Living with a Greasecar.....updated

Real quick for those that don't know, and the fewer who actually care, I have a 92 Mercedes 300D that runs off waste vegitable oil (WVO from here on out). In a nutshell the car has two fuel systems, the stock diesel tank, lines, filter, pump and injectors and a second tank, lines and filter and two switches to handle it. I start driving on diesel till the engine warms up (that is warming the WVO as I drive) then switch over to grease. When I get to my destination I then switch back over to diesel to purge the pump, injectors and short runs of fuel lines of grease.
It's been great with no problems at all (nearly 50K on grease). Now on to the update.....
Since my last post about my greasecar, of frybrid car I've completed an entire new filtering setup.

I didn't want to put up with multiple pumps, filters and screens to get my oil clean. The pumps live a short live unless you pony up the big bucks, even then they don't last very long pumping dirty WVO on a cold winter day here in Michigan. Filters can get expensive and you can clog up a filter on the first pass if you get a crudy batch of WVO. I just didn't want to follow the same path I've seen others struggle with. So, I'll run through my collection, filtering and filling process.
I took an old 12 gallon air compressor and took off the engine and compressor, installed a vacuum/pressure gauge on it. Then I removed the huge plug fitting from the bottom and, using PVC pipe and some ring/groove quick disconnect fittings made a suck-it hose and wand. So, using a vacuum pump I pull about 25 inches of vacuum on the tank. Load the tank in my trunk and drive to the restaurant. Connect my vacuum hose, dip it in the dumpster and open the ball valve. In about 3 minutes I have 11 gallons of WVO in a tank in my trunk. I then go home and hook up my shop air. !0 psi and 2 minutes later my compressor tank is emptied into the pre-filtered barrel (top barrel in the picture). When I'm ready to filter I throw two switches on the wall to turn on the heater and the centrifuge and open the valve to the centrifuge. The WVO gravity feeds through the CF and into my filtered barrel.
When it's time to fill the tank in the car (it's in the trunk, see my other post for pics) I back the car to the garage put the hose in the tank and turn on the only electric pump I use. 3 or 4 minutes later I have 10 + gallons of clean, burnable fuel ready to go.
Here's a few pics of the filtering set up.
Whole setup:

Here's the centrifuge:

And the HF clear water pump that pumps into my car:

The centrifuge spins at about 3800 rpm and puts about 1200G's on the grease, thus separating it. It's about a .5 micron filtering and dewatering at the same time. Here's a few pics of some particularly nasty grease:

I let some of that settle for about 2 weeks just to see what kind of crap settles out. You can see the nasty grease in the jar on the left (notice the bottom half??) and in the jar on the right is after the centrifuge process:

I have to make a correction about my last update. I goofed in my record keeping. It looks like I'll get somewhere just over 3,000 miles from a tank of diesel (17 gallons) not the 4,200 I (may have) gotten last time. I'm not 100% sure on those numbers (they seem too good). The weather is colder and that effects my switch-over time but I still think 4,200 was a mistake. Even so, 3,000 to 3,500 out of 17 gallons of diesel is great in my book.

Cool. BTW, on the big ships, they use a centrifuge oil purifier for the lube oil filter ("motor oil.")

cool

Are you getting your WVO for free? If so, how did you talk the establishment into doing so?

dyintorace wrote: Are you getting your WVO for free? If so, how did you talk the establishment into doing so?

Yes, right now I'm getting all my oil for free. I just approach the business owner and ask them how they dispose of the grease they use (at this point I've already looked for a grease dumpster out back, that way I know what I'm up against). If they tell me it's one of the major rendoring compaies I ask if they are paying them for the grease. Since I'm looking at the smaller restaurants they usually aren't being paid for it. It's either a free service or they are paying to have it hauled away. At this point, if I present myself in a professional manner they are usually up for it. I'll tell them to give me two months and if I'm doing what they want they have no reason to go back. I need more grease now since my commute is farther away and I expect to have to pay for it. Usually it's about .20 to .30 cents a gallon. Getting the account is a little tougher though. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for the update. Interesting!

176mpg? on the biodiesel? Even with the switching over from "pure" diesel, that's still, very impressive mileage. Regardless, really interesting to read about someone who has been actually obtaining, making, and then using home made biodiesel. Keep up with the posts, especially in the cold months.

I don't think he's getting 176 mpg, but that he has only bought that much diesel, covering the rest of the distance on free grease.

Do you have a way to pay the federal and state highway taxes? (not complaining, just wondering if there is a method to do this yet) Or does the government see WVO and Full electric cars as either a) not worth getting tax revenue from or b) "subsidizing" these alternative fuels.

Triumph, I'm not running biodiesel. I'm running straight grease. Bio was too much a hassle IMO. I filter it like you would with bio and put it in my tank. No science experements to hassle with.
And nocones, as far as I know it's legal in MI to run WVO as fuel (some states it's illegal, but so is peeing in the woods) but I have yet to discover a way to pay the road tax. I talked to a guy who is using waaaay more grease than me and since it's for his business he wanted to cross all his t's and dot his i's. He called the state (MI) and they had no idea who he could send a check to for his road taxes.
I'm not probing real hard though. I figure it's no different than running a hybrid car. When they are on batter power or batter assist they aren't paying road tax either.

I'm amazed. Great and ingenious setup. I'm sure googlers looking for this will end up here.

DrBoost wrote: Triumph, I'm not running biodiesel. I'm running straight grease. Bio was too much a hassle IMO. I filter it like you would with bio and put it in my tank. No science experements to hassle with. And nocones, as far as I know it's legal in MI to run WVO as fuel (some states it's illegal, but so is peeing in the woods) but I have yet to discover a way to pay the road tax. I talked to a guy who is using waaaay more grease than me and since it's for his business he wanted to cross all his t's and dot his i's. He called the state (MI) and they had no idea who he could send a check to for his road taxes. I'm not probing real hard though. I figure it's no different than running a hybrid car. When they are on batter power or batter assist they aren't paying road tax either.

Actually, it's closer to bewing and distilling your own E100. Which, with an easy to get license, is also legal. (a license to make drinkable liquor is very hard and expensive, the same license to make fuel liquor is quite different).

I've been tempted to distill some bad wine I made, but it would only result in about 2 gal of E100.

Or a plug in hybrid/ full EV.

The basic hybrids still pay road tax since they buy the fuel for all of the vehicle movement. They just get a break for being efficient.

EDIT- just thought of this- to make real bio-diesel, you have to treat it with Methanol, right? Wonder if you can adapt that to make your own Ethanol? (I know, WVO is the project- I'm just dreaming)

Alphadriver, I've kicked that idea around a little bit. I keep having people tell me I should do a hydrogen generator for the wife's van. Haven't really looked into it though.

Have you tried to pay the federal tax atleast? 18.4 cents or something like that goes to Uncle Sam.

ignorant wrote: Have you tried to pay the federal tax atleast? 18.4 cents or something like that goes to Uncle Sam.

Personally I've only made one call. A guy I know has made many calls. The state has no idea how he could pay his road tax. He's being pretty smart about it, documenting his calls and putting his road tax money in an escrow account. It's for his business so he doesn't want to loose his business because of something stupid like this.

Doc- does that '92 have any emissions hardware on it?

I'm more curious if there's any exhaust aftertreatment, and if the WVO is causing any issues. If not- no biggie- car may not have come with them...

E-

Nah, that's one of the reasons the W124 chassis is the bestest. No emissions stuff, nothing to be bothered by it. Just grease and go.