'99 Benz veggie conversion - flipped the switch!
 

About 2 months ago I finally gave up on my VW Jetta. I set about to land a new set of wheels, and managed a deal typical of the internet age.

I found a '99 Benz e300d in Montreal (~600 miles away). I got some advice on mercedeshop.com, and then had the car checked out by an independent Benz specialist. Bought the car. I also managed to sell the VW to a guy from Montreal on a VW diesel forum.

So, back in January I drove up to Montreal in the Jetta after work on a Thursday, and drove back with the Benz on Sunday.

Since then, I've been plugging away after work and on weekends to get it converted to run on used cooking oil. There are only a handful of these cars converted, and some of the guys doing them are pretty tight with their info.... frustrating at times. So, I decided to document my conversion step-by-step:
http://jakesbenzconversion.blogspot.com/2008/01/index-of-updates.html

Some of you guys have emailed me with comments and questions, so I thought I'd post now that the "big moment" has arrived.

On Sunday night, I finally "flipped the switch":
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It's been running like a million bucks since. No small feat, as these cars are pretty sensitive to air leaks and losing their "prime". Part of the conversion involves rearranging the fuel plumbing so that the fuel is PULLED through the filters instead of pushed... making it even more prone to air leaks. I changed all my fuel lines, and drilled & tapped the diesel filter housing to take barbed fittings. The car actually idles smoother and runs better than it did BEFORE the conversion.

Anyway, I know some of you don't care or the biofuels scene. I tend to agree that growing crops of fuel likely causes more problems than it solves. However, I use waste oil that I get from a restaurant for free... for me it is more a question of taking advantage of an unused resource.

It's a waste item many restaurants LOVE to get rid of, it saves me thousands in fuel each year, and it gives lower emissions.

Either way, I thought a few of you might find some of the fabrication and figgerin' interesting.

Here are a few pics:

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And as an added bonus, anyone familiar with these cars or the Benz om606 engine will know they are prone to seizing their glow plugs. Last week I decided to pull them as preventative maintenance... and had one snap off in the head! That was fun to deal with:
http://jakesbenzconversion.blogspot.com/2008/02/glow-plug-disaster.html

Awesome. While I think ethanol is a joke, I love the fact that you are using something that is essentially "trash" to fuel your car. Everybody wins.

Awesome man great job!!

Thanks!

One of the hardest parst was making the 115 liter veggie tank. I bought a MIG welder back in September, so I considered myself an expert.

It wasn't so easy. You'll notice there are no closeup shots of my welding!

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Where do you get the used oil from? I dont know about out here but back home a lot of places alrady have deals going and wont give it out anymore.

I'm thinking you DON'T want 115 L of veggie oil spilling.:D

Can you seamlessly switch between diesel and veggie?

There are a couple restaurants in the building across the street from where I work. I have an exclusive deal with one; I pick up the oil every Monday. He has really clean oil, about 10 gallons/week in the winter, 15 in the summer. I buy the restaurant owner beer or wine every couplr of months, but otherwise it's free.

There's a second restaurant I get oil from if I need a little extra for a roadtrip, or if my dad is in town (he has an '83 Benz I converted 4 years ago). That guy has a renderer who picks it up every month, but if I call and ask he'll set aside as much as I need.

Yep it's just a little switch on the dash: the green on the left:

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Usually you wait until the car warms up, then switch to veggie... about 2 miles.

My car has a temperature switch in the cooling system. I can hit the switch as soon as I pull out of the garage; it won't actually switchover until the car gets to 50*C. The yellow light comes on when veggie has been selected, but the car is still warming up. The green light comes on once it actually switches over.

You can't tell the difference in terms of performance... although it does idle quieter.

As for spilling oil... I once accidently pumped ~140 liters of veggie oil into the 58 liter tank in my jetta. Had tupperware containers floating in the rear footwell. That was fun to deal with.

nice

Great job!

As far as emissions goes, is it more or less of a pollutant than petroleum? I havent run across any data?

That is great. It's not a panacea for all motor vehicle traffic, but it's an important piece of the puzzle. Oil disposal is a real problem. Improper disposal causes bad polution. This is a win win all the way around.

I have long dreamed of buying an older diesel motor yacht and converting it to veggie oil. The old yachts are beautiful, hand crafted of woodthat and get maybe a mile to the gallon. You can pick up nice boats (at least they look nice on Boats.com) in the $100,000 range, but it would cost that much in fuel for a round the world voyage. Veggie oil would make it possible. Hmmmmm . . . I'm thinking of a business oportunity . . .

The problem with this Pelican forum is that it intices you to do things you've never done before :D Great job on the conversion. Sure wish I had the skills.

Trick! Congrats on a great job!

Watch those trans fats!

You are the ******* man!

I've been looking for a nice Mercedes diesel for about a year now and nothing in my neck of the woods even worth considering - they're asking a king's ransom these days. :(

Thanks guys,

Trans fats: they are bad for cars too. Hydrogenated oil is like margarine at rom temperature. Means you have to heat it to filter & dewater the oil. I don't bother with it.

turbocarrera, I know what you mean! A 96-99 e300d is a rare bird in canuckistan, and they CAN'T be imported from the US. They run 30-50% more expensive up here. For what I paid, I coulda had a low-mile texas car, and a couple hours with Spitzer's ladyfriend.

