Has anyone done a WVO conversion on a 6.9?

[mankypro]

Given there are a few places I can get WVO from very close to me I'm mulling over whether not to do a WVO conversion on my 84'. I'm looking for input from anyone who has done it?

I'm assuming that one can use regular diesel in the same tank with the heater even with the conversion in place. I'm having a heck of time finding a local shop that does conversions to even ask questions.

From my preliminary research sounds like one would need fuel lines, a tank heater of some sort and an in line heater. And of course a filtration system of some sort.

Anyone want to chime in?

 

[Double-S-Diesel]

I run Wvo in my trucks, all I do is filter the oil , then mix with diesel. no conversion kits here

 

[84TD]

whats you ratio in the winter and summer

 

[mankypro]

It's probably not 18 degrees there like it is here now

I run Wvo in my trucks, all I do is filter the oil , then mix with diesel. no conversion kits here

 

[Double-S-Diesel]

Ive run up to 75 % in the summer. In the winter if Im on a trip I have run as much as 50%. right now with the cold and short trips I am not runnin any.

 

[WildWest]

DoubleS tell us more about your filtering process

I have thought about getting into the WVO scene but i hear mixed reviews some say you have to use chemicals on it etc like on dirty jobs when they showed the making of biodiesel .

I had thought about getting a pump with a few spin on hydraulic filters inline.

Did you have to change out the seals or hoses on the fuel system?

 

[Diesel JD]

Well, if I were going to convert an IDI to WVO I'd go over to this site: http://biodiesel.infopop.cc and see if you can find posts by a guy name Rick, he goes by the handle "Magyver" online. He's a mobile mechanic and had two 7.3s running on WVO. He had a real sweet setup. It just wasn't for me cause I am pushing my luck way too much living at home with this biodiesel processor. He washes it, slow filters it and gets most of the nasties out. Some people say you need to deacidify the oil, but that can get tricky if you make a mistake. Others leave that acid in.... will it do any harm? I don't know...some people have sheared pump shafts but others have many many thousands of trouble free WVO miles. Its really ideal if you have access to LARGE amounts of decent used cooking oil for free, are handy enough to fab up some sort of system of your own, do a lot of longer trips as opposed to daily in town commuting. Blends of dinodiesel or biodiesel and WVO must be considered experimental, but a lot of folks are having success with it, hopefully people are no longer obstinate enough to say they are just flat out wrong and doing a bad thing for their trucks. To be as safe as possible you should have a system with some sort of hose on hose or hose in hose heat exchanger. You should start and stop on diesel or biodiesel and not switch the veggie on till your wvo is up to 130-150*F at minimum. Really 180 used to be the # to be by the book, but I've heard 120 from some people. WVO is pretty thin at that temp, and that's all the heat is trying to accomplish, reduce the viscosity so your pumps can handle it and inject it properly. You also need to find some filters that will get your oil filtered at least down to 5 microns. A stage setup is best for example a windowscreen to pull out all the food particles and trash, then maybe 200 microns, then 100, then 25 and then 5 or 2. Good luck to you.

 

[WildWest]

With my dual tanks it would be great front tank regular diesel rear WVO blend.

I havent looked into the local used oil scene but i thought of getting a large tank for shed storage and use 55 gal barrells for collection


But what about the seals and hoses ive heard that it tears them up is that truck on the wvo blend?

 

[GREASE FIRE]

its going to cost you some money to do it right, at least if you want to run veggie in cold weather. But if you have sources for the wvo you should jump on it now before someone else does and store up as much as you have room for.
most of these trucks have two tanks which is perfect in some ways, but for cold weather you need to heat one of them by installing a heated fuel pickup and that creates a problem: steel and wvo are not a good mix but once you heat the wvo you eventually get a real mess in the tank. The oil is heated and cooled every time you drive and then shut down plus it mixes all around and eventually polymerizes and the inside of the tank gets coated with a thick skin of polyermized oil which eventually works its way into the fuel lines and then sooner or later will clog the fuel lines and you will stall on the highway and not know why. Trust me on this - i have seen pictures of the inside of steel wvo tanks and they are a real mess. Plus the polymerized oil will clog your fuel filter much faster - and if you are running both fuels through the stock filter that means you can stall out on the road. Not long ago i read a story about someone who had a shoddy wvo system and the car stalled and they got rear ended by a truck going 55 mph.
not trying to discourage you, but if you want to run veggie in cold weather you basically need an aluminum truck bed tank with a heated pickup and a fuel filter just for the veggie and that also needs to be heated.

