Any of you run diesel engined Daily Drivers?

[Guinney1971]

Hiya,

Any of you running diesel cars (obviously not DeLoreans!) with indirect injection diesel engines (and Bosch - not Lucas - fuel pumps) may well be interested in this new piece of legislation

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/si/2007-1640-em.pdf

Check with the guys on http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/forum to see if your car is compatible.

If it is, you could be paying 49-60p a litre for fuel, rather then nearly £1 a litre for normal diesel!

Cheers,

[steve.s]

hi Clair

as far as i am aware, many diesels will run on vegetable oil, with no modification.

just add white spirit.

if you do not pay duty, then illegal, and if the tank is dipped by customs after a long time, they can still find traces of the oil.

there was a case of somewhere is wales where the local Asda was using far times the usual supplies of veg oil, and customs lay in wait outside.

i was tempted on my pajero.

if you register to pay duty i cannot see how say one gallon dutied and one not can be traced. not that i am suggesting to do this!.

[Guinney1971]

Customs are basically saying (because its costing them too much to try and 'police it'), that if you use/produce less then 2500 litres per year, then you dont have to pay duty on it.

Modern 'common rail' diesel engines will not run on neat veg oil from what I've been reading up on but older types (ie pre 2000) ones will - as long as they have Bosch fuel pumps not Lucas ones. Old Merc's with the 300D or 250D engine will run on it perfectly. I was recently offered a 1994 E250D for £500, but it needed too much work doing on the body so I turned it down.

It is not illegal to put veg oil/bio diesel/homemade bio fuel in your car. However, as this moment in time, you are supposed to register with HMC&E as an alternative fuel producer and send in a monthly return of how much fuel you have used in your car. HMC&E will then send round 2 inspectors to check your bio fuel plant - your funnel and bottle of Mazola - and you send in your monthly return. Ie, "this month, I have used 10 litres of veg oil at 28p duty, here is a cheque for £2.80".

I think in an age, where we all supposed to be being green and saving the planet from the suposed evils of CO2, running diesel cars on vegetable oil, which does not pollute, seems like the most sensible way to go. Just think - there must be hundreds of thousands of take aways, restaurants and eateries up and down the country, all cooking with veg oil - which then gets collected and ........... well, what happens to it? Wouldnt it be far more sensible to filter it down properly, and run vehicles on it? It would be great if trucks, buses, vans, etc, that are the main users of diesel, all ran on the stuff - hmm, or maybe not, because then I'm sure Mr Brown/his sucessor will then have to think of another way of getting the money out of us for the Olympics.......... :roll:

[Chris Hawes]

And the streets would smell of chip shops

[Guinney1971]

Chris Hawes Wrote:And the streets would smell of chip shops

and the problem with that is...............? :wink:

[Glen & Sam]

no chris they smell of bbq as i found out the other week when i went out side thinking someone was doing a bbq in the rain and it was phill revsering on my drive :lol: :lol:

[dogtemple]

ill be doing this i think since as of next week you wont need to be paying any tax on this type of fuel.

if you have an indirect injection diesel engine with a bosch pump then you can more or less just run 100% veg oil. just a mix of diesel and small amount of petrol and perhaps a heat exchanger in the fuel line to thin out the fuel.

the reason being a bosch pump is that they dont require lubricating from the fuel, they have sealed bearings or something like that.

the lucas pumps apparently rely on the fuel to lubricate, and veg oil would just gum everything up.

this is what i gather. ill be going on to this since in the last month my out goings from fuel were approaching £300 when using unleaded!

should hopefully help my delorean/student loan fund!

[Guinney1971]

dogtemple Wrote:ill be doing this i think since as of next week you wont need to be paying any tax on this type of fuel.

I think you and alot of people to be honest!

Quote:if you have an indirect injection diesel engine with a bosch pump then you can more or less just run 100% veg oil. just a mix of diesel and small amount of petrol and perhaps a heat exchanger in the fuel line to thin out the fuel.

for one, DO NOT mix diesel and petrol!!! views on heat exchangers are mixed from what I've been reading up on. But it is best to heat the oil before it goes into the engine, as it is thicker then normal diesel. Some folks find it easier to start on 'dino diesel', then when the engine is up to temperature, switch over to veg/bio diesel.

Quote:the reason being a bosch pump is that they dont require lubricating from the fuel, they have sealed bearings or something like that. the lucas pumps apparently rely on the fuel to lubricate, and veg oil would just gum everything up.

yeah, your pretty much there - both pumps' bearings are lubricated by the fuel, however on the Lucas pumps the actual pipe is thinner then on the Bosch one, so in a short space of time they pack up because the veg oil is thicker then diesel

Quote:this is what i gather. ill be going on to this since in the last month my out goings from fuel were approaching £300 when using unleaded!

ouch!!! I must admit, if I wasnt so attached to my old Cav (which I'm gonna convert to LPG for about £450), then I'd be buying an old Merc or an old Vauxhall diesel straight away!!

