Running my Vauxhall Astra on veg oil

Farzackerly

When I was doing biodiesel in the winter, I'd mix 60/40 with dino and leave to settle for a day or two in a wide-topped 60Litre blue barrel (you probably know the ones). In the winter temps, the waxy crap would settle out of the mix and I'd take the top 70% or so for the fuel tank. I saved the waxy crap for summer, as soon as the temp rose above 10degC it was perfectly usable summer fuel.
This all came about because of the really !!!!!! WVO I had to use - dead hard palm oil, run very hard and for too long in the chippy. You might get different results, depending on your WVO source.

worried_jim

Had some running problems recently which I have put down to a slipping auxiliary belt and have had replaced for £42, however walking back from the garage I took a short cut through a pub car park and discovered loads of buckets of wvo- bonus! I shall gp and collect it when the snow thaws and there should be enough fuel there to get me through all of next years summer motoring.

hubert_cumberdale

i used it in an old golf that i was due to scrap and put it in neat and pretty much unfiltered and it loved it. it stank like a fish and chip shop tho

worried_jim

Just picked up 30L of prep zt palm oil from the pub to start building up my supply for next year. The buckets are all solid at the moment but come the big thaw I shall be ready for some more free motoring. I reckon I should have about 150L ready to go come the spring, already itching to get some "freeness" back in the tank.

Rossy.

worried_jim wrote: »

Just picked up 30L of prep zt palm oil from the pub to start building up my supply for next year. The buckets are all solid at the moment but come the big thaw I shall be ready for some more free motoring. I reckon I should have about 150L ready to go come the spring, already itching to get some "freeness" back in the tank.

What car are you sticking this into Jim?

I've got a Laguna 1.9dci. I'm really keen to see if i can run some sort of part mix. I wouldn't go full bio diesel but i would want to do something.

I'm averaging 600 miles to the tank, I fill up once a month or maybe twice depending on my journeys.

I'd think my tank size is 60 litres so i'd like to try 50 litres of normal diesel and then 10 litres of WVO. Is that a good start or should i try less? I've got a bosch fuel pump and fuel rail so i think that's ok

any advise you can give me would be fantastic

worried_jim

Rossy. wrote: »

What car are you sticking this into Jim?

I've got a Laguna 1.9dci. I'm really keen to see if i can run some sort of part mix. I wouldn't go full bio diesel but i would want to do something.

I'm averaging 600 miles to the tank, I fill up once a month or maybe twice depending on my journeys.

I'd think my tank size is 60 litres so i'd like to try 50 litres of normal diesel and then 10 litres of WVO. Is that a good start or should i try less? I've got a bosch fuel pump and fuel rail so i think that's ok

any advise you can give me would be fantastic

STOP! You cant run your car on veg as it is common rail injection. You would need the Laguna model before the one you have now according to biomotors-
http://www.biomotors.co.uk/CarsVansN.html#Renault
Do not put any veg in the fuel tank as you may kill it. You can use bio diesel which you can either buy as b100 or make yourself a bit like home brew, or you can have a twin tank conversion where by you start on diesel and then switch to veg after a few miles when everything is warmed up. Have a look through the biomotors site for furter info.

Rossy.

worried_jim wrote: »

STOP! You cant run your car on veg as it is common rail injection. You would need the Laguna model before the one you have now according to biomotors-
http://www.biomotors.co.uk/CarsVansN.html#Renault
Do not put any veg in the fuel tank as you may kill it. You can use bio diesel which you can either buy as b100 or make yourself a bit like home brew, or you can have a twin tank conversion where by you start on diesel and then switch to veg after a few miles when everything is warmed up. Have a look through the biomotors site for furter info.

Don't fret i haven't done it lol!!

I read that someone had done it to the same car as mine though.

Lag 2 1.9dci 120bhp (02)

I'll have a read, thank's Jim

mikey72

Rossy. wrote: »

Don't fret i haven't done it lol!!

I read that someone had done it to the same car as mine though.

Lag 2 1.9dci 120bhp (02)

I'll have a read, thank's Jim

There is one on here as well, but that's a twin tank system as well

http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/fuelsdatabase/database/view.php?id=389

It's the common rail that doesn't like the extra viscosity of the veg oil, and the spray pattern goes wrong.
Could be worth a try in summer, with new oil, but the cost saving of a 10% or 15% mix isn't a lot compared to the possible cost if it goes wrong.

Rossy.

mikey72 wrote: »

There is one on here as well, but that's a twin tank system as well

http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/fuelsdatabase/database/view.php?id=389

It's the common rail that doesn't like the extra viscosity of the veg oil, and the spray pattern goes wrong.
Could be worth a try in summer, with new oil, but the cost saving of a 10% or 15% mix isn't a lot compared to the possible cost if it goes wrong.

Thankyou Mikey

So seems it's possible with a few add-ons

I doubt i'd ever go 100% as it's not worth my time or effort but i'll still look into it

Farzackerly

Ten seconds of stupidity leads to hours of work.
Pah.
I had some water-contaminated diesel in my car's tank, but I was sure I'd got it all out, so connected the tank line to the small inline filter and started it up.
Did I get it all out? Did I biggery! After about ten seconds running it faltered and stopped. Turned out there was a fair bit more in there than I thought and by not using the pukka filter with water trap, it all went straight into the injection pump.
It's all cleared out now, but I flattened two batteries twice over clearing the IP to the point where clean diesel was coming out of the injection ports on the pump. As an aside, the pump is a licenced made Bosch VE, so some useful knowledge was gained.
So - lesson learned; those little inline filters are boggerall use for anything and I MUST find out what's causing the Water-In-Fuel light to stay on - a short somewhere, perhaps related to the useless alarm I removed. If the WIF light is reliable again, I can pay it some heed. As it stands now, it's on all the time, but I can make a point of checking the water content regularly.