntly the diesel engine was originaly designed and built to run on straight peanut oil.

I have heard of people uses up to a 50-50 mix of diesel and cooking oil without the need for a second tank and a preheater.

yep, but everyone gets hungry when i go wheeling.

hi there is a book out called from the fryer to the fuel tank now it will tell you how to make it in a 44 drum it is easyer then you think. Dr Rudolf diesel developed the diesel engine in 1895 it was run off peanut oil now i dont know why the govermant dont grow the oil palm you get 5000kg per hectare you can make the biodiesel for about 30c per/L as the say cheep as chips old johney dont like that becouse bush isant doing it

These sites have enough info to answer all questions.

http://www.frybrid.com/test.htm

http://www.greasecar.com/forum.cfm

I think there is great appeal in driving a car that smells like a fish'n chippery!

The guy on top gear didn't do a mix it was just using pure oil for the fuel.

He walked into tesco's bought a 4 litre bottle of veggie oil and just poured it straight in, there was some diesel left in the tank as he had already ran the diesel right down on the guage.

he drove from lodon to some beach say 1000miles away and had to refill so walked into a chipper shop and the owner said he had beef drippings and the top gear guy said "yep that'll do fine" he even told the owner he needed it to fuel up his car.

The owner had a strange look on his face.

Anyway, he simply poured an extra pint or so straight into the fuel tank and started it up and started driving down the road, all the while hoping the engines wouldn't die on it's ass along the way.

Anyway, it drove fine and he was saying that it was smoother and sounded quiter, I suppose the straight oil lubing up the valves etc.

I've read some of the bio-diesel stuff and I couldn't understand why he wasn't filtering the oil or anything just simply poured it in and drove and had no problems at all.

The stuff I've read is the same sort of deal as above.

Hey I found the video of what I'm talking about it crazy but look for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOFbsaNeZps

I just watched this it's a different clip but same deal.

he didn't filter it cos he doesn't care about a 2000 pound car. he probly bought it just for the story

Here's another one it's really good, veggie oil top speed run!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCmfT1XvdNw

something for you diesel guys. up in papua there is a german guy that extracts coconut oil out of coconuts :| duh, and it runs fine on that.. the only issue is when it gets below 20 degrees it can tend to coagulate a bit.. but up there the weather is nice and warm so it runs it fine.. saw a docco and the UN guys up there even run it.. pretty good idea and its employing locals to work on it..
coconuts, cheap, hardy and easy to grow.. wake up john son.

i have been to PNG and up to rebul and the whole island is coconuts as far as you can see then they grow the coco plants at the bottom of the coconut palms so they have 2 crops at once very smart people

Just a question on Biodiesel. Anyone know where to get ethanol/Methanol? Turns out it's a little more difficult that I thought. Everything else for the Biodiesel production is easily obtained except for the above mentioned.

On another note I do know of someone who runs their Surf on SVO. He has 2 tanks as mentione in a previous post. One for diesel and one for waste Vegie oil. The tank system uses the same fuel pump with a solenoid attached to flick between either fuel. The car must be started on Diesel up until running temp and must also be run down on diesel, a bit like the early LPG systems where you'd flick the car back onto diesel about 10k's from your destination. The system also uses an inline heater to thin the vegie oil out as so it doesn't block injectors.

No problems have been detected and the only side effects are a loss of power and what he refers to as a slight pinging sound, I know this doesn't sound right but it's the best way to describe the sound. All in all it's a cheap conversion that can be done if you're handy on the tools.

biodiesel contains approximately 12% less energey then diesel fuel. biodissel contains approximately 37 megajoules of energey per kg whereas diesel fuel contains approximately 42 megajoules per kg. The reduction of energy in biodiesel is partially offset by 7% average increase in the combustion efficency of biodiesel. on average, biodiesel use results in a 5% decrease in torque, power and fuel efficiency however the performance of most cars using biodiesel is not noticeably affected

Dont confuse veggie or cotton seed oil with fat or dripping. Only fat needs to be heated to stay in liquid form. I'm using about 33% of treated cotton seed oil in my ra rodeo and all is good but if I add to much oil (more than a third) I lose performance. I get the treated oil from a mate who uses 100% in his 78 series cruiser with no noticible side effects and has been running it for about 12 months. The treating process seperates the glyserine from the oil which if not removed damages the engine by leaving a residue in the combuson chamber. Sort of like what happens when u burn sugar. The other problem is when using oil it tends to clean all the goop from the fuel tank so regular fuel filter changes when first using the oil prevents break down from blocked filters

its not the oil that stuffs the rubber in your fuel system its the methanol or ethanol that does it

zookpower1 wrote:its not the oil that stuffs the rubber in your fuel system its the methanol or ethanol that does it

When the cooking oil is mixed with methanol to separete the glyserine the methanol is then retained to use in the next batch not added to the oil to burn.

the gun wrote:

zookpower1 wrote:its not the oil that stuffs the rubber in your fuel system its the methanol or ethanol that does it

When the cooking oil is mixed with methanol to separete the glyserine the methanol is then retained to use in the next batch not added to the oil to burn.

nope, vege oil is an acid base and eats away at the rubber.

just got back from newy to pick up a tradesman tray and the old girl ran fine.

I just have problems with lift pumps, but now i ressurise the fuel tank with air.