filtering, blending and de-watering wmo

[metrobruce]

over the pond in the uk there are a huge amount of vehicles that will run on wmo really well, over the years I have run many of my vehicles on it usually straight out of the sump of cars from the scrap yard, what I found was the only bad thing was smoke on idle and poor cold starting, Now I own a small 1.5 liter diesel rover metro it has a heated fuel filter housing as standard and has responded well to 100% wmo apart from cold starts and smoke on idle, could this be due to water within the oil, I have been filtering it through a standard diesel filter from another vehicle but dont do any blending or de watering, I have been doing this with great success and no issues as of yet with filters plugging. I have being trying to get my head around why people tend to heat a huge barrel of oil to evaporate the water, would it not be better to heat a small amount of oil rather than a huge mass. my plan is to gravity feed oil across an old george foreman grill and then into a 6 gallon bucket and then filter and blend small batches of w85 in 6 gallon containers. the reason for such small productions are because the care averages around 55mpg and a single tank full per week will be ample, also uk laws prohibit me making 50gallon batches, I also have to pay fuel tax for what I use and produce, any input from some of the wmo experts on here would be greatly aprietiated

 

[Josh Carmack]

Your idea is better,,,.....

That is the system I plan on using soon.

Most of us heat the entire batch, because we are running through pressure driven fuges that will not properly operate without heated feedstock. It's difficult to safely and properly heat fuel inline to our fuges without spending a lot of money on PID controlled inline heaters. From a financial standpoint it makes more sense to heat an entire batch with a 30.00 heater than to heat the feedstock with a 1000.00 heater. Also batch heating allows the water to evaporate or boil off, which your idea will also.

Just last night I cut the grooves for the drive belt in the shaft of my new fuge I am building, it will be a shaft driven fuge that will have an inline feed that is drip fed into it. I plan on using a coffee maker heater, or building from scratch a heater that operates on the same principal. I am doing that for two reasons, one to eleminate bypass fuging that slowly cleans an entire batch, vs a single pass system that the first drop that comes out will be just as clean as the last, and Two, to get away from the heating of an entire batch at once.

 

[Josh Carmack]

The heating idea that is.

I can't filter only and be comfortable. I have seen the difference of filter only vs fuging. My buddy had 50 gallons of oil that settled and then was drip fed through a one micron filter. We then ran that batch through my fuge system overnight. That one run convinced him to start building our belt driven fuges. He built V1, and completed it. It is sitting idle because he has much, much bigger fish to fry for the next several months. I am nearing completion on V2 and will hopefully have it up and running by next week. Since it is shaft driven, it will fuge grease if thats what you want to use it for. It also will not demand 50GPH to drive it, so I can feed it nice and slow with a very small flow that is heated with a likewise very small heater.

 

[Josh Carmack]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[metrobruce]

Could a fuge system be run of a powersteering pump driven off of the engine that pulls fuel from a swirl pot with a heating element inside then pipe the hot return from the fuge under the feed to the fuel pump. The tank would be heated and cleaned as you were driving on the free fuel. How long would it take to fuge 6 gallons of fuel with an oil driven fuge recerculating, if the thought of sluging up the fuel system is too much the a simple twin tank system doing the next batch would work well.

 

[Josh Carmack]

Beings that most fuges are bypass systems, they need to run for hours. A couple hours on a 10 gallon batch would be sufficient, but you can burn close to that in a big truck in a couple hours. I have considered rigging something up in the bed of my truck for those long trips, but it was going to turn into such a hassle I decided to just take a drum of clean oil with me and use air to blow it out into my stock tanks.

As far as power steering pumps go, they are more than sufficient for running an oil driven fuge. I have a PS pump off a 97 F-150, it runs two 55GPH fuges with enough bypass oil to run two or perhaps three more fuges.

I THINK you might find a 12V heater element with enough wattage to heat the oil well enough to pass the fuge easily, but would probably be better off using the excess engine heat from the thermostat bypass/heater water supply in a heat exchanger.

IF I were to design an in vehicle system, it would be running the NEXT batch while I drove on an already cleaned batch. It would be from a 10 gallon container. I would use the heater water supply to heat the oil in stream to the fuge. IF i needed a way to get that batch into my running tanks I would use a second fuge to run through with the fuge out feed plumbed to the tank I'm running on. Once the primary fuge has had a couple hours to run I would switch the the second fuge with it's out feed plumbed to where I wanted it to go.

 

[Brad S.]

metrobruce, welcome aboard the S.S. OB, nice to see people from different parts of the world, and get their experiences.
As far as batch size, my system is setup with a 15 gallon plastic drum, on a stand, on its side, with a CF, and a power steering pump pushing the mix.
For the most part I really didn't heat the batches, I tried doing a "cold" filtering process.
Mixing my batches 75/25 ratio.(this level to keep my electric pump from going bad)
Had a idea for heating wmo, for filtering, after I saw the inside of a tankless water heater.
Basically a water heating element inside a 1 1/2" pipe about 10-12 inches long, the water was fed in the top, thru a 1/2" opening/joint, then at the bottom it would exit into the rest of the system.

Something like this, but without all the extra sensors etc.
Using a normal 110 volt element would keep down costs and wiring issues..
By the way, are you a fan of Top Gear, in the last year or so, been watching the reruns, very funny stuff.

 

[metrobruce]

its hard to relate in terms of fuel consumption, to put things into perspective I am getting around 350miles from 7 imperial gallons which is about 9.5 u.s gallons, I am getting 50mpg+ around town and cold starting, on a long run anything up to 70mpg is achievable at around 60mph cruising so the need for a huge filtration plant is not needed. I am going to be using a 6 gallon plastic boat fuel tank mounted inside the car insulated, I have made a coolant fuel line heater from copper pipe, it heats both feed and return lines and this will also be mounted within the car and runs most of the legnth of the fuel lines, I am also fitting an engine oil cooler to a filter head that I got from an old nissan d22 as well as the standard heated filter housing that came with the car. I will be getting some pics up of my vehicle once I begin to sort out the fuel system, its mostly standard at the moment aprt from a looped return.

Yes I do watch topgear, not so much now because I am studying to become a tutor of motor vehicle mechanics. Is top gear as big in America, the humour is very close to the line sometimes.

 

[Josh Carmack]

Brad, i used a 4500W heater element in this til I needed the element for the system when I burnt one out.

At full pump flow it was able to raise the temperature 60F to 70F, if it were added to the system beyond the bypass I'm fairly sure it would do an excellent job at heating the flow above 212F.

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[Brad S.]

metrobruce, that sounds like it will heat the fuel nicely, pics will be good. That fuel mileage is great.
Not sure if Top Gear is popular here, in my area maybe not.
Maybe I like it because I used to watch Benny Hill & and old Dr Who shows on our public TV channels, years ago

Josh, did you go away from that setup for lack of flow??? Looks like it might work for my lower flow setup...???
That would be easy to add in my setup..

 

[Josh Carmack]

Well, considering it was able to raise the temperature from 60/70F to 120/130F at wide open flow I'm sure it would have been more than enough wattage to run the fuges off of it if it were plumbed beyond the bypass. The problem is adding some triacs and a PID controller so it doesn't cook the volatiles off. I guess a simple range controller would be suffcient, but then you limit yourself to a water heater thermostat and the upper end is to low.

I have not yet disassembled a water heater control to see if it's range can be increased.