Biodiesel and SVO in a 90TD

[bigfatsi]

I've (hopefully) sold my Disco and after the demise of my little Fiesta, I am now reduced to the Octavia and the 90. Missus will not, repeat, will not, drive the 90 to work so it's gonna be my daily driver until I find a cheap diesel commuter.

Problem is that it drinks fuel at a ridiculous pace, getting about 80-90 miles on £20. That means my daily 60 mile commute gets bloody expensive!

Hence why I'm thinking about trying SVO and Biodiesel. I'm currently researching making 'proper' biodiesel in the garage (any suggestions or experience welcome) but just to get started I'm debating whether to try a bit of SVO (Straight vegetable oil?) in it to see what happens. I used to own a couple of chippies so I know where to get oil from.

Who has tried it? Will it be ok at 50/50 or do I need more diesel? Am I likely to kill it? I'm not wanting to go messing around with heat exchangers do 100% is out of the question but what is 'safe' as bog standard? Lastly, has anyone in the NE made biodiesel? If so where can I get the Methanol and Lye?

Cheers guys!

Simon.

[Bob696]

SVO .... not realy worth it in imho .... assuming you do it legaly. Filtered SVO sells for about 72p a litre and you have to mix it with regular derv. At this time of year they suggest a max of 20% SVO raising to 50% in the summer so the saving is limited. Of course the savings are more substantial if you want to deny the goverment their war funds.

Bio is another kettle of fish. Runs fine in my 200 Tdi with no mixing and prices range from 64p +. Even better if you make your own and the rumours are the tax people wont be chasing you for tax if you do make your own.

[Leslie Henson]

You can 'dilute' normal diesel with up to 25% of Tesco's finest veg oil and save a few quid or more, depending on mileage.


Les.

[tonycougar]

Its the long term damage that worries me and stops me doing it. I would like to run on veg oil both for the pocket and for the environment, but no-where have I seen any garauntees that it is entirely safe for your engine, and I want mine to last.

[imatyke]

there aren't any guarantees with oils , consider yourself one of the pioneering corp , as for running svo from your local supermarket be warned that bulk buying it over anything they consider to be the normal amounts could find you facing the excise man as you leave (asda if i remember the post correctly from a bio site ) as for paying taxes download the form from gov't site and hold it ready to complete the filling of the amounts with a couple of receipts for your oil as its paid retrospectively and they take us on trust to pay . I have run my 200tdi ,p38 bmw and a pajero 2.5,on it with no problems so far, less smoke and more power ,it burns hotter and reduced emissions, as for chipfat the latest thinking on bio sites says if filtered fine enough then nothing needs to be done further but the old school still do it with methanol to be safe , not tried it either way myself so cannot comment . If you want sites on "how to" just type bio into your browser although i see someone asking about setting it up for alternative fuels in here .

[Edge]

Engine damage........ your engine will last longer being lubricated by veg oil than derv..... (diesel engines were invented to burn oil, not derv) change the fuel filter after a week of 1st using it, as the oil will drag any gunk from the tank/pipes.

[bigfatsi]

Think I'll experiment today.

I'll let you know how it goes. (or doesn't!)

Simon

[rollazuki]

25 to 30% mix with derv runs great in mine(Isuzu 1.7 tdi)

no difference in power
no smoke under load
0 , yes 0 emissions on the mot test
smells great



in fact, I had to fill with regular diesel the other week, and the small was orrible!

[bigfatsi]

Think I'll try 20 litres of Diesel and 10 of rapeseed. What's that...33% Wish me luck.

Simon.

[jamesledingham]

What is the best veg oil to use?

[Leslie Henson]

Don't think there is such a thing as 'best'. You will smell the difference in the exhaust fumes though, so if you filter a drum of used oil from the local kebab shop, expect a queue of drunks to be stood at the side of your truck late at night. I put 3-litres of sunflower oil in 1/4 tank of diesel on a s3 to get it through the emissions that it had previously failed on. It then passed, but you could smell the difference in the exhaust fumes.


Les.

[Edge]

What is the best veg oil to use?

Rapeseed

Be careful with chip shop/restaurant oil.... as most now use soya based oil and not sure how this will react in the engine :shock:
If someone out there can verify whether soya oil can be used... id appreciate it. Cheers :D

[AbyssDJ]

been running our 200tdi anywhere between 25-50% veg oil... had no problems so far, made it quieter, AND cleaned it out and made it run better!

[KevinStorr]

Rapeseed oil is best thinner.

