Biodiesel and me

[SparkandFire]

This past weekend I tried my first taste of B99 biodiesel. I was reading up on the lubricity properties of fuel additives and I thought I would go pick up 5 gallons of B99 to mix in at about 2% per fill up.

Evidently B99 is pretty hard to find, I searched around the bay area and found one station (a very "berkeley'esque" women/worker owned coop in Berkeley) that sold B99 direct to the consumer. Come to find out, california has some strange laws regarding the sale of pure biodiesel, so it's very hard to come by "on the street"

After filling up my 5 gallon diesel can, topping off my front tank with about 9 gallons, making small talk with the incredibly attractive woman wrenching under the hood of a mercedes diesel (I mean really wrenching, she was "adjusting the valves and changing some filters") I took off and drove about 30 minutes and stopped for lunch with my kid.

When I went to start the truck up after lunch, no go! Crank and crank but no go. From the education I recieved by the BOOB, I installed a new fuel filter full of ATF and got it up and going again...

Yesterday I disected the old fuel filter, and here's what I found- Lots of clear jelly stuff...

I called Calvin (towcat) that day and he mentioned that the B99 probably cleaned all the junk out of my fuel system... I initially thought the B99 dissolved a fuel hose or something, but after seeing the filter guts, I think Calvin was right!

 

[gandalf]

Can't begin to tell you what that jelly-like stuff is. That never happened to my filters, to the best of my knowledge.

B99 is a very good system cleaner. It will clean your tank, your lines, everything. Everything it clean, all the crap, "goes with the flow". All the crap prior to the filter ends up in the filter. If you're using biodiesel, always carry a spare fuel filter.

My truck prefers B99 over regular diesel. It runs smoother and quieter, and I'd swear has a bit more power, and the exhaust smells better. After a couple tank fulls the fuel light came on though. That was on a trip over the summit on 17 going to Santa Cruz. It flickered when I strained the engine going up the hill. When I got home I changed the filter and all was well. I was running full strength B99.

They sell B99 here in San Jose at Western States Oil, on S 10th Street. At least they used to. It's a bit more expensive than regular dinojuice.

 

[Shadetreemechanic]

If you plan to keep running b99 grab another filter. Whether ford or Mercedes, my experience is that it takes two filters to get all the gunk out and from then on the filter change interval goes back to normal.

 

[jim_22]

The problem with that stuff is that it eats rubber seals too. It will eat the paint right off your truck and scar your driveway. It ate away at the insides of your fuel system while you ate lunch. You want lubricity?, the best thing available is pure, clean vegetable oil.

 

[SparkandFire]

Can't begin to tell you what that jelly-like stuff is. That never happened to my filters, to the best of my knowledge.

B99 is a very good system cleaner. It will clean your tank, your lines, everything. Everything it clean, all the crap, "goes with the flow". All the crap prior to the filter ends up in the filter. If you're using biodiesel, always carry a spare fuel filter.

My truck prefers B99 over regular diesel. It runs smoother and quieter, and I'd swear has a bit more power, and the exhaust smells better. After a couple tank fulls the fuel light came on though. That was on a trip over the summit on 17 going to Santa Cruz. It flickered when I strained the engine going up the hill. When I got home I changed the filter and all was well. I was running full strength B99.

They sell B99 here in San Jose at Western States Oil, on S 10th Street. At least they used to. It's a bit more expensive than regular dinojuice.

I agree completely with the performance difference. I noticed my truck runs smoother and seems to like the BioD very well. I was concerned about the rubber seals as well, but I am overdue for an IP anyway, and i've got a brand new return line kit on there. I would like to change all the rubber hose over to viton or something similar, I just need to figure out what size hose I need.

Truck smells WAY different on BioD, like the parking lot at your local KFC.

 

[smolkin]

This happened last week to a friend of mine on his ex-Uhaul. I had to explain to him that 20 years of crap was now getting cleaned out of the fuel system, and it's a good thing. Also his high-mile 30-gal tank prob has a clogged pickup.

 

[RLDSL]

There's a whole bunch of wax built up on your tank walls and that bio d will eat it right off and stuff it into the filter just like you've experienced. folks in cold climates that run fuel additives regularly usually don't have as much buildup, but warm climate trucks are known to have a real mess in them.

 

[swuchase1]

So is it a good clean out for the system. as long as you keep extra filter with you. I replaced the stock tank with a 50 gallon tank in the rear i run ATF in my fuel to lube it. I am having new pump and injectors installed today. Thanks

 

[SparkandFire]

So is it a good clean out for the system. as long as you keep extra filter with you. I replaced the stock tank with a 50 gallon tank in the rear i run ATF in my fuel to lube it. I am having new pump and injectors installed today. Thanks

I would imagine you could eat a steak off the bottom of my front fuel tank if you wanted to...

B99 is a really strong solvent, after 30 minutes of driving around with about 30 % or so B99, I had dislodged enough crap to plug a filter with less than 2,000 miles on it.

 

[pwjackson]

So is it safe to run straight bio fuel in our older trucks? I have an 86 and I just put return lines and viton o-rings on. Will the Bio fuel damage anything else?? Or would it be best to run just about 1/2 gal. per tank mixed with regular diesel??

 

[SparkandFire]

So is it safe to run straight bio fuel in our older trucks? I have an 86 and I just put return lines and viton o-rings on. Will the Bio fuel damage anything else?? Or would it be best to run just about 1/2 gal. per tank mixed with regular diesel??

My initial logic was to do like you said, mix 1/2 gallon or so per tank, per fill up. That would make something around B2 (2% BioD, 98% Diesel) mainly for a lubrication additive.

I read the article on fuel additives (link - http://oilburners.net/forums/showthread.php?t=33429 )
The conclusion I came to was the BioD was a descent lubricity additive, although the other additives have other functions besides lubricity. The PO of my truck ran Stanadyne performance formula on this truck for a long, long time, I just don't have much of a need for anti-gel additives out here in Cali. I think they are all better than nothing.

As far as disolving the rubber, from what I've read the BioD will disolve natural rubber, like the OE fuel hoses and seals. If you have had a recent pump rebuild, I think they are installing all Viton seals now (according to the guy I spoke with at Diamond Diesel in Oakland) So as long as you plan on eventually upgrading your rubber fuel lines (your new return lines and orings should already all be viton) you will be ok. I heard it also takes a while to mess up your factory hoses (something like 2 years)

 

[87-F-250]

http://www.dieselpowermag.com/tech/1003dp_alternative_fuel_profiles/index.html

Anyone who wants to be in Diesel Power send me an email include your specs (use article as template) and 1.0 mb photo.

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Biodiesel in the Real World

 

[87-F-250]

California is in a legal fight with biodiesel.

 

[SparkandFire]

California is in a legal fight with biodiesel.

That's what I heard too...

Big oil is throwing some lawyers around, right? trying to make sure biodiesel is as uncompetative as possible.

At least that's I heard...

 

[87-F-250]

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2010/02/npra-20100203.html

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/12/rfa-lcfs-20091225.html

It's a big mess. California is trying to protect its petro industry while nursing its own biofuel projects. Just buying time.

Actually the big oil companies are some of the biggest investors in biofuels today.

In 2008 I was at the Department of Energy's DEER conference. One of the big oil companies was there and talking about diesel fuel. I asked about biofuels and they were all like not going to happen. Its amazing how they switched positions in such a short time.

A decentralized energy system will give normal people more power.