Originally posted by BloodyTomFlint:


I'm pretty sure, not positive, but pretty sure that a 12 minute segment on Dirty Jobs doesn't cover everything about alternative fuels.



yes yes yes...I'm just saying, watching that segment they had this enviro-hippie dude who popped the hood on his truck and said the only thing he did was change the rubber hoses because the biodiesel was eating them. It was a really old truck though.

Probably the most important thing i've learned from everything i've read about the process of making bio-diesel, is the removal of "sugar" (glucose, fructose, sucrose...whatever is in veggie oil) and other stuff that would gum up in your fuel system/engine.


When searching I found:

Quote:

The central problem in using vegetable oil as diesel fuel is that vegetable oil is much more viscous (thicker) than conventional diesel fuel (petro-diesel, DERV, "dino-diesel"). It's 11 to 17 times thicker. Vegetable oil also has very different chemical properties and combustion characteristics to those of conventional diesel fuel.

If the fuel is too thick it will not atomise properly when the fuel injectors spray it into the combustion chamber and it will not combust properly -- the injectors get coked up, leading to poor performance, higher exhaust emissions and reduced engine life.



http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html

And just looking at a conversion kit for a golf TDI - looks like between 800 and 1500 euros depending on the car.


1999 Silver Frost SVT #609 of 2760 Quaife, lightened SVT Flywheel, SPEC stage II clutch, removed resonator, k&n drop in - various other goodies too.