Vegetable Oil SVO WVO waste cooking oil as biofuel

[othello]

I am still going thru the various experiments and procedures to filter my oil, but without going into those details I would like to know, from people who have been doing this for some time, how long does your grease filter last??

The regular diesel filter on my car has a 10,000 mile change intervall, which means it roughly filters 400 gallons of diesel before it should be discarded, if needed or not.

Greasecar, the maker of my kit, talks about change intervalls of 300 to a couple of thousand miles. My filters want to be changed after 600 miles or so.

Which seems to indicate to me that by comparison to commercial diesel I am doing a terrible job of cleaning my oil and I wonder what other people's experience is.

[SunWizard]

Mine lasts >10,000 miles on my truck and mercedes.

[coachgeo]

How many times you switched that fuel filter at around 600 miles?

Sun did you have a higher filter change rate at first? Asking cause Im wondering if he is getting some tank and old fuel line cleaning going on thus higher interval of changes. I know WVO does not create the clean affect as much as Bio-D does... but it does some.

[SunWizard]

Sun did you have a higher filter change rate at first?

No.

Asking cause Im wondering if he is getting some tank and old fuel line cleaning going on thus higher interval of changes. I know WVO does not create the clean affect as much as Bio-D does... but it does some.

Yes that makes sense.

[SunWizard]

My filters want to be changed after 600 miles or so.

That sounds like either suspended water or PHO since its so fast. Do you hot pan test each batch?

[othello]

Yes, there is a water issue.

What is PHO?

I am trying to get to the water issue by putting a deep vacuum on the whole tank, we will see how that pans out.

[David]

I was getting so much Diesel crap from my 2 mercs coming through after a couple of weeks on veg and bio/ULPblend, I was changing filters every day!
When it got to that stage I took the shortcut and pulled the tanks out and cleaned them. As it turned out, I never bothered putting them back in, just stuck with the temporary tank which were cubees.

Gave me lots more room in the boot and I only ever had to take an extra one for as far as I ever went in one go.

There are lots easier, more economical ways of drying oil that vaccing and there have been hundreds of pages written on the dryingyou can look up and investigate.

[SunWizard]

What is PHO?

Partially hydrogenated oil. It looks creamy/gravy and settles to the bottom after enough time. Same with animal fats. It plugs filters if you don't have enough heat (=greasecar.)

[othello]

Well, SunWizard, that could explain a lot.
I have become very meticulous, I think, in preparing and filtering my oil, but being new and getting oil from a variety of sources I would not be so sure yet about my ability to spot PHO.
And I see from your description that I have probably used some.

And do I understand from your description that PHO does not become 'good' oil, even after you subject it to careful filtering!?!

[John Galt]

Hydrogenated Oil also holds moisture more effectively than clear oil. That's why hydrogenation was developed to make a stable emulsion of water and oil that would be a solid substitute for lard and butter. If the UVO is chilled below 50°F to settle out the HO, PHO, and fats then it will be much easier to get it dry. The people who have the most trouble getting their UVO to dry are processing in temperatures above 50°F and the water absorbing components never settle out since they stay melted and dissolved in the clear oil.
That's why I use cold upflow http://www.burnveg.com/forum/about9.html to process my UVO and I never have problems passing the moisture tests for dry oil.http://www.burnveg.com/forum/about72.html

A lot of people use extremely well filtered wet UVO for vehicle fuel and they end up with all sorts of filter clogging problems as well as IP and injector problems.

[othello]

After SunWizard explained PHO I am trying to guess what UVO could mean.

And John, thanks for your explanation.

After less than desirable results with my oil, in spite of careful efforts, I took my last 3 grease filters out of the car, forensically opened them and tried to see what lead to their early demise.

Unfortunately I did not really get an answer. They sit in a jar with clear alcohol and have clouded the solution in a very minor way, nothing like I would expect given the performance.

Which leads me to the question in what fashion does this oil, which I may have gotten a bit of, clog filters. Is it a temperature effect as SunWizard seems to indicate? My Mercedes runs nice and toasty at above 80 C, so one would expect the oil to be liquid.
Or is it that they oil contains more particulate matter, my test does not seem to indicate this.

And yes, I do a hot pan test which to me, unexperienced as I am, seems to be ok. On occasion there is, if viewed in the right light, a slight pertubation of the oil surface, what appears to be possibly a microscopic bursting of water, no popping or otherwise obvious signs of water.

[SunWizard]

And do I understand from your description that PHO does not become 'good' oil, even after you subject it to careful filtering!?!

Its great VO, I use it about half the time. But it can clog filters unless its hot >120F. Do you have a VO temp guage thats reading 80C? Your coolant can hit 80C, and without a FPHE, your VO will take hours to get hot enough with greasecar.

Popping isn't what you look for in a HPT, you need to re-read how that test works. How do you know there is a water issue if the HPT looks ok?

[othello]

Ok you gyus, yopu are doing this on purpose:

...After SunWizard explained PHO I am trying to guess what UVO could mean. ...

Now you add two more terms, FPHE and HPT.

I'd love to understand what you told me in your post, but these abreviations need translation.

The part I did understand, by SunWizard, is the question regarding the oil temp.
I actually called Greasecar and asked them about this a while back. Their response was that there is no worry, once the engine temp is high enough the oil temp will be the same.

But you are right, that is the hope or the design intend, measuring the actual temp is better.

I asked Greasecar if they had a temp gauge for that purpose, all they had was a $400 computer control center which I did not feel like buying. If I would know where I should hook up a temp gauge myself, then I could answer SunWizard's question.

[SunWizard]

Now you add two more terms, FPHE and HPT.

I'd love to understand what you told me in your post, but these abreviations need translation.

See Beginners section and FAQ:
Vege-speak Abbreviation list

The part I did understand, by SunWizard, is the question regarding the oil temp.
I actually called Greasecar and asked them about this a while back. Their response was that there is no worry, once the engine temp is high enough the oil temp will be the same.

Untrue on every greasecar setup I have seen. Especially inside the filter which is where PHO clogs form.

If I would know where I should hook up a temp gauge myself, then I could answer SunWizard's question.

In the fuel line before the IP is a good place since thats the last place you can check it.

[othello]

I got myself an electric temp gauge to check the grease temperature and I have to note two things.

For one SunWizard is right, at the coolant temperature the Greasecar rep told me to switch to grease, my grease is not even luke warm, I am running my car, at least right after the recommended switch over, with cold grease!

I found that out by painstakingly measuring the temps with an external temp gauge.

Now, regarding the position of the grease thermometer, this is not trivial. I need grease flow over my probe to measure the temperature. Which means, in a way, that I switch on grease for a while to see if the temp is up there, if not I switch back.
Just integrating the temp sensor in the grease line will always give me a very low temp since there is no flow of warmed up grease.

How do other people solve this??