iminaccess's last post re: veg oil conversion

[busshawg]

Thought I start this in a new thread. I noticed you have your bus converted to veg oil. Just wondering how long your bus has had this conversion and how it's woking for you? Mileage? cost / mile and sources you get your oil from.

Thanks

[ilyafish]

The conversion works great.  It was done by golden fuel systems in springfield missouri about 3 years ago.

It has its pros and cons.  I could go on for quite some time about it....check your messages for my cell phone number....feel free to call me anytime between 9am-midnight.

Anyone else interested send me a PM

[kyle4501]

Would be kinda cool to see an article in the magazine that goes over the REAL LIFE pros & cons. Versus all the hype & hysteria. . . . .

[Busted Knuckle]

Well I recently saw up close and personal a WORKING real life system on ex member Charley Davidson's coach when he was here in Union City a couple weeks ago. I was a cool set up, and he's been across the country and back with very minor issues and hardly any fuel costs! He refuses to post about it because of all the negative BS that would start from those who don't know about it, or "know way more than those WHO ARE DOING IT DO!"
Just thought I mention I saw it and it is working! FWIW   BK 

[Jerry W Campbell]

I have seen 4 busses and a few cars and pickups. some having problems but most not. This is the part of the world where more people are doing it. It's always good to have someone to show you how not to do it.

Last sunday I flipped the switch and my bus started running on WVO. It took 6 months of research, 6 months buying the parts and putting it all together and $2500. Thats a 90 gallon aluminum tank and a completely separate fuel system with electronics to switch between the two. In a couple of weeks we leave on a 6000 mile trip around the southwest and Mexico. so we shall see.
The problem is you have to do it first to see if it works for you.
Good luck
Jerry

[kyle4501]

It would be nice to see a fair & balanced report of the issues actually involved & how they are dealt with.

Too many times the pro hype glosses over the difficulties & the con hype ignores the positives.

[ilyafish]

Seems like there is some interest in the real pros and cons, so let me try my best to explain all of them!

As far as pros, i can only think of a fuel.  The biggest....free fuel. You cant top that one.  I've also heard that it is better for your engine, and it actually cleans it as it burns, and adds extra lubrication.  Again, this is what i have heard, i dont know if its true or not, so to me i dont look at it as a pro.  its just a fact that might be true, might not be. not at all a deciding factor in my WVO decision. 

There arent any more pros that i can think of.  Maybe some people do it for the environment, i dont know....honestly, im not a big environmental guy....i just want my free fuel

Okay....cons.  Theres alot of them.  But to me personally none of them beat free fuel!

First off....its a dirty dirty process.  You get old veggie oil all over you, your sticky, and it dries black, you ruin clothes, you ruin shoes. For me, a dickies jumpsuit is going to be a smart investment for our next tour.

Secondly, you dont always find it.  Not all resturants have good oil, so some days you might be driving around searching for 3 hours or so.  We are always on the go, and having to drive an average of about 400 miles a day and be at a show at a certain time, there comes a point when we have to stop searching and just buy diesel if we dont find it.

There are a few tests that you have to do in order to see if WVO is usable or not.  There is good and bad WVO.  some has water in it, some has animal fat in it.  salt and sugar were originally thought to be not good, but turns out that they are not soluble in oil, so salt and sugar just passes through your system and doesnt do damage.

Once finding WVO we filter it.  We have a pair of 2 micron filters that we use.  The pump is half hour on, half hour off.  With new filters, a half hour will pump about 60 gallons or so.  Now how long the filters last, all depends on how good the oil you choose to filter is. That is why we spend alot of time looking for good oil.  Theoretically you can filter most oil, but we have had our filters last for almost 1000 gallons of oil, and we have picked bad oil and killed our filters after almost 10 gallons.

Filters cost 15 bucks each.  And is the only maintenance that we have to do.  We also have a 10 micron filter that goes between the clean veggie and the fuel filter.  This has to get changed every 3000 miles or so.

Even if you choose bad WVO and you have to change your filters every day....$30 is not a big deal compared to spending hundreds on fuel.

I have heard stories of people breaking down from WVO.  We have yet to.  We havent encountered any mechanical problems due to it.  Seems like those that do, are those that dont really filter the WVO and just take 5 gallon buckets and dump it into the tank.....YES THERES PEOPLE THAT ACTUALLY DO THAT!  not sure if they know, but water and food particles are probably not the best for their engines!

You just gotta ask yourself if it makes sense to go through all of that.  For us, it is.


