After a successful trip down Ebay lane, another (used but swapable) pump has arrived. This should enable me to run the car and correct any imperfections with the original conversion. Having had time to think, a few possibilities spring to mind as to why the pump failed after so much excellent running.
a. The WVO was too cool (about 40 degreesC).
b. It wasn't filtered fine enough.
c. The addition of a heated fuel filter would have helped greatly.
d. Add a pre-heater.
d. A combination of a, b and c.
I was quoted a price of £500, yes £500 to REFURBISH the existing fuel pump! The Ebay unit cost £215, inc. postage.
It pains me to say that all is not well with the conversion! It turns out that the injector pump has failed (probably clogged up due to running on WVO that was too cool). I attempted to run the car on just diesel as my journeys were not long enough to warrant running on WVO. After 30 minutes of running, the revs dropped of to nothing and the car would not start until it had cooled down. After trying this a number of times, you could set your watch by this.
A quick test is to run the car until it stops, run a flow of cold water over the pump for a few minutes which should force rapid cooling. If the car fires up immediately then the trouble lies with the pump. Unfortunately this did indeed happen.
It appears that any deposits left inside the pump are expanding as it heats up, strangling further fuel flow.
Yes, Mr May has a point when he describes the changing colour of England. On a recent trip from Inverness to Southend, the countryside does look like it has been dipped in paint. However I agree and yet disagree with the anti-biodiesel slant of his article. He says "...it doesn't smell right..."
I have made and used biodiesel quite frequently over the past two odd years and I can't say I've noticed any peculiar smell, but if it does have a fragrance it must be preferable to the acrid fumes pouring out the back of a bus into your face, when using that other great means of urban eco friendly transport namely the bicycle.
On the disagreement side, making biodiesel from fresh vegetable oil is so easy. Making bread is more involved, but the days of cheap new oil are over. Two years ago 3 litres of Tesco oil was £1.41 now it is £3.59! Making biodiesel from waste veg. oil is the cheap way but 20% methanol is required, a titration check to test the fatty acid content is required and the results are not guaranteed. I attempted to make a batch a week ago and ended up with 15Kg of soap!
The conversion mentioned in this blog is by far the simlpest way of running for free. Find it, heat it, filter it and pump or pour it in.
Being fed up with the science fiction price of fuel, I decided enough was enough! The moaning and groaning was getting boring and it was time to do something about this ludicrous situation. As £1.35 per litre for diesel was the last straw, I decided to investigate Joshua Tickells book "From The Fryer To The Fuel Tank" and convert my VW Golf Mk3 to a "Dual Fuel" car.
The book is very inspiring and me being me, I didn't want to perform open heart surgery on my pride and joy, old though she is so I designed an electric method of heating the oil instead of using the cars own heating system. This was proving to be very complex and did not guarantee any certainty of success. Reading Joshuas book gave me confidence that at least he has had success and with VW's to boot. Once I had a good idea where everything was going to fit in the car, the rest more or less fell into place. The Goodyear radiator hose, together with the Pollack valve, fuel tank and a temperature gauge was duly obtained through ebay. All the other bits and pieces were obtained locally from various harware outlets.
If you are warm, have a pulse and can follow a simple diagram this is acheivable! A few tips though. Have a pleantiful supply of worm drive hose clips in various sizes. Reinforced (braided) plastic tubing, preferably clear or at least translucent will help if any problems arise with the plumbing. Nothing like seeing what is going on....or not going on. Don't skimp with cheap tubing as it will fail when it gets hot believe me. Be generous with the measurements, especially when running the heat exchanger hose assembly from the back to the front of the car. Floods of tears will be avoided if a bit extra is used rather a bit less.
The only specialised part of this conversion was using standard 15mm copper tube, a blowlamp, flux and solder to fabricate the internal fuel tank radiator and finish off the tee junctions and tube reducers needed at both ends of the heat exchanger. Joshuas book describes this construction in great detail, but in the land of the free, pipe couplings are much easier to come by than in the UK. Just describing some of these parts to a local hydraulic supply store raised some eybrows. Wotsa 3/4" to 1/2" nipple adaptor? Sounds painful! Improvisation rules!!!
The radiator hose was 22mm internal diameter and this had an 8mm external diameter copper tube running down the centre. I used 22 to 15mm soldered reducers then a 15 to 8mm compression fitting to secure the copper tube that would become the fuel supply line. The other tee pieces were straight forward 22-15-22mm items off the shelf.
Practice with a gash piece of copper pipe and some fittings until you get it right. It pays dividends, safety precautions being taken of course.
The fermenting bin in the picture is fitted with two kettle elements. It was (and still is) instrumental in producing biodiesel. It proved to be excellent for heating up filtered waste oil and feeding it directly into the injector pump. It was obviously a success as this blog wouldn't exist if it wasn't! The rear car seats are visible in the background. They had to be removed to make way for the supply and return tubing which run through the rear seat base. To avoid serious pinching of the tubes, they had to be modified also. More hacksaw work!
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July, 2008