My first filtration rig... wmo processor

[AcIdBuRn02ZTS]

Lol.. I hear ya.

Now... there is certainly more then one way to skin a cat. In my truck, just running filtered oil coked the injectors within a day.. running the centrifuged oil, it was over a week before I started seeing any signs of coking (short drives on oil... both times... not a wise idea.)

The IDI is more forgiving to running oil then this 4bt cummins is... I'm not sure why... but the guy I do this with has a 93 f250 with a non turbo 7.3 and it drinks w80 no problem to temps down to the teens.. doesn't start well on it but runs good afterwards. My truck on the other hand... not so much.

The metal I found in my centrifuge after the first pass was large enough to see... personally, I think any metal in the fuel isn't doing the injectors or IP any favors.

In your case, you need fuel in a hurry and like to process on the go.. that works for you. I've heard of plenty of people who have no issues just running filtered oil.

Me on the other hand... I have plenty of time (which it only takes a few minutes to kick on the pump... and every few hours, clean the fuge..) to make my fuel as I always have 50-55 gallons ready to run on hand... And I don't just centrifuge. My storage tanks sit for months typically (drain off the bottom sludge)... I pull 20 gallons at a time from the tanks which go into a mixing drum where I add 5 gallons of RUG... that will sit for a few days... then I gravity feed it through 2 whole house water filters (one 20 micron, one 5) then through a 2 micron absolute spin on into the centrifuge drum which my last batch was centrifuged for 10hrs.

Yes this process takes time... but it doesn't take time out of my day. 5 minutes here and there throughout a day or two and I have a 55 gallon batch of translucent w80 ready to go.

What works for you and your truck just doesn't seem to work for me and my truck... my truck is too damn picky. lol

-Chris

 

[idiabuse]

single pass filtration

Lol.. I hear ya.

Now... there is certainly more then one way to skin a cat. In my truck, just running filtered oil coked the injectors within a day.. running the centrifuged oil, it was over a week before I started seeing any signs of coking (short drives on oil... both times... not a wise idea.)

The IDI is more forgiving to running oil then this 4bt cummins is... I'm not sure why... but the guy I do this with has a 93 f250 with a non turbo 7.3 and it drinks w80 no problem to temps down to the teens.. doesn't start well on it but runs good afterwards. My truck on the other hand... not so much.

The metal I found in my centrifuge after the first pass was large enough to see... personally, I think any metal in the fuel isn't doing the injectors or IP any favors.

In your case, you need fuel in a hurry and like to process on the go.. that works for you. I've heard of plenty of people who have no issues just running filtered oil.

Me on the other hand... I have plenty of time (which it only takes a few minutes to kick on the pump... and every few hours, clean the fuge..) to make my fuel as I always have 50-55 gallons ready to run on hand... And I don't just centrifuge. My storage tanks sit for months typically (drain off the bottom sludge)... I pull 20 gallons at a time from the tanks which go into a mixing drum where I add 5 gallons of RUG... that will sit for a few days... then I gravity feed it through 2 whole house water filters (one 20 micron, one 5) then through a 2 micron absolute spin on into the centrifuge drum which my last batch was centrifuged for 10hrs.

Yes this process takes time... but it doesn't take time out of my day. 5 minutes here and there throughout a day or two and I have a 55 gallon batch of translucent w80 ready to go.

What works for you and your truck just doesn't seem to work for me and my truck... my truck is too damn picky. lol

-Chris

Well your process of collection is good, I have something similar. yes all engines react differently.
Lately I had a problem with my fuel that was multiple fail on my part. An accident I was involved in
started the voodoo craziness for me for about 3 weeks, fuel pump would not suck fuel, no way no how screw me running, till I fingered it out.
I had crossed up my filters on my machine without knowing and was filtering only down to 40 microns along with a 200 gallon batch of fresh nasty diesel oil.
But I did not find that out until after I changed my wore out holley pump and chased the demons away in my truck, Had to yank the tank out, clear the trash out the outlet hole 5/8 size on the bottom of my tank then to get stuck again to find that a 5/8 braided hose had collapsed on the inside that connected my rear tank to the front tank.

After all that fiasco I realized I put the 40 micron filter on the suction side and the 10 on the pressure side, big mistake.
Well now that that is all behind me, everything is back to normal.

My normal process is to fill 55 gallons with 50gallons WMO and 5 gallons old stale gas.
then my cart will pump 10 gallons a minute so my process is to pump 55 gallons through my filters 7 times, about 45 minutes, after that it is called a "Single Pass" industry standard for cleaning up brand new drums of oil, yes new oil in drums come dirty.
So after this process I am good to use my polished fuel...

After your gravity filtering do you still get trash after fuging?