Here is a video tour blog that we did, and part of it shows us doing the WVO....for those curious on how the process of filtering works

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

[makemineatwostroke]

Peach; reading your pros and cons this stuff doesn't look free to me ruining clothes and shoes plus buying filters and the time involved also what type fuel milage do you get on veggie oil compaired to diesel fuel, have you ever ran a cost to see how much a gal it cost to produce I am curious about the cost per gal I read $.50 to $1.00 is that about right      have a great day

[ilyafish]

Well financially, at the price of $4 a gallon we are spending on average $320 a day if purchasing diesel.

With WVO, since we pump good stuff that doesnt ruin our filters, it costs us about $6 a day to travel.

Right now, since we are just starting out, we get paid $300-$400 a show.  So if that is what we get paid, and we spend that same amount in fuel to get the the next show, to us, it is absolutely worth using WVO.

We dont factor clothes in as far as financial loss, because we are pretty dirty guys.  We dont replace clothes....we keep wearing them haha.

So if your a broke band on tour....WVO makes sense.  If you have a form of income, or money saved up, and a family, or even just on your own.....it doesnt seem like it is the best choice.


Oh i forgot to also say that since WVO gets thick in cold temperatures, it prevents us from touring in the winter.  Well....we do have a 12v hotstick that we can put into the veggie bin that heats up the oil.....but thats just where i draw the line hahaha

[makemineatwostroke]

WOW;6 bucks a day my heating system cost more a day to run on diesel than that   thank you and have a great day

[kyle4501]

Thanks, best explaination of actual use yet. Please continue with the real story & keep us posted. Add more detail when you can, really helps sort thru all the hype. 

[PP]

Although we will probably never make the switch, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your real-world take on the subject. Thank you and good luck. PS-keep us posted.

[JohnEd]

Kyle and others,

I have read a ton on this subject and have a shop down the street that installs the system.  Find someone that has done it and get their parts list and shop for a good price on everything.  Like Jerry Campbell.

These systems come in a number of types.  One is for sumer only, like Peach is using.  At the other end is what is called the 4 Season version.  It has heaters in the tank, lines have engine coolant flowing around them and there is a heater up front that gets it hot befor it lets the engine have it.  You can design them to work in any cold climate you desire but the lowest I have seen them rated is 10 below.  No testimony from me on that one.

EVERY authoratative and objective eval done by a university that I have read....maybe 4 long ones...has said that the WVO leaves deposits that will ruin the engine after a period of time.  They base that on the deapth of the deposits from a 1000 hour test run in a lab.  There must be something all the educated wizzards are missing cause there are people all across the country that 100,000 miles on an engine and they have no problems other than filters.  Filters are a real pain and some for diesel are real spendy.  The anecdotal evidence is overwhelmingly in favor.

MPG will dop about 5% and I have read nothing by anyone that indicated they could feel the difference in power.

You can purchase filtered and dewatered WVO around the country form collectors/vendors.  Cost fluctuates but 1$per seems common but 2 dollars a gallon was quoted on a board I visit.  In farm country they have a commodity called "out of spec Veg oil".  It can't be used for food so it is a problem for the "squeezers" to dispose of in their normal channels.  It is cheap and pumps quick.

PROBLEM:  Only the older "mechanical" engines will digest this WVO no matter how you filter it.  The modern "fuel rail" engines will be ruin't immediately.  Won't even flinch.  The sole exception is the VW D.  Go figure?  Now if you process the WVO into BioD you can use that anywhere.

A comment was made by Peach about the lubricity of WVO.  Some of it is far superior to DinoD and none of it is worse.  Anyone remember the days of CASTERBEAN oil being a fuel additive?  Nothing better known to man...in the day.

HTH,

John

[ilyafish]

Our tank is 4 seasons.  Just like stated earlier, we have coolant lines that go underneath the tank and heat it up.  So it can be freezing outside, and we will still be fine running off of WVO.

However, since we are not purchasing it, but instead gathering and filtering it from out back of resturants, that is the issue that we run into in the wintertime that prevents us from touring, not the WVO system installed.

Oh, the system also cost 7 grand to do, and was done by the band that previously owned the bus.  When buying the bus from them, they needed money and that 7 grand was not factored into it.  I'm not sure that is an investment that we would have made had we bought a bus and then decided to install the conversion.

Though some of you guys will probably be able to figure out from a parts list how to build your own. The concept is pretty simple.

[JohnEd]

Peach,

Sorry about that   You sound like you have a first class system and did the first time I read about it.  Have you looked into purchasing WVO that has been cleaned? 

John