Xantia of Desires - Farewell xantia!

[beko1987]

I have not alot of diesel left, the light will come in in maybe 20 miles... would I gain anything by lobbing 20l of veg in? That, combined with removing the air filter and backing the throttle off a bit, would that help at all as a simple fix? Or would the veg smoke more?

[forddeliveryboy]

I have not alot of diesel left, the light will come in in maybe 20 miles... would I gain anything by lobbing 20l of veg in? That, combined with removing the air filter and backing the throttle off a bit, would that help at all as a simple fix? Or would the veg smoke more?

 

You haven't a good record with mixing proportions iirc (didn't 2-3% petrol turn into 25-40%?) but 60/40 diesel/veg would defo have a good effect on emissions, I've seen emissions halve even with 30/70 diesel/veg. But the veg was good, well-polished and perfectly dry rapeseed.

 

If things are still that bad you're worried about passing a gas test with an XUD, there's something seriously wrong, mind.

[beko1987]

no thats true,i have demonstrwted my awful maths skills before on these matters. how much fuel is left when the red light comes on? if I was to add 20l of new veg (or rapeseed if asda have any) to that, what mix would that likely be?

 

i am worried about the smoke test. dont forget my pump is tweaked,and the last 3 owners have all reported narrow passes by friendly testers. my testers are not friendly,but I dont want to go tweaking fuel pump stuff that isnt stock anyway.The visible smoke has reduced, but I want all angles covered!

[forddeliveryboy]

Perhaps 10 litres? So if you add 20l of oil, 20 litres of veg in 30 litres of fuel, so two-thirds or 66% veg. Pop in 10 litres of Shell diesel on your way to the test for best results.

 

Since I'm slightly* inebriated, I'll suggest you add 0.15% acetone (99.9% pure) for the ultimate effect.

[beko1987]

Asda have crisp n dry at £1/l,how well does that turn into propulsion?

[forddeliveryboy]

Apparently it's rapeseed. Like all vegoil, works way better when second hand. But rapeseed is always preferable to genetically-modified soya, whether from the perspective of the poor family turfed off their land farmed for generations pov or when thinking about injector grot.

 

But at £1/litre, I'd be buying diesel instead. Unless for emissions passing purposes.

[beko1987]

Purely for emissions passing reasons this time!

[vulgalour]

I used to get the bit 5l veg oil from Tesco, it was always really cheap and the Xant was really happy on it.  Crisp n Dry was always way too expensive to consider burning.  As it happens, it did go for the MoT in my ownership with diesel in after running on 100% veg and it passed quite well, though they were curious what I'd been running it on because of the strange smell.

[beko1987]

I beeline for the 5l ktc bottles at asda but they seem to be out of stock online at least, not sure if they will have any on the shelf in store. So anything that's £1 per litre is still 20p cheaper, than pump fuel, and I only want 20l of it, then as a half pissed forddeliveryboy said, go and put a tenner of expensive diesel in, and see what that does!

[Lacquer Peel]

It's always on offer at Tesco, usually in the strange foreign foods aisle. 10l for £9 last time I bought some, veg or sunflower.

[beko1987]

So, operation mot emissions blag is on.

 

Popped to asda

 

 

Where the checkout lady and 2 staff stood by joked oooh, running your car on it are you? I waited for them to not sell it to me or something but they were fine with it, so I told them they were 100% correct. Laughs were had for 10 minutes and I was out of there. I can confirm crisp and dry is rapeseed

 

 

That done, I popped to the pez station with the needle like this

 

 

and put £10/7 litres of this unicorn spunk in

 

 

I then came home and got the curtains twitching by putting 10 bottles of crisp and dry in. Those bottles are a right pain to empty quickly.

 

Now we have this

 

 

More tomorrow. This had better work, because I'm skint now. Need to get some repairs out the door to get my secret Santa posted next week yet. My remaining £9 is earmarked for bits tomorrow.

 

More hooliganism on the way back from asda confirmed a distinct lack of smoke though, but obv I can't see the naughty stuff that made the mot machine laugh at me...

[Lacquer Peel]

I used to fill big trolleys with new veg when it was half the price of diesel.

Is Crisp and Dry on offer? Fingers crossed for the MOT!

[Kiltox]

84ppl for veg in 20l drums from the cash and carry near me

 

Still not sure it's worth the aggro

[forddeliveryboy]

84ppl for veg in 20l drums from the cash and carry near me

 

Still not sure it's worth the aggro

 

2000 litres is a saving of £650ish at that price, so perhaps it's worth it. But running 100% is almost guaranteed to cause bother if you tip it in and hope for the best without any homework and fuel system mods, even 95% could well cause big problems in winter. Beko was lucky not to total his engine that time he tipped in 40% petrol or whatever it was, by mistake. 

