going green with your car or truck?

Hey, I was just curious if anyone on here knows anything about changing your fuel system so you can run off of vegetable oil. I was planning on buying a truck for like 2,500 (so nothing special) with automatic transmisson. If you have the money for a fuel system, is it worth it? Do you get good mileage with it or no? Thanks alot!

 

You'd need some sort of Diesel engine by the sound of it.

There's also a new type of biofuel that can be bought in a couple of petrol stations in the UK, but you need to convert your car before they'll run off it.

 

You'll need a diesel engine, and you need to invest in a converter.

 

Check about fuel avaliablility before making your final decisions. The fuel sellers should know people who you could talk to about mechanical requirements.

 

Like everyone else said, youll need to start with a Diesel powered car. Dont buy the low end converter kits because they need frequent maintenance and finding a mechanic to work on it isnt easy. Make sure any converter kit has a good tank heating core especially since you are in Syracuse.

 

check out E85 or flex fuel conversions.

 

You need a diesel engine and a conversion kit to run your vehicle on vegetable oil. Be warned that this will not get you entirely free from oil based diesel fuel as you need to start up and also run your last 15 minutes on oil diesel. This conversion only makes sense if you drive a lot of long distances. As for biodiesel, you really need to look into the energy requirements for the conversion to see if it makes sense. Also be aware that these fuels still ultimately rely on the fossil fuels used to grow the plants you're getting the vegetable oil from. Far better IMO to simply get the most fuel efficient vehicle you can (bicycle anyone?) and drive as little as you can manage.

 

you can get vw diesel rabbits for 1-2 k or less....and they get high mpg...40-50mpg

and veggie oil gets about the same milage as petrol diesel.....you can start and finish with biodiesel if you so choose...

and everything currently relies on fossil fuels ...from the food you eat to you comp to your bike...doing all to help reduce is all we can do for now....

since the veggie oil is used ....its already served it purpose and so your not really relying on fossil fuel directly....more like making use of a waste product.....just the other day i found out the asian food place down the road throws there oil out in the trash....i now get it 5-10 gallons a week from them.....

the best thing about it...........its FREE fuel!

 

It all sounds like another American scam.

 

yeah and we all know how wise 15 year olds are

 

It can only be done with a diesel engine.... vegatable oil will not spark... however it will flash under the right heat and pressure creating combustion.

 

ahahahaahhahaha

 

Go to Mother Earth News' website and do a search on vegitable oil conversions: http://www.motherearthnews.com/search/

They have quite a few articles about it.

 

I'm so confused on this, I just don't understand mechanics of any sort.

You can take any diesel car and make it run SOLELY on veggie oil?? Or do you still need to rely on other things as well?

ahhh I don't understand...

 

You can do it 2 ways is how I understand it, first, you can keep the vegetable oil as it is, and use regular diesel to run at first, let the exhaust heat the oil and then switch over, that means you have to use both veggie and diesel.

Or, you can by a converter which will convert the veggie oil into diesel, and you can run it solely on that.

 

heh well too bad I don't have a diesel

 

This is what I'm doing. I'm selling my chevy to get a VW that has a diesel engine. Do you have to get a filtering system to filter out the inpurities? If so, how much do they cost? I ran into a dude when I was in in Cali getting veggie oil from a Jack-in-the-Box for his bus. This idea makes so much sense. It costs me $40+ to fill my tank and biodiesel is FREE!

 

Biodiesel is not free. There are several grades of it sold at certain fuel stations and the number of them is increasing especially at truck stops.

A diesel engine can be run on pure veggie oil from restaurants but it has to be warmed up first so that it can be run through the injector system on the motor. That's why the special holding tank has to have a warming device in it.

The procedure is to start the motor with regular diesel, B10, B20 or whatever while the veggie oil is warming up. When it reaches a certain temperature it can then be cycled into the engine. Before engine shutoff, the startup fuel has to be reintroduced into the engine, because if the veggie oil is allowed to stay in the motor during shutdown it will gum up the injectors and the motor will not restart.

If you drive long distances every day this system will save thousands of dollars every month. If you just drive short distances it's more hassle than it's worth. Better to just buy biodiesel from the pump if you can find it.

 

you can just put the used oil straight into a diesel unmodiefied and everything
you just have to strain it so theres no shit in it

 

We just recently bought a VW van and are working on a veggie oil conversion right now. It's a camper so it'll be the ultimate road trip mobile, I'm so excited! We got our conversion kit from greasecar.com, they have a lot of good info on their site as well. Basically the system we're using has a diesel and a veggie oil tank. We're getting a filtration system set up for the garage, as well as an on-board filter for filtering on the road. Yes, the grease needs to be filtered, ya definitely don't want chunkies! The car warms up on diesel (or bio-diesel if you can get it), once the grease is warmed up enough to be liquid you switch it over to grease (which means this method works best for road trips, not short trips) and just before you turn the car off you have to switch back to diesel to make sure there's no grease in the lines (grease solidifies if it gets cold, definitely don't want that in your fuel lines). I am so not knowledgeable about the whole thing, but the system is pretty simple and makes sense to me!

My boyfriend and his brother are installing greasekits on our VW van and an old Mercedes. Should be a fun project, I'll definitely start a blog about it.

The odd thing is, it is actually illegal to run a car on grease. Because the gov't can't tax it like they can gas. I'm not sure if they really bust people for it, I've been reading a lot of articles and such on the subject and haven't heard of it being enforced. It's well worth the environmental benefits though (you're recycling a waste product, emissions are lower, and it's an alternative to oil & a renewable resource) and fuel costs will be much cheaper. I'm wondering how long it is before greasecars get popular and grease is no longer free though...