GOON

| My solar air heaters | My drain water heat exchanger | My solar setup | My biofuel experiments | My wind turbine | My lighting projects | Links to information | Home |

This page contains information about my Biodiesel adventures.

Straight Vegetable oil experiment

I have managed to acquire a 2000 VW Golf TDI diesel with a vegetable oil kit already installed. With a little work I was able to get everything working again and can now run on straight vegetable oil (SVO). The advantage of running SVO is that there is no need to handle the methane or lye needed to turn vegetable oil into biodiesel and there is none of the associated waste glycerin byproduct to be disposed of. Aside from having a little additional hardware in the car to do this, all you really need to do is filter the particulates out of the waste vegetable oil and pour it into tank and you are good to go. Below are pictures of the tank in the trunk and the heated filter and the solenoid valves which switch from diesel to vegetable oil

Biodiesel experiment

I have been interested in experimenting with Biodiesel. I was trying to get a small 1 cylinder diesel engine to play with and learn about. I was going to hook an alternator to it to help keep the batteries up when the power fails. That hasn't happened yet but I have managed to aquire a 1984 Mercedes 300SD Turbo Diesel. I would rather have had the small engine first but this is here now. I brought it home tonight and took a few pictures which I have posted below. I have managed to contact a couple of people around here that do the biodiesel thing so I can get some help and knowledge.

I used 551 gallons of heating oil last year. I used about 500 gallons of gas. If I can manage to burn 100% biodiesel I can literally almost cut my oil product usage in half. I will update this page as I move along in the process.

I think I will name her "The Silver Bullet"

Home

Please send any comments or questions to:

© 2005-2008 B. McGowan