Burning Vegatables. Running SVO/WVO in 2024

[DeanH]

Any advice on how to actually get the oil? Do takeaways gladly give it away, or do they generally sell it to oil recycling companies?

[bezzabsa]

would love to know if an L series engined Freeloader will run on veggie???

[Lacquer Peel]

16 minutes ago, DeanH said:

Any advice on how to actually get the oil? Do takeaways gladly give it away, or do they generally sell it to oil recycling companies?

If they use a lot they usually have a contract with the company that sells them the new oil but some of these contracts are ripping them off.

I got my collection because the owner of the pubs thought they were being overcharged for their new oil, it has worked out cheaper for them to buy oil at a cash and carry and give the used oil away to me. 

7 minutes ago, bezzabsa said:

would love to know if an L series engined Freeloader will run on veggie???

It's direct injection which isn't ideal but if you avoid harsh cold starts on a strong oil mix and excessive idling while keeping an eye on the engine oil level they are good on veg. 

[Talbot]

Following on from the query about filters... time for a filter change.  Given that these filters got rather heavily waxed recently, I thought it was worth a few quid to change them.

Old filters in the tub, new ones in the housings.  The old ones were quite a bit dirtier than I thought.

I did briefly consider keeping the old ones, and used a plug in either end to blow a load of compressed air through them.  It did get a lot of shite out of them, and they looked significantly cleaner:

However, this is the third time I've done this to these filters, so given how cheap they are, it has to be time for them to get binned.

Plus I managed to lose track of which one is which, so buggerit.

[Talbot]

Had a bit of an update of the veg system to make it a bit more hands off.  Having just been able to get 450 litres of oil, I need to get filtering!

The header tank now has connections for inlet (oil or compressed air) on the right.  A 95% depth dip tube for emptying through the filters in the centre, and a part-height dip-tube on the left, which goes down to a blowdown tank.  That way I can now set a container filling the header tank, and when it gets to the magic 15L of oil ready for a batch, the excess blows down the left tube into a catch tank.  When the oil exhausted from the supply tank, again, all the excess air just blows through.  It makes more sense in person.  Maybe.

Same is also now true of the initial 125um filter.  A couple of times in the past I have over-done it with the coarse filter tank, and as it's draining (via gravity) through the bottom into a catch tank, I've over-filled the catch tank and spilled oil.  Not ideal.  So now it's slightly modified.  The coarse filter is up higher:

And when it drains down into the first catch tank, that then also now has an overflow:

The right-hand connection has a short dip-tube into the tank.  This means that as the left container fills, air is pushed out of the right-hand pipe.  When the level gets to that pipe, an airlock forms in the top of the left tank, pushing the excess oil out into the right-hand tank.  When there is no more oil coming down out of the coarse filter, the short link-pipe acts as a small siphon, bringing the level in the left tank back down to the height of the dip tube.  I didn't expect this to work nearly as well as it does!  Now I can load up the coarse filter with enough to fill the catch tank and a bit more, and every time I come back to it, I have another 25L tank completed.  Saves having to nanny the tank to make sure it's full, but doesn't overflow.

Also discovered recently that the pressure I can apply to the oil going through the three filter assemblies could do with being raised a bit.  At 2psi, the oil barely flows.  At 3psi, it starts to move a bit, but the header tank looks like it's going to explode!  If I bypass the tank and just apply pressure direct from the compressor, you can push the remaining oil through with MUCH higher pressure.  10psi and it starts flowing at a far higher rate.  15psi and it absolutely hammers through.  If I could get a header tank that could tolerate 10psi, I recon I could filter about 5 times quicker.  At 15psi it would take minutes to do that 15L of oil, which currently takes several hours.

The plastic of these tanks could probably take about 100psi before it fails, it's just that the shape is not at all condusive to pressure, so they end up spherical.  Might have to try making a wooden frame for it to sit in, that way it could take more pressure.

.... and I'm still waiting for some of the oil to warm up.  It's been over 8c for the last few days (and up to 12c during the day) and yet some of the 20L cubies I have to deal with are still at about 3c and badly waxed.  Might have to leave them out in the sun soon.