the good news is that these IDI engines are perfect for veggie, they run smoother and quieter on veggie and the stock mechanical lift pump is also perfect for veggie since it is very powerful, compared to most electric lift pumps, making them ideal for veggie.

also, these injection pumps are not the greatest for veggie but they will work fine if the oil is dry. One small shot of water and the pump is junk; and if you run oil with emulsified moisture in it (and most waste veggie has moisture in it) it will wear the pump out a lot faster. So good filtration is essential.

i have 30K wvo miles on my other ride, which is a step van with 6.2 and that will run veggie in just about any temp. i just got my f250 last week so i have not converted it but i will soon - this will be mostly for warm weather use since i am just going to use one of the stock fuel tanks and not bother heating it. But i will have a heat exchanger and will also heat the fuel filter. If need be i can talk more about when it is done.

Paul

 

[hheynow]

Good post Paul. I've been running WVO for almost two years in my '97 F-350. Fortunately my stock tanks are plastic. I did experience a vegoil clog in my fuel line this past September while on the freeway. Scary as all hell. Must have been a glob of polymerized oil. Thought the fuel pump crapped on me but nope it was just a clogged fuel line. I've learned so much in the last two years that I'm way past the learning curve these days.

 

[h2odrx]

With my dual tanks it would be great front tank regular diesel rear WVO blend.

I havent looked into the local used oil scene but i thought of getting a large tank for shed storage and use 55 gal barrells for collection


But what about the seals and hoses ive heard that it tears them up is that truck on the wvo blend?

I'd use the front tank for WVO, and I do, well in both tanks 50/50 now. and more in the summer. runs great... smells like BBQ ribs!!

 

[Diesel JD]

Wow good info! I had never heard of problems with steel and WVO. Galvanized and biodiesel or WVO yes. What is it about the oil that hurts them? The "fuel tank vomit" problems can be bad enough with biodiesel. I'd hate to even think how it'd be with wvo!

 

[GREASE FIRE]

Wow good info! I had never heard of problems with steel and WVO. Galvanized and biodiesel or WVO yes. What is it about the oil that hurts them?

well i don't know if i can totally explain it correctly but, basically the reason veg oil is discarded by restaurants after a while is because it starts to polymerize after repeated heating and cooling and also mixing with oxygen and other impurities in the food - after a certain point it can no longer be used and it goes through some kind of chemical change where the molecular structure forms longer chains as it reacts with various impurities - and this makes it harder for it to pass through our filters by the way. For whatever reasons steel tends to react with wvo and the polymerization (and oxidation) process just continues. so, when you consider that the oil has already started polymerizing by the time we get it, then it is put into a steel tank, repeated heated and cooled and mixed around and reacting with the steel you basically just end up with a real mess. And of course we know what oxidation does to steel just by itself.

this is why the more advanced wvo conversion companies only heat the fuel pickups in the tanks they sell, where as a few years ago most if not all were selling tanks with copper coils or whatever that would get the entire tank very hot. I used to have a set up like that, but then when i removed the heat exchanger in the tank and replaced it with a heated pickup i immediately noticed much longer intervals between filter changes - in fact it has been nearly twice as long since i last replaced my filter and it is still just fine (i have a gauge on the dash that tells me when it is getting clogged).

i will share more about my conversion later - including the advantages of "looping" the return line while on veggie.

Paul

 

[Diesel JD]

Cool. I wonder if reasonably well converted biodiesel eliminates this problem. Do you know?

 

[greythorn3]

i dump my used engine oit in with a full tank of diesel almost.. ive never dumped in used gear oil though.. they say that you cant even burn that in your oil furnace..

Ray