cooking oil instead of diesel

prosaver

cooking oil instead of diesel
Im thinking of getting a diesel van...is it that simple to use cooking oil instead of diesel....im not bieng funnny but with it be better for my engine if I put olive oil in ?

pogofish

There are a lot of threads about this in the motoring forum.

caroline1973lefty

i understand that some old diesel engines can cope with just neat cooking oil. however it's debatable whether using fresh oil (that needs considerable land and energy to be grown in the first place) is any greener. using recycled oil is by far the greenest biodiesel option. lots of info here including a course and a book, if you want to get into it. i went on one of lili's courses and it was great.
http://www.lowimpact.org/courseoutlinebiodiesel.htm

moonrakerz

caroline1973lefty wrote: »

however it's debatable whether using fresh oil (that needs considerable land and energy to be grown in the first place) is any greener. using recycled oil is by far the greenest biodiesel option.

I would say that the vast majority of people using veg oil really don't care too much about saving the planet - they are trying to save their pocket !

antrobus

prosaver wrote: »

cooking oil instead of diesel
Im thinking of getting a diesel van...is it that simple to use cooking oil instead of diesel....im not bieng funnny but with it be better for my engine if I put olive oil in ?

Well, olive oil is about £3 a litre, so irrespective of whether it's better for your engine or not, I can't see the point given that diesel costs less.

As far as vegetable oil is concerned (about £1 a litre in ASDA), yes you can run a diesel on it, but I think you need to get a conversion done and, so long as you use less than 2500 litres a year, you won't have to pay duty on it. (Otherwise it's about 30p a litre I think.)

See http://www.vegoilmotoring.com/eng/ which has plenty of info on the subject.

worried_jim

You would need an older van from the 1990's to run it on wvo/svo without doing any conversions. Modern diesel engines are common rail and the fuel is injected under high pressure direct to the combustion chamber, as veg is denser then diesel (especially when cold) it will destroy the fuelpump which will cost over £1k to replace.
Older style diesel engines don't have this modern system and are more tolerant to the viscosity of wvo if the pump is manufactured by Bosch (or Denso- Jap copy).In a nutshell you need a van manufactured by a German or French company so VW/Peugout/Citreon/mercedes from the 1990's- This should be your starting point.
I have been running veg in my Astra for two years and you can read all about it (with pictures) on this thread-
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1961265
There are loads of contributions from others doing similar so feel free to post questions and updates us with your progress. Additional excellent technical advice can be got from - http://www.vegetableoildiesel.co.uk/ where there have been people doing it for years and on many commercial vehicles as well.
If you are thinking of getting a more modern vehicle and doing a twin tank conversation then have a look at http://www.biomotors.co.uk/ . Good luck and welcome to the world of veggie motoring and sometimes free fuel !

Dont bother with olive oil unless you can get it for free. Rape or sunflower is the best but any oil will do, I have recently run on a surplus supply of Thai massage oil! But I use anything I can get my hands on, sunflower, Palm, it will all work. You can get additives for colder weather as well such as veggieboost.

gibby

its got so expensive with new veg oil its not worth it now.

If your using waste oil you do need to treat/filter it but its normally older engines that can handle it without a conversion