Running my Vauxhall Astra on veg oil

goldspanners

putting a tap on the bottom of one of those containers would be your best bet i think. i know if we have a fuel tank with lots of water mixed in with the diesel thats what we do, open the drain plug until most of the water has gone. as the water is heavier than diesel it always rests at the bottom of the tank.

worried_jim

I could get a water butt from B&Q for £23



and then fit a nylon monofilament mesh filter bag into the lid.



Just pour in the wvo and leave it to filter for a few days and then open the tap to drain of the crud at the bottom and then fill my 20 litre container with the good usable oil. When my fuel tank is empty on the Astra half fill with 25 litres of mineral diesel from the gas station drive home to the garage and top up the tank with the home brew.

Volcano

Filtering may take a long while, but as long as you do as you suggest (leave it to filter for a day or 2) then you won't need to hang around to supervise it. Definitely look to change/check your vehicles fuel filter too; slow blockage here will gradually reduce fuel flow.

worried_jim

My home fuel refinery is making progress, I have invested £24 in a 100L water butt with a tap at the bottom and a 1 micron sock filter from ebay for £5. This will sit inside the lid of the butt into which I will pour the "free" used cooking oil, the filter will help cut out all the food bits and animal fats from the cooking and after a couple of days when I open the tap at the bottom of the butt the good and ready fuel will be transferred to my fuel tank, at this point I will find out if this has been a good money saving experiment or an expensive mistake ! If all is well I shall be collecting more waste oil at the weekend to start building up a decent supply, or catching the train to work !

worried_jim

Have tried to locate a Haynes manual today and it looks like they never made one for diesel engined astras 91-98. I need to know how to change the fuel filter.

greyngone

Jim
Its a 1.7 isuzu engine?... You might want to check with the seller - but is this any kop?... ( Aperently IO cant paste a link on here - but enter this no into an ebay search box - 390012940654 )
Failing that - there must be some Vauxhall forums on the net. if I have any queries with my Saab I have 2 forums I use and they are brill.

By the way, I ran a Shogun on new veg oil - had to swap the filters and clean an injector out after the oil 'cleaned' out the fuel tank. truck ran better, was smoother - did 6k in it before I sold it on to a mate -12 months later he's using dirty derv cos he thinks Im talking crap regarding veg - he is a mechanic?!...but it did the engine no harm.

Good luck!
Paul

fishingcinema

been running a 2001 mercedes A170 on bio, had a few hiccups and find using liquid oil is much smoother than the solid palm oil

the website that another poster has given the link for is a good site with some nice friendly people on with some good advice

if you were to get into making bio diesel and your handy with diy i would not advise buying a processor as they are just silly money
with help and advice of the veg site have a twin tank processor that cost about £250 to build would not pay the silly money like £1500+ for a processor

hope all goes well

Rolandtheroadie

worried_jim wrote: »

Have tried to locate a Haynes manual today and it looks like they never made one for diesel engined astras 91-98. I need to know how to change the fuel filter.

Theres a seperate vauxhall diesel engine haynes manual.


And its the one above.

worried_jim

Have since discovered yesterday that it is not the Iszuzu lump but a GM motor. Am searching the net for further advice.
Cheers for the tips re Haynes manual, they all seem to go up to 1996 n reg, mine is '97 P.

worried_jim

Have got the water butt and have got a 5 micron filter from ebay and as of yesterday I have started making my first batch of free fuel. I filtered one of the cubies over night and this morning the filter was full of solidified fat and the butt lovely golden oil !
I shall leave this to stand until next weekend and then add 10 litres to 40 of dino juice and go for a drive.
A friend knows a mechanic who does "private" jobs at home on the weekend and I may contact him and see if he will do an oil and fuel filter change for me, but at the same time if he'd be willing to teach me how to do it myself so I can change filters when necessary myself in future, I am lead to believe that it is not that hard to do.
I need to get some clean storage containers for my filtered oil which is ready to go, I am thinking of a camping water container.