 

[AcIdBuRn02ZTS]

I wish my truck would drink that... lol

I Still get sludge... still got metal that was visible.. all after being settled and gravity filtered down to 2 micron...

After gravity filtering (typically takes overnight to filter the drum...) the oil is still black... after 10 hours on the centrifuge, light can pass through it and its more of an amber color then jet black. It certainly makes a difference.

My current filters have ran close to 200 gallons through... however the oil was still coming out pitch black even when they were new.

There isn't much sludge after the first clean out... typically after the first 2 hours on the centrifuge, there is a heavy film with solid gritty particles in the bowl. After that, its just a thin black film each clean out.

-Chris

 

[idiabuse]

I wish my truck would drink that... lol

I Still get sludge... still got metal that was visible.. all after being settled and gravity filtered down to 2 micron...

After gravity filtering (typically takes overnight to filter the drum...) the oil is still black... after 10 hours on the centrifuge, light can pass through it and its more of an amber color then jet black. It certainly makes a difference.

My current filters have ran close to 200 gallons through... however the oil was still coming out pitch black even when they were new.

There isn't much sludge after the first clean out... typically after the first 2 hours on the centrifuge, there is a heavy film with solid gritty particles in the bowl. After that, its just a thin black film each clean out.

-Chris

yep those house style filters are just toys when used with thicker lubricants and not water.
If you research more on filters they have specific designs for all the specific viscosities available.
you said you still can "see" contaminate after the filters well if you can see it, it is larger than 30 microns.

So your filters are in bypass or the oil is tearing out the pleats in the filter or stretching them enough to pass
contaminate.
Made for water.
The machine I have is for filtering hydraulic oil so it is perfect for cleaning waste oil which has a similar viscosity.
The filters I use are actually synthetic media and high quality so no fooling around there.

Wish I could send you 5 gallons to clean to see what you end up with. maybe some light sediment at best...

 

[AcIdBuRn02ZTS]

Well.. for giggles, if you are ever going to be near southern Indiana for anything, drop me a message and we'll give it a shot.

As far as seeing stuff in the oil itself... no. It appeared clean... just jet black. The metallic material, grit, etc.. was all left in the fuge bowl after the first pass.

As far as the filters go... the 20 micron is a plain paper element... the 5 is a charcoal element (neither of which have a bypass... and I could see the paper element failing.. but no the charcoal cartridge..)... the 2 micron is a Cim Tek filter... I'll have to get the number off of it for the details... but it is biofuel rated.

I'm somewhat curious though... how is a paper element 20 micron filter different then a paper element 20 micron oil filter? I've cut several oil filters apart in the past and the element material of the cheaper filters seemed no different then the paper element material of the water filter... Which I have plugged up the 20 micron once and once removed, you could clearly see the material in the filter media.. but it was no worse for wear. I don't claim to be a filter expert or anything of the sort so I'm just curious on the element question.

Also keep in mind... my oil is filtered after its blended to w80... it pours like water, although I would like to test specific gravity of both d2 and my fuel to see how close they are... but I don't have a hydrometer at the moment.

Being gravity fed, the w80 just trickles out of the final filter into the fuge drum and it "looks" clean... until its passed through the fuge and I find all kinds of junk the filter missed. A lot of the metal was brass from ATF... and some grainy particles as well... visible under light. You could certainly feel the grit to the sludge that came out of the fuge after the first pass... it was surprising.

Again.. I'm not saying your cart doesn't do its job.... I'm simply saying I'm happy that I decided to spend $200 on setting up a centrifuge. Once I get a few things finished, perhaps in a year or two, a large single pass motor driven unit will be the next step. By that time, the investment will have more then paid for itself.

As far as running your oil through a centrifuge for giggles... I'm sure there is someone on the forum that has one in your area that wouldn't mind doing it... they are all the same.

-EDIT-
The Cim Tek filter I'm using is a high performance microglass 2 micron element rated for use with all bio/blended fuels and is tested using hydraulic oil... The specific 2 micron filter is a 70230 which is absolute rated (99.5% at micron rating).

 

[JPhauler87]

Just started from the beginning, good read. I have a similar idea for picking up raw oil. Thanks for the big block pump idea! May try that if I can't get the HF diesel pump to do what we need.

I'm surprised the 2um filter was letting visible chunks of metal through. Seems suspicious... but also somewhat concerning!

 

[AcIdBuRn02ZTS]

I had forgotten that I took a picture of the fuge bowl after the first pass...

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You can see the shiny flakes of metal (the little specs in the black) and the picture doesn't show but the sludge had a bronze glitter to it which you could feel as well.

