Making/Using Bio-Diesel

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by Racerbvd

Please keep giving info, I find this very interesting

Same here and why are not more people doing this? I have a good friend who was working on a industrial sized plant for this until the backer turned out to be an idiot and possible crook.

This is a good idea and if anything pushed me over the fence to diesel, it would be something like this.

Joe

[notfarnow]

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

Same here and why are not more people doing this?

Hassle. Some people enjoy the challenge of setting up collection, filtering and "brewing" systems. Others view it as a major pain. Just like anything else, some people enjoy tinkering and others want to drive up to the pumps. I like to put my effort up-front... I'll spend a lot of time making a filtration system that takes 5-10 minutes a week to use.

Diesels. Many people still hate them, they think they are noisy, smoke belching rattletraps. Diesels have changed a lot in the past 10 years. Heck, even my 9 year old Benz is pretty amazing... straight 6, DOHC, 24 valve, crossflow head, turbocharged & intercooled. It's a 3800 lb car and it'll do 0-60 in just under 9 seconds, and it makes really nice noises. Idles like a Cummins and revs like an Alfa. The upcoming subaru & honda diesels will really change the general public view of diesels

Dirty hippies. Lots of prejudice about biofuels, and many think it's only for hippies and greenpeacers. There's actually a pretty interesting crossection of folks who are into biodiesel and straight veggie conversions... from vegan environmentalists to extreme righ-wing survivalists. Makes for some interesting conversations.

Joe, find yourself a nice mid-90's Dodge Ram w/ Cummins 5.9. They are awesome trucks and burn straight veggie oil really nicely. You buy the truck, and I'll come down in early '09 to convert it for you. I'd love an excuse to go to Arizona for a week

[peppy]

Originally Posted by notfarnow

Frybrid makes a good kit, so does Greasecar & PlantDrive. I actually just became a dealer for PlantDrive as of Friday.

What was a pain? The filtration part? I have double 40 gal settling tanks. I pour my oil in one side, it works its way through the tanks and then through 5 micron filters. I spend maybe 5 minutes/wk filtering... it take me more time to drive up the road to get diesel.

Nothing beats an "upflow" settling & filtration system. The filters last for MONTHS and the water drops right out if you keep the top half of the tanks wrapped with heat tape.

The filtering of the oil. My brother had us filtering it at the restaurant for him. Then he was heating up about 25-35 gal. of oil and let it settle then do it again. Then he would pump it through his filter.

We were using 100% non-hydrogenated canola oil, but were worried about carbon in the oil.

The frybrid kit was nice, but it took a lot of time to install.