Quote:should hopefully help my delorean/student loan fund!

and what better reason do you need to switch to an eco friendly fuel that is half the price of petrol or diesel on the forecourts!

Check out the biofuel forum I mentioned in the first post, to check exactly what cars are compatible for running on veg oil - I know alot of Vauxhalls are ok, more specifically those fitted with the Isuzu Diesel engines - ie the 1.5D in the Mk1 Corsa and the 1.7TD fitted to the Mk3 Cavalier (except the Envoy base model) and higher spec Mk3 Astras (Sport, GLS and CDX). I know that the W210 (?) Merc E-Classes - ie the 250D and the 300D will also run on veg quite happily too.

Funnily enough, I was watching 5th Gear just now, but I was very annoyed at their 'performance test' comparing a Merc 250D running on Veg and a Jag running on methane (by product of making cider apparantly) - well of course a 4yr old Jag will be faster then a 15 year old Merc!! Jeez......... from what I've been reading, you will suffer no loss in performance or economy, and your engine will actually run quieter and last longer, because there are no horrible deposits like you get with normal diesel. Also, the methane conversion cost £2500, he had to have a huge compressed gas tank in the boot (like a giant LPG tank), and methane costs 70p per litre.

Also, dont be taken in by the "biodiesel" being sold by Tesco. Their biodiesel is made by a company called Greenergy - who Tesco own 20% of. They make their biodiesel from palm oil which is grown in the far east and also South America - due to this, vast areas of rainforest are being destroyed and burnt (!) to make way for these palm oil plantations. It is estimated, that due to this deforestation, the Orangutan will be extinct within 10 years.

Seriously tho mate, if you do want to explore the veggie option further, go on that forum and do some research, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!

Cheers,

[dogtemple]

yeah cheers like ive had a good look at the site.

whats the prob with small amount of petrol with diesel - im talking a tiny amount. ive always heard it helps out from quite a few people to clean things through abit. petrol is a good cleaning agent after all.

ive been quite hardcore all of a sudden on the student loan, gone into overdrive today paid some more of it off and planning to sell loads of stuff off to get shot of the last £3k.

then can move on to the delorean fund again!

car is up for sale as of now!

[Guinney1971]

dogtemple Wrote:whats the prob with small amount of petrol with diesel - im talking a tiny amount. ive always heard it helps out from quite a few people to clean things through abit. petrol is a good cleaning agent after all.

Not sure about small quantities - and if you're running on veg oil, your engine will burn cleaner anyway so you'll soon find all the soot and crap working its way out.

All I know is, is that putting petrol in a diesel doesnt do it many favours - we had a "woman driver" the other week, px'd her ML350 V6 Petrol for a new ML280CDi Diesel............ it arrived back 2 days after she picked it up rather sick because she put the wrong fuel in it *groan* - I wouldnt mind, but it says DIESEL on the filler cap!!! Stupid woman in her stupid chelsea tractor :roll: Apologies to anyone out there who has a genuine need for a 4x4 - ie you regularly drive across a field - but it does P me off, these silly women who think it is necessary to buy 2.5 tonnes of off roader to take the children half a mile to school. The nearest thing those tanks come to going off road is bumping up the kerb outside the school gates. :evil:

[Chris Williams]

Jet fuel. (jet A or A1) basically kerosene works well in a diesel engine too if you mix it 50/50 "allagedely"

Chris

[dogtemple]

indeed, obviously filling a diesel with petrol is no good at all, school boy/school run error.

its just reading up theres quite alot of talk about diluting vegoil with other things like white spirit, regular deisel and someone said about 5% petrol somewhere on that vegoil forum.

im going to have a crack at this asap

[Guinney1971]

I think, basically, what they are trying to do is thin the veggie oil 'artificially' so that they dont have to pre heat it or use heat exchangers. Nothing wrong with that, horses for courses as they say!

Let us know how you get on matey!

[Trevor FitzJohn]

Also, dont be taken in by the "biodiesel" being sold by Tesco. Their biodiesel is made by a company called Greenergy - who Tesco own 20% of. They make their biodiesel from palm oil which is grown in the far east and also South America - due to this, vast areas of rainforest are being destroyed and burnt (!) to make way for these palm oil plantations. It is estimated, that due to this deforestation, the Orangutan will be extinct within 10 years.

Seriously tho mate, if you do want to explore the veggie option further, go on that forum and do some research, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!

Cheers,[/quote]

Claire it gets worse than that. Before they can plant Palm Oil plants they burn the native forest thereby releasing more CO2. Large areas of SE Asia are covered in smoke for large larts of the year. This bio fuel nonsense has exaserbated that. China ( not often renouned for its eco friendly aproach has banned bio fuels as its to competative with food production on the land available and distorts agriculture into an unstable monoculture. Ever been to the Mid West and seen their cor belt? And thats getting worse as corn farmers there after having been trapped in a downward spiral of returns have now seen an increase in corn prices for bio fuels. Biofuels may be a part player but will never be a dominant player in the future energy picture