-Chris

 

[turbovanman]

Well lets think this way, Let me collect 100 gallons with my cart, then you fuge the oil from my process.
If we did not live in different states this test could happen.
I am not to worried about contaminate smaller than 5 microns or smaller because it wont really leave a wear scar that will hurt my feelings.
Yes I would rather have cleaner fuel but I wont wait that long to process fuel when I need it right away.
I actually still use an up flow process system for real nasty waste oil I end up having to collect.
Fuging that stuff would not be worth your time because of the constant cleaning.
With todays nano fiber technology the Bypass filtration systems clean as good as any fuge and clean
more volume of oil between service than a fuge, only advantage of the fuge, "which is small" no replacement cost.

the only fuge I see worth buying is $1500 a fairly large one. still need a pump also.
I have just under $1500 with mine including 12 filters that are $50 retail each.
Love the fact I can collect oil with this and plumb into the inlet an additional filter
to keep the main filters from clogging.

There is pros and cons for both setups. Both keep us from being a complete and total SLAVE to the MAN so
I am glad I "feel" like I am breathing above the water.

What actual filters are you using? I cut, settle, CF then a 5 micron filter. I only had a stock 6.5 filter setup and found fine sediment on the bottom after 10K. I recently switched to a Dmax van setup with a 10 micron pre and 2 micron post filters.

One batch of ATF I cleaned recently, yuck.

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[AcIdBuRn02ZTS]

How long do you typically run your 'fuge before cleaning of the rotor?

That's a LOT of sludge... lol

-Chris

 

[The FNG]

What actual filters are you using? I cut, settle, CF then a 5 micron filter. I only had a stock 6.5 filter setup and found fine sediment on the bottom after 10K. I recently switched to a Dmax van setup with a 10 micron pre and 2 micron post filters.

One batch of ATF I cleaned recently, yuck.

Wow, that's a lot of junk. Why wouldn't you filter that off before running it? I filter down to 2 mic absolute before I run my oil and I usually have very little sediment in my fuge. Seems like a better option instead of letting all that crud get in your final tank.

 

[AcIdBuRn02ZTS]

Well the temp is finally starting to come back up... so we made some progress on the barn.

Don't comment on the wood... most of the material has been free thus far.. so I'm not complaining... and plans are to side it to match the house in the near future as soon as I can find some scrap siding.

Anyways.. pictures...

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In the area between the back of the shed and the fence will have a lean to just big enough for 2 275 gallon totes for settling..

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And here are some goodies that I scored for $100.. an all stainless DEF pump station that was built and never used... stainless fill-rite gear pump, stainless filter assembly, stainless nozzle and def rated hose along with a food grade barrel..

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Planning on running the nozzle out the back of the shed to an area in the fence that will have a small hinged door for access... that way we can pull the trucks up in the alley and fill them up... no more toting 5 gallon fuel cans back and forth.

Anyways... more to come soon.. should have the shed under roof in the next week or two if I can find the rest of the materials and weather cooperates.

-Chris

 

[Brad S.]

Chris that really looks good. Keep us updated.
Put a wmo burning stove out there, then run some hot water runs to the house, and whammo, wmo heated house.

 

[AcIdBuRn02ZTS]

Lol... if only my oil sources could keep that fed along with two vehicles. I'm really hoping to lock down some good sources after the barn is built... once everything is up and going, we'll be able to store close to 1k gallons...

That sounds like a lot... but when two people are burning it year round... it doesn't take long to eat it up.

On another note, planning on starting an addition to the house this spring/summer and planning on adding a supplemental wood fired furnace... and also tinkering with the idea of feeding the toilets and washing machine in the house with filtered rainwater (after some research... pretty interesting and rather cheap to do)... Anything to cut down on dependence of city utilities is a plus in my book. Tired of giving what little fundage I have away

 

[79jasper]

Until they make you pay for that rain water.
Think I'm kidding? Search around.

I don't know what problems you may run into with rainwater for the warsher. Acid rain and what not.
Probably not a problem.


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[AcIdBuRn02ZTS]

From research, "acid rain" is soft water which is better for appliances such as washing machines, dish washers, coffee pots, etc.. due to less scale and calcium build up.. etc.. etc.. plus you can "harden" the water and raise the ph if need be.

As far as making me pay for rain water... technically I should be paying tax on fuel too... don't see that happening anytime soon. Lol One of the benefits of living in a small town and being on a first name basis with all of the local law enforcement... you pretty well gotta be doing something reeeaalllyy stupid to get in trouble. I have heard of places making it illegal to capture/store rainwater which is nuts... thankfully thus far.. Indiana is pretty lax on things like that... such as emissions testing

I've talked to a few people who have gone as far as relying strictly on rainwater as their only water source for their homes... drinking water included (with proper filtration of coarse).. I've also considered a well point too... but not sure on that... water table here is fairly high from my understanding.. again these are just things I'm tossing around. The research I've been doing seems sound... haven't found many negatives.