I’m thinking of running my old landrover on vegetable oil. As far as I see it there a three options:
Use proper biodiesel (either home made or bought). I beleive this is vegetable oil that undergone a chemical reaction with a methanol/sodium hydroxide catalyst. It costs about 79p a litre, don’t know how much it would cost to DIY but I beleive it would be difficult to get hold of the catalysts.
Use straight vegetable oil. This requires a seperate tank with preheater to thin the oil. You start on diesel then when the engine is up to temperature you switch to preheated vegetable oil. If anyone has any info on a DIY two tank veggie oil system I would be very interested.
Use a 50/50 diesel/veggie oil mix. This seems the easiest way to do it although not totally ‘green’.
My only concern is how the use of veggie oil will effect my engine in the long term. Fouled injectors, blocked filters etc. I guess I can always purge the system with a bottle of injector cleaner every few thousand miles. The 2.25 diesel engine is indirect injection which I guess would be favorable.
I know this is not a VW related question but I thought I’d ask. Beleive me if I could run the bus on vegetable oil I would!
I believe the catalysts are available.
An old Hoover single-tub washing machine, the one with the built in heater and agitator, are just the biz - apparently.
Biodiesel is better than running the petro diesel, the only thing you need to deal with, with any of the options is smelling like the local chippie everywhere you go. :lol:
A wealth of information on this site, I used to run the water injection system on my bike, works a treat & costs about £5 at the most to make! Been thinking of incorparating it into my beetle in the near futute. :think
Today’s (23 Sept 2005) motoring supplement in “The Scotsman” carries an item about processing dead cats for bio-fuel.
"DEAD cats can be turned into cheap diesel fuel, according to a German inventor. Dr Christian Koch, 55, from Kleinhartmannsdorf, said his method uses old tyres, weeds and animal corpses.
They are heated up to 300C to filter out hydrocarbon which is then turned into diesel by a catalytic converter.
He said the resulting “high quality bio-diesel” costs just 15p a litre.
Mr Koch said the cadaver of a fully grown cat can produce 2.5 litres of fuel - so about 20 are needed for a full tank.
He said: “I fuel my car with my own diesel mixture and have driven it for 105,000 miles without any problems.”
Annelise Krauss, of the Dresden Animal Protection Association, was unimpressed, saying: “This is as bad as experimenting on animals.”