[Lacquer Peel]

Even though it's a fair bit warmer here now I am still finding chunks of semi solid soya oil. 

[loserone]

Worth a couple of brewing belts?

[Weird Car]

You seem to have a much more professional system to how I used to do it with my 405, I just drained it through an old pair of jeans and stuck it in the tank but most of the time I just got lazy and stuck it straight in chunks and all 😆

[Talbot]

2 hours ago, loserone said:

Worth a couple of brewing belts?

What I need to do is just not leave the cubies on the cold concrete floor, as it acts like a massive heat sink.  The weather needs to be warm for about a month for it to properly warm up.  3 days just doesn't cut it.  If I get them up on palettes or up on racking, the warmer air can blow all around them and they might actually fully re-liquify.

[catsinthewelder]

Has anyone else running veg found that the fuel gauge stops working?  Happened to my Discovery and 405 with a few other fuel system problems on the Disco.

Admittedly I was using the rather basic filtration system of a bucket underneath a big flowerpot.  Old bedsheet in the flowerpot filled with sand, pour the oil through and most of the manky stuff stayed in the sand.

[Talbot]

I suspect the sand may have imparted some acidity to the oil, which will have corroded the life out of vulnerable items.  Sand can be up to pH3, which is pretty agressive.

[jim89]

5 hours ago, Talbot said:

What I need to do is just not leave the cubies on the cold concrete floor, as it acts like a massive heat sink.  The weather needs to be warm for about a month for it to properly warm up.  3 days just doesn't cut it.  If I get them up on palettes or up on racking, the warmer air can blow all around them and they might actually fully re-liquify.

Perhaps a sheet/offcut of celotex/kingspan/et al might help prevent the chill getting in them?

Even polystyrene would insulate but as we know it's very brittle & potentially very messy stuff.

Come to think of it I don't know how any kind of sheet insulation would behave with the veg oil on it 🤔.

[JakeT]

Thank you for posting this. The only diesels I’ve owned are common-rail ones and wouldn’t take to diesel well (BMW M57). I used to live near an Olleco depot and walked past every day to get to where I parked the car. There was always a certain smell about it, and the pavement even was oily sometimes it seemed.

 

Some of the old farming types I know pull the batteries on things when storing them for the winter, instead of leaving them on the concrete floor. Wondering if even that will help your oils from blooming in cooler weathers?

[Zelandeth]

Could a diaphragm pump (which wouldn't care about running dry anyway) coupled with a pressure switch downstream of it (or possibly a float in the header tank - though I could see that getting gummed up being an issue with that) be a compromise between having something which could be safely left unattended but also push fluid through it at a reasonable rate without needing to try to come up with a suitable pressure vessel?

[jim89]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

Could a diaphragm pump (which wouldn't care about running dry anyway) coupled with a pressure switch downstream of it (or possibly a float in the header tank - though I could see that getting gummed up being an issue with that) be a compromise between having something which could be safely left unattended but also push fluid through it at a reasonable rate without needing to try to come up with a suitable pressure vessel?

Hmm those mercury type floatswitches you find on automatic sump pumps might not object to the "gum" as much as other types... as long as they float on it 😁

[Talbot]

On 25/01/2024 at 18:10, Zelandeth said:

Could a diaphragm pump (which wouldn't care about running dry anyway) coupled with a pressure switch downstream of it (or possibly a float in the header tank - though I could see that getting gummed up being an issue with that) be a compromise between having something which could be safely left unattended but also push fluid through it at a reasonable rate without needing to try to come up with a suitable pressure vessel?

I see what you're saying, but that is adding complexity to the setup that I just don't really want, and I'm still very wary of leaving something electrical on when I am not there to keep an eye on it.  At least with the current setup there is a limited amount of stored energy (in the compressed air) which simply bleeds away when the batch is done and nothing further can happen.

Went to check on it this morning after the first night of freezing temperatures in nearly a week... of course it's all waxed up again.  Bumhats!  about 7-8c seems to be the lowest I can work with before everything just goes a bit solid.