Brilliant!

The blower motor speed control module just went in my 97 e420.

Are you sitting down? $750 for the parts!!

Updated speed controller means a new controller, now blower motor and new cover. Fuch me.

Can you find anything used?!

Mrs Notfarnow managed to bust off the passenger mirror two weeks ago. I found one on ebay for $60

At -15C each night my wife put a priority on the repair. And so did I after I drove to work Monday AM. :)

I just gulped and bought the parts. If it was any other season I'd be looking around.

I yi yi... that's no good.

Mrs Notfarnow is pretty patient, and WAY cheaper than I am. She'd wear two pairs of socks and 3 sweater before she's allow me spend $750.

But then again, anything's an improvement over the Samurai. You need a raincoat on INSIDE that thing.

You don't live in Oakville.

I think this is the key.

This supplements its primary use, not replaces it (as ethanol does).

Ha! No I live in Rothesay, and for the most part they don't take kindly to wingnuts storming around in $chitboxes. I can't help it though, it's my nature:D

Exactly. There is no "magic bullet" energy source, but there are lots of interesting opportunities to take advantage of waste.... be it solar, geothermal or even garbage.

We're just not desperate enough to go through the trouble, that's all. I've built a system that makes it quick & easy. Now that I'm setup it only takes 5-10 minutes a week, tops. Not bad for 2-3K yr in savings.

Just when things are going great, some SOB cranked their door into mine in the parking lot... no note. There was a blue Honda beside me this AM, it's there pretty much every day. I'm going to check for a black mark on their door tomorrow morning.

If there IS one, I'm going to slash all their tires and burn their house down. It's the only reasonable response

If it's a Honda the black mark is not important. Just do it.

Ok, please excuse my ignorance, but why can't you just filter the vegie oil and drop it straight in the original tank and drive away? I know little about diesel engines, but I'm planning on ML diesel shortly.

True enough! The fact that their car starts every time they turn the key, day in, day out is enough to drive me crazy... that was especially true when I was driving my Regret-a-Jetta

There is a a lot of evidence that injecting vegetable oil into a cold engine will do damage over time. Even if the oil is heated, if it gets on COLD cylinder walls it causes coking on the piston ring landings and eventually stuck rings. It'll work, but it's frowned upon.

Some people do what's called "single tank" conversions. They use heated filters, injection line heaters and special injectors. They'll work in some warmer climates, but I don't know a whole lot about them because I couldn't get away with one in my climate. There's an outfit in California that does really sketchy one-tank systems: Lovecraft. They are the MotorMeister of the veggie conversion world. That's the problem... lots of peopel have cobbled-together systems that they think work GREAT because the car runs. A diesel will run on turpentine and horse pi$$, but it's not good for it.

Some people also run a 50/50 diesel/veggie mix, or even 25/75 gasoline/veggie. That seems to work great in warmer climates, and Mercedes seem to work well with blends like that. VWs, not so much.

In my case, I have a parallel fuel system for vegetable oil, and can just switch fuels once the car is up to temperature.
I switch back to diesel before turning the car off, and for 2 minutes I'm in a "Purge" cycle where the vegetable oil is being flushed out with diesel, going back into my veggie tank. Once the "purge" is done, I'm I can switch the car off. It's got 100% diesel in the system so it will start fine.

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After some minor "tweaks", I should have that down to 1 minute in the winter, 30 seconds in the summer.

Didn't old Otto design that motor to run on peanut oil?

I like the idea, would do a truck like that

Actually I think the first diesel engine ran on coal dust. Imagine that! But yes, the first ones ran on a variety of fuels, including peanut oil. The idea was to make a compression ignition engine that could be run on whatever fuels were on-hand. We're just coming full-circle.

FWIW, the best oil I have EVER run was peanut oil from a szechuan restaurant in Montreal. Car idled 200 rpms higher and went like the blazes. Never understood why.

As for trucks, the dodge cummins are the BEST to run, as long as they aren't the 98.5-2002 engines with the VP44 injection pump. As long as you buy one before or after those years, they are the best trucks to run veggie. Some say the Cummins 12v 5.9 is the BEST engine to run on veggie, car or truck. Ford Powerstrokes are great too, but the Chev 6.2, 6.5 and 6.7s have injection pumps that are REALLY sensitive to heat & viscosity.

MSG?

Great job

I've been looking to do this on my truck and you write up might be the motivation I need.

What kind of truck?

You can buy complete kits for just about any diesel vehicle. There are 3 main reputable companies: PlantDrive, Frybrid & Greasecar.

I try to steer people towards PlantDrive. They use excellent components and their product support is unparalleled. Craig Reese runs the US side of the company, and he is a great guy.

For more info, here are a couple forums:

This one has been around the longest:
http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/frm/f/159605551

However, it's become cumbersome and poorly moderated. A few of us just started a new php forum that is picking up steam:
http://www.burnveg.com/forum/

Either way, PM me if you have any questions, Chris. I'm headed out on vacation but will be back in 10 days.