An interesting article detailing the additional uses for B100. This includes increasing the lubricity of current low sulfur blends, which cause problems for older vehicles.
http://gas2.org/2008/03/26/top-15-unexpected-uses-for-biodiesel/
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Monday, November 26, 2007
Video of the system in action
Here's some video of the monster in action. I'm turning the loop valve on and off and you can see what happens to the pressure as I do that. Also added a switch on the pump housing, which is nicer than plugging in a cord.
Second Pass Filter Set-Up
I tackled the second problem first. With the filler hole in the reservoir acting as the intake on the pump, I was free to create a loop with the high and low pressure lines. With a tee in the loop going to the filter (with a newly added pressure gauge so I could monitor it) and a ball valve on the loop, I could throttle how much pressure was generated at the filter. This system worked well, but even with the ball valve wide open, the filter was still seeing close to 20 psi.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Too Much Pressure
After a lengthy debate with friends regarding pumps and which would be most appropriate for pushing waste vegetable oil through tiny filters, I finally decided on a course of action. Browsing the internet late at night I stumbled across a picture of a set-up where a power steering pump was being used to filter oil through a centrifuge filter.
As far as I know centrifuge filters are barrels with a funnel on the bottom. Waste oil is pushed against the wall at high pressure and particles in the stream fall towards the bottom while clean oil is collected higher up on the wall of the apparatus. That's my current best guess on this type of filter. I'll do some more research about them when I've got my current filter set-up sorted out.
First filter design
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Low sulfur diesel shrinks seals
Here's a technical bulletin put out by Chevron about how the new low sulfur diesel blends are causing fuel leaks in older vehicles. The new fuel mix causes the old stiff seals on these cars to shrink and leak.
http://www.chevron.com/products/prodserv/fuels/diesel/documents/elastomer_chevron_tb_2005Aug.pdf
Interestingly enough another article that I read but can't find right now stated that fleet managers in California were blending bio-diesel with the ultra low sulfur fossil fuels to offset this shrinkage. They're doing this because bio-diesel and vegi oil cause the opposite behavior in seals, making them expand.
Now, I'm not absolutely sure about this, but my 84 wagon was a bit of a smoker on start-up. After converting it and running two tanks of vegi oil, I've noticed that it's stopped smoking. No more James Bond, even on cold start accelerations. I'm assuming this is because the vegi oil caused seals in the system to swell and reduce leakage. I'm also assuming that the seals that swelled were the valve stem seals. There could be some seals in the injector pump, but I don't know anything about the insides of that thing.
I'll try to find that article on mixing blends.
http://www.chevron.com/products/prodserv/fuels/diesel/documents/elastomer_chevron_tb_2005Aug.pdf
Interestingly enough another article that I read but can't find right now stated that fleet managers in California were blending bio-diesel with the ultra low sulfur fossil fuels to offset this shrinkage. They're doing this because bio-diesel and vegi oil cause the opposite behavior in seals, making them expand.
Now, I'm not absolutely sure about this, but my 84 wagon was a bit of a smoker on start-up. After converting it and running two tanks of vegi oil, I've noticed that it's stopped smoking. No more James Bond, even on cold start accelerations. I'm assuming this is because the vegi oil caused seals in the system to swell and reduce leakage. I'm also assuming that the seals that swelled were the valve stem seals. There could be some seals in the injector pump, but I don't know anything about the insides of that thing.
I'll try to find that article on mixing blends.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Clean diesel is coming
Here's an article about a Honda car that gets 60mpg and does it by using clean diesel technology. I've been waiting for years for the car manufacturers to start rolling these things out. The technology is fairly old at this point. And in a dramatic surprise, the manufacturer is foreign, not domestic.
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