 

Thing is, it's perhaps four or five hours study, the ordering/collection of a few cheap bits and pieces and a Saturday morning cobbling it together to make a veg oil drying and filtering setup in the garage or garden shed. Two oil barrels, a bit of pipework, an immersion heater and filters is all you need to start using the oil many restaurants give away for free. Lots of it is pretty clean and dry to begin with, needing the minimum processing. 

 

Given how keen some are to save 20 or 30p a litre, saving £1.10 a litre or £2200 a year (2000 litre use) is barely more work than braving a supermarket and tipping all those bottles into your tank. Chances are there's somewhere nearer than your local supermarket which would be pleased to find a reliable collector for their oil. 

[beko1987]

Yea I'm not that keen to run veg, £40 of diesel lasts me 2 weeks. It's fun in the summer, when we get a visit from the shite oil fairy in his pleasure sleigh at shitefest or when diesel rockets up in price whenever the politicians piss someone off, but the 98% of the rest of the time, it's not really worth the small saving, especially when I need to fill up on the way to work!

[andy18s]

Thing is restaurants and takeaways have cottoned on to the fact that the wvo is worth a bob or 2

When I opened my takeaway 2003 I had to pay someone to dispose of around 100 litres a week,by the time I sold up 5 yrs later I was selling it at 25ppl for filtered but not dried oil

Hell I was even chucking it into the delivery cars when the weather was warm enough........

[oldcars]

Does your car fry along when you use crisp and dry?

[beko1987]

Haha

 

Ill find out in a minute, just having a cup of coffee then it's time to see if all my hard* work has paid off!

[oldcars]

• Advisory notice item(s)
  car smells like a chippy

[beko1987]

Well that wasnt great.

 

It started off with such promise. A quick trip to euro car parts to spend £6 on a new air filter

 

 

which was needed

 

 

and some indicator bulbs for the sides

 

 

again, needed on one side, but I replaced both

 

 

all done on the side of the road outside the MOT place

 

 

I then gave it a good few hard revs, and held it just on the redline for a minute, then drove over. They took it straight in, straight onto the machine and...

 

 

a straight fail. 6 black clouds came out too.

 

To be fair they said they wouldnt count this as the re-test, so i still have until friday, but I have no more annual leave left now, so cant get back for friday. He did say the drivers seat and handbrake was fine though.

 

WTF do I do now? Bit dejected now...

 

 

[oldcars]

Bad news mate 

I think someone said futher back that the oil temp needed to be at a certain temp to perform the test, and this again says oil temp not measured.

[beko1987]

It does, but the car was very hot, I took the long way there with the fans set to cold, the needle was just above the normal line, even if they measured it I reckon it would have still been too smokey.

 

May go out and have a fiddle, but I don't really know what to fiddle with, as the pumps been modified in the past, I don't want to fiddle the wrong thing and properly fuck it...

[scruff]

Good old Arfur above has told you what to do, if you're unsure I'd see if he can have a look at it.

[The Moog]

Thats a fair way off with the smoke. 

 

I would be a bit wary of fiddling without a plan. 

[beko1987]

I have PM'd Arfur, I'm hoping he can help me! I think I'm paying for a re-test though, won't be able to get it sorted today or in the week sadly. Amys going out on Saturday too but I might have to arrange for someone to come and have the children. Got my speed course on sunday too, so that day is out.

 

I've just turned the fuel down another quarter of a turn, disconnected the boost air pipe and still dark black clouds on snap revs.

 

Buggaration. 100% skint now too until payday, so can't get any magic potions or anything. And the MOT runs out on the 23rd, so the chances of anywhere being open after that are 0. But then the XM went 2 weeks without an MOT without me realising it once, so I suppose that could be a plan B...

[oldcars]

Not sure if possible or not but could you get a standard fuel pump off a scrap car? Not sure on the costs. 

[beko1987]

It's a plan. I know how to get the cambelt off in about 20 minutes now...

 

I'll wait for Arfur to get back to me re his availability, I don't like saying it but it seems my only hope now (no offence of course Danny!)

[scruff]

Hope you get sorted.

 

Been there with Bosch pumps on Landies - the extra GRRR is nice and all that but it can be a REAL pain in the arse figuring out what's been done to it. 

[Supernaut]

I turned down the Bosch pump on my 306 more than quarter of a turn when I got it MOT'd.

 

I actually turned it down to the point it would barely get on boost, and was very very slow to drive. I'm certain the garage knew what I was up to, but it passed anyway! I'd take it round the corner, out of view of the MOT station, then open the bonnet and turn it right back up with a screwdriver I kept in the door pocket.

[beko1987]

Is this the 'smoke screw', at the top under the cap?

 

I have thought about that, but I don't know how it will work with my modified LDA pin, are the adjustments related to that?

 

I've backed the fuel out quite far, any more and it will start to run badly