Home made biodiesel?

[guest18]

Off topic unless anyone has a diesel thumper hidden away that I don't know about(!) But I wondered if any of you guys were homebrewing your biodiesel?

The "fuelpod" things look like a faff... but a considerable saving after a few thousand miles 
( http://greenfuels.co.uk/ ) although I'm sure there are other ways to do it, I have a vague memory that some people were just using bought cooking oil, adding methanol and running that

Imminent arrival of a diesel cage prompts the query! 

(Although I keep looking wistfully at diesel bikes  )

[guest146]

Be carefull. You may get away with it for a while on older diesels but with common rail its said to do damage very  quickly. Although even older engines run on it there is little lubrication for the high pressure parts in the pumps. I supplied two pumps for someone doing just that on had done 70000 and one 80000 miles. It seems if you  brew it you are exempt from duty on the fuel

Ken

[guest18]

Yup, you are now allowed to brew up to 2,500 litres of biofuel per year in the UK without being liable for fuel tax(!)

Interesting what you're saying about lack of lube as the purveyors of biodiesel claim it has better lubricating properties but can be bad for older diesels (pre 1995) as they use rubber seals in the pumps which the biodiesel (or the methanol's solvent properties anyway) can damage.

I believe some older diesels will run just normal cooking oil with methanol added, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience as well of the "proper" home brewed biodiesel?

[Paulgertie]

I have a 96 VW Transporter, which I quite often run vegetable oil at about 25-30% mix with diesel, I get it in 20 litre containers from a local wholesalers. I paid £19.50 per 20 litres last time, used to pay £13. Apart from slightly harder to start in the colder weather first thing in the morning, I don't notice any difference. A mate runs it in his Escort van and says it runs quieter.
Paul

[bullet350]

paul,
 i've got an escort van diesel and my mate runs a fleet of mini-cab mondeo's with the ford 1.8 derv engines.

 some have lucas diesel pumps and some have bosch. as you'd expect the bosch one can cope but the lucas one usually blows itself apart.

 mines got a lucas pump and was struggling on veg oil even when 33% oil and 66% derv. with the small saving over diesel its not worth it compared to the price of a new pump, or the hassle of mixing less than a quarter to three quarters diesel.

 i saw a new jaguar diesel today. its strange how someone with £65'000 to spend on a car is bothered by fuel consumption.
funny old world.

bullet350

[guest146]

It not the seals that go its the plungers  and cams. The pressures in a pump exceed 150 bar with clearance of 3 micron ( a grain of flour) this don't take well to no lube. A pump man told me that even with pump diesel since they removed sulphur it made a lot of difference to the wear rate.
I have tried sunflower oil in mine but its a banger. I think that how you have to do it. Use it in a car that don't matter

Ken

[Paulgertie]

Ken, I think mine comes into the banger category, it's got 275,000 on the clock. Bullet, I'd heard that was the decider, whether it had a Bosch or Lucas pump and all german diesels should be OK, not sure about the modern ones though.
Paul

[Dave#22]

Hi all, just returned from a three weeks jolly in France and whilst there I spotted a bloke filling his Rover 3series diesel with 1lt bottles of cooking oil from a case of them outside a Netto stores and then throwing the empty's in a skip.....any comments?
A couple of months back Pat & I were in Ireland, and closing in on a Transit pumping out black smoke, I was convinced (at the time) that the exhaust smelled of peat.......is it another source of fuel?....or was I dreaming.
       Dave
ps. thanks Smudge for directing me to this site.