However IMHO Bio Diesel is best . I have read bad things about Veg Derv mixing on the engine. If you want to go down the veg oil route then a proper conversion is the best option. This normally involves a twin tank set-up. Where you start on derv then swap to pureveg oil once everything is up to temp, then before stopping swap back to derv to flush the oil out.
Another method involves heater everything up first and then starting on pure veg. This method seems to normally involve a Kenlow Hotstart to heat every things up to thin the oil.

Using BioDiesel made RME (Rape Methyl Ester) or conforms too EN-14214 EN-14214 is the standard for biodiesel now having recently been finalised by the European Standards organisation.

Depending on the quality of your Bio you can run it 100% apart from at the coldest time when mixing with derv can be recommended or mixing in an anti gelling agent.

No modification required with BioDiesel you could added a heated fuel filter to help things along but in most cases not required.

Only other thing is what engine are you running if it is NA 200 or 300TDi then should be fine. If its a TD5 then perhaps not Landrover only warranty a 5% Blend but you should be safe to 30%. That is is 30% biodiesel 70% derv.

[Leslie Henson]

Anyone know why rapeseed is the best to use?


Les.

[jamesledingham]

read this...

http://www.ravenfamily.org/andyg/vegoil.htm

[Edge]

You will also find, people who have never used veg oil before tend to go along with "You must have a heater and seperate tank fitted" advice... because they dont know any different & believe the hype that it will cause probs if you dont.
Whereas... if you speak to someone who's been mixing it in with derv for years, they'll laugh at the idea of a heater/tank etc being needed.
I ran veg oil/derv 50/50 for many months.... no probs, quieter engine, slightly better acceleration (due to better compression i guess). I suffered a bit of splutter of the engine on the 2nd week... but new fuel filter rectified it.
As abyssdj said, it does seem to make the engine run better.
In Kelso (scottish borders) i saw a guy in the supermarket carpark pouring a litre of veg oil into his pugeot 205.... (later discovered its what most of the boy racers are doing) :shock:  :shock:

[jamesledingham]

off the record so to speak, do those of you on this forum that use vegoil declare it to my tax man?

[Edge]

Definately....

[Range Rover Blues]

I lookes into making bio myself, I have contacts to get SVO at wholesale and apparently if you manufacure small amounts the procedure for paying tax has been simplified, not eradicated.  The mate I share the unit with uses loads of derv every week so it looked a go-er, but now he's found out where to buy Derv from the scrapyard at half price, if they don't sell it on they have to pay to discpose of it apparently :?

[lenrover]

has any one got any plans/diagrams of how to make my own bio diesel?

Dunno whats involved i thought you just put cooking oil in the tank and away you go?

Likeing the 0% emmisions too all from a re-newable source wonder what the   anti 4x4 mob  have to say about that   -come to think of it I bet most of them don't even know

[simonred90]

i have ran straight veg oil and 50%/50% derv, (out of a bottle from tesco @51p per ltre) in my old 200 discovery. actually ran better 50/50. also run 50/50 in my 300 DEF90. again, no problems. savings can be made say, £45 would do me 250miles of DERV. £28 will do the same 50/50 mix. not yet tried bio diesel

[Edge]

"Lenrover Wrote"
has any one got any plans/diagrams of how to make my own bio diesel?

Dunno whats involved i thought you just put cooking oil in the tank and away you go?

Plenty of variations "Here"[/b]

[Tiki Al]

so.... if i'm reading this right i could just pop along to tesco and buy some cooking oil and just pour it in to mix with my derv so long as i change the fuel filter soon after and away i go ?

[AbyssDJ]

so.... if i'm reading this right i could just pop along to tesco and buy some cooking oil and just pour it in to mix with my derv so long as i change the fuel filter soon after and away i go ?

yep :)

[Tiki Al]

where do i have to register with customs to do this ?

[AbyssDJ]

theres some forms... i cant remember the numbers, but if you google "declare vegetable oil as fuel" or something like that, it will find a site that will give you all the details

[jamesledingham]

I've just emailed their general enquiries number.

Any idea how you can order veg oil to be delivered?

More importantly, how soon after you use it (I put 5 litres in last night and then filled the rest of the tank with diesel) will you need to change the fuel filter?

[jamesledingham]

Wow - this is a little scary

http://www.bio-power.co.uk/hmvisit.htm

[bigfatsi]

Wow - this is a little scary

http://www.bio-power.co.uk/hmvisit.htm

Yeah. I haven't tried anything yet and tbh that has put me off a bit. Thing is I don't want to have to go through all that just to try a batch!

Simon.

Maybe time for a rethink...