The price of WMO

[Agnem]

I've always maintained that running WMO should be a financial decision. You sacrifice parts and to some extent, a little reliability for cheaper transportation. You have a balance between fuel savings, and higher maintainance costs. Most of the time, you will come out ahead money wise. However, that knowledge doesn't off much consolation when you have to go outside in 17 degree weather, with 6 inches of snow on the hood and dig into a very cold engine with 5 bad glow plugs. WMO glow plugs don't come out looking like "normal" glow plugs should look. At least not in my experience thus far. A few are down right scary looking.

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[sassyrel]

and you consider this???? from??? and would a REASONABLE water mist on the truck stop this-----i/e, would keep the burnt residue cleaned up by steam action???

 

[forcefed]

I noticed when I was running 100% WMO I would have to run couple tanks of diesel every now and then to clean the glowplugs up. I started the truck on diesel but I could tell when they were getting covered in soot and the truck would not start very good. After couple tanks of diesel they would be fine again. Maybe like said bove a water mist or something like that would help to clean them up.

 

[smolkin]

Has anyone here who burns WVO had this kind of buildup? If this is what my innards look like, I am hesitant to go back on the grease. Hopefully the pre-heating helps with it. Also, is there a risk of getting bad coking debris in the engine if you pull the gp's when you've been burning WVO? All mine are bad (left the manual control on all day accidently) but I'm afraid to replace them after all the horror stories I've heard, swollen tips and whatnot. I think they're Autolite? (red insulator)

 

[gonecrazyi]

My glow plugs came out clean after running wmo and wvo. I ran it for well over a year running around 80 to 100 percent without to many problems.
I pullled the plugs from the motor that died and have them in my 6.9 and there working perfectly.

 

[WrickM]

I have read in at least one online article/publication that anyone running waste fule whether WVO or WMO should consider running some form of water injection for cleaning purposes. It does make sene to me, though i admit i haven't gotten around to it yet.

Oddly i have found the cheapest way to get a small amount of mist into the intake on a NA engine is via one of those ebay hydrogen generators. The Hydrogen helping your engine is a myth and a dumb one. It's for people who think quantitative sciences are evil. However those hydrogen bubblers do create a nice fine mist and if placed close to the intake and with the output inside the air filter the can do the cleaning for under $40. As opposed to buying a pump and misting nozzles that add too much water anyway. (for NA engines)

 

[icanfixall]

Mel... Are some tips missing?? If so I'll bet your turbo is giving you the finger... Could this plug damage be a combination of advanced timing and wmo use. Time for the great boob brain trust to get working on this... I got nothing.... Never tried wmo or wvo. Usually run ARCO diesel from a large truck stop with lots of turnover...

 

[WrickM]

i do wonder what the cetane rating for WMO would be. I know that Vegetable oil properly filtered should have a cetane rating higher than that of diesel (around 50 for SVO). This is one reason that many feel (though without a lot of real factual evidence) that Vegetable oil is better for the engine than diesel (Note: engine, not fuel system) because it should burn pretty completely with high lubricating properties.

Theoretically, if the WMO has a very low cetane rating, which it might, the initial combustion may blow some of the wmo back into the pre-combustion chamber and hence onto the glowplug. where it could sizzle and coke. this would eventually completely coat the glowplug and act like an insulator which would make the glow-plug work less well and burn out much quicker.

just my thoughts on the WMO glow plug question, but it's kinda meaningless since i really don't have a clue what the cetane rating of wmo is




for those who don't know:
octane rating is a fuel's resistance to combustion. The higher it is the rating the more it take for the fuel to ignite. gas has very high octance rating where diesel's is very low. .

cetane rating is a measure of how quickly a fuel ignites after injection, and relates heavily to how quickly the fuel burns.

 

[Chevyboy_0]

IIRC the octane of diesel fuel is 25 *** the Cetane rating is 42, and also Diesel has the highest BTU rating of 1083 which is the highest of all the current fuels we have(this info is coming from my Alternative fuels class)

the only donwfall to having such a high BTU rating of fuel is the fact that you will create more NOx in the combustion process

 

[FordGuy100]

IIRC the octane of diesel fuel is 25 *** the Cetane rating is 42, and also Diesel has the highest BTU rating of 1083 which is the highest of all the current fuels we have(this info is coming from my Alternative fuels class)

the only donwfall to having such a high BTU rating of fuel is the fact that you will create more NOx in the combustion process

And you have to worry about EGT's....which in gassers you dont have to really.

 

[drive for free]

i run diesel in my front tank and wmo in the rear. i start and stop on diesel; if i know im gonna shut her off for ahile. after she gets warm i switch to the oil. i feel its easier to start and keeps everything clean.

 

[typ4]

Mel, I have pulled straight diesel ones that looked like that. Hey, maybe you need new injectors. I know a guy.
Sorry ,had to.

 

[subway]

i know i a can say from my experience my glow plugs looked nothing like that but i preheat my fuel and start and stop on diesel. i attached a pic of my glow plugs after a couple of years of running WMO in my system. i don't have a pic of them all but they all looked the same, i light coating of brownish/black soot similar to a spark plug. i still think the key i pre-heating just like running veggie

the last two pics are before and after a few seconds with a wire brush.

 

[SparkandFire]

the only donwfall to having such a high BTU rating of fuel is the fact that you will create more NOx in the combustion process

-Which is why the new trucks have to add urea (A.K.A. "Diesel Exhaust Fluid)
NOx is a real ******, the boilers I work on here have to comply with a new Bay Area air quality standard and emit less than 8 PPM NOx... That is going to be REAL fun with a 40 year old Kewanee boiler!

Basically you can't have any flame surface temperature higher than around 500 deg.F, so you must blast the flame against a sintered stainless mesh and spread it out over a wide surface area... Forces the boiler to use as much as 30% more fuel!!!

 

[Russ]

Mel what is your system of running WMO? Do you cold stat on it? Do you blend? if so what percentage? If you shut down on #2 how long before you shut down do you purge the system?