Hello all,
Been running my vw golf off veggie for about 40k miles now with good success.
I am currently looking at purchasing a Van with a 1981 5 cylinder Air-cooled Deutz diesel, I believe it is the f5l912.
Very hard to find information on this engine. I was wondering if any of you had any advice on installing a veggie system on a air cooled system. I believe the Deutz diesel is Direct Injection, but capable of handling a diverse range of fuels, not like the new DI engines, but I could be wrong.
To supply heat to the oil I was considering an exhaust system, I know that they have been much discussed here, and i am aware of most of the critique's against them.
I was considering a glycol system heated by the exhaust, which would then be piped through a heat exchanger to actually heat the oil. Some of the veggie powered lister gensets have done this. To prevent overheating the glycol I might need to install a waste gate on the exhaust system to be able to control the flow of the exhaust. Or possibly a drainback system, although I can't think of a way around boiling off the glycol as soon as you turn the pump back on.
Another, and possibly simpler method of heating the veggie would be to use the motor oil. A heat exchanger that the engine oil is piped through would cool the motor oil and heat the veggie oil.
Anyone one have much experience with this, thoughts on feasibility?
Anyone know anything more about these older Deutz diesels?
Thanks for your input, your suggestions.
Lebn

Sounds interesting but scavaging oil to a heat exchanger could prove difficult and fatal to the engine. You may want to modify your oil pan to a much larger one. Just a thought

Interesting engine.
Is this a Volkswagen, or something else?

If you choose to heat off of the exhaust, it would probably be easier to control to do a two-stage heat exchanger.

Exhaust to Water/Antifreeze
Water/Antifreeze to Fuel

If you want higher temps, there is some similarity between brake fluid and antifreeze, but a higher BP.

A few other options:

• You could use pure electric preheating, although this would require more energy.
  
• It might be possible to make a heat sink that would go from the block to surround the fuel lines, although I can't imagine it would be too easy to make.

An oil heat exchanger as mentioned might be good too.

Once I get a car that I will be comfortable "playing with", I intend to build a "dry-sump" and feed my fuel (veggie/B100) through the crankcase as lube, and then use it as fuel.

Have you talked with a Deutz dealer? If not, check around for some of the generator people. A friend who services the diesel powerplant market here in town is a Deutz dealer and swears by these engines. They use them here in the south to drive water pumps all summer long in the heat humidity. From what I can gather, they are great engines.

We've been talking about modifying one of his to run on WVO. I'll keep you posted if we ever do.

With regard to your glycol system, I like the idea of having a filled system surrounding the exhaust or some means to drain it completely. To me, it's an either/or. Either have a glycol system filled and constantly circulating to prevent cooking the heat transfer fluid or drain it out entirely after running.

Just a thought, attaching a piece of tubing to exhaust and then circulating fluid through it to either a heat exchanger or the fuel itself. Experimenting on size of tube and volume pumped I would think keep the temps reasonable.

I did the tubing around the exhaust on an Isuzu Diesel years ago. Worked good, you just have to wrap the tubing close to the pipe. 1/4 or 5/16 was about as big as I could get to work. Any bigger would kink. If you have a bender that would better. The only problem was i didn't want to remove the pipe from the p'up so I had to bend the tubing with the pipe still on the truck. Also if you clamp the tubing with hose clamps and cover the whole mess with some kind of insulation it'll work better since everything will expand away from the exhaust pipe then you won't have a good contact which equals not good heat transfer. I even tried filling the tubing with salt to help bending the tubing. Still kinked!!

Wow, thanks for all the quick responses guys.
in response to your comments:
-Charley Davidson-
hmm, i could add a drain pan extender, but i doubt they are made for this engine and sounds difficult to put together. I was thinking of pulling the oil from the drain plug, putting a pump on a loop that would go through a heat exchanger. As long as the loop was well sealed and I would be sure to have a oil pressure gauge on the system I think it could be done safely, any ideas why not? My concern would be in the vibration of the exhaust system eventually cracking the copper tubing.
-keelec-
volkswagen did make air-cooled engines, but i don't think they ever did air-cooled diesels, it's a deutz engine, deutz, they have been around forever, building some of the first diesels over in europe. Over here they are mostly used in industrial equipment, generators, and tractors.
If I go for heat off the exhaust I would be using a closed loop heat exchanger system, similar to how we all heat our oil with coolant.
I had not thought of using brake fluid, it does have a higher boiling point, in the 350 range versus around 270 or so for a high concentration of glycol. Anyone have any suggestions on why not to use brake fluid except that it is more caustic, more expensive, and hydroscopic. How does it interact with copper?
I would consider electric only heat, but I was thinking it would not be possibly to adequately heat the oil with electric only especially cause I will be in climates that see freezing temperatures.
-Todd T-
I have not called deutz yet, I should do that. I'll try to look up and see if there is anyone around here that works with them. I too have hear great things about these engines in terms of reliability, ease of repair, and longevity, otherwise I would not be considering this due to the extra hassle.
-dyoungen-
In your Isuzu were you running your oil through the copper around the exhaust pipe? Temperatures did not get too hot? Or were you using another fluid and a heat exchanger?

It seems like a few people have gone the exhaust route, anyone try using motor oil heat? Or do you guys think it would be too risky to mess with your motor oil, certainly wouldn't want to lose oil suddenly while driving.

Thanks for all the input guys, look forward to more ideas.
Lebn

Try getting in touch (PM) with bmwfan. Klaus has a lot more experience than most with German engines.

Instead of pumping oil out of your oil pan which I think is very risky, have someone install a coolant line through the bottom of the oil pan zig zaging it back and forth then back out to form a loop. A good fabricator could do this or a modified version of this idea.

Get one of those oil filter heat exchangers like VW uses and pump coolant fluid through it to safely extract the heat from the oil.

I haven't got any experience specifically with Deutz but I do have a hatz and a couple of Yanmar Copies. They all run fine on clear, dry WVO with no heating at all.

The first thing you have to take into account is that the IP's on these engines are not at all like those on a vehicle and therefore the same rules do not apply.

These engines all run a very simple plunger type IP which is spring loaded and runs on a cam. There is nothing to break in these pumps as the are just a plunger and the amount of fuel is controlled by the cam. When there is less fuel required, the spring is just compressed more. At worst, running oil which was too thick would cause a lack of power rather than do any damage to the pump or injector.

As the pumps on all the engines I have are actually mounted inside the crankcase, the fuel gets plenty hot simply through the radiation of heat through the engine oil and being mounted to the engine proper. As such, any fuel going through the pump will be warmed up to engine temp as it passes through.

Heating the fuel would be useless without then looking at the pipe that then runs t the injector. There is nothing practical you can do to heat this but I have observed on my engines it also runs plenty hot. the best you could do here is to insulate them to save the heat they already have but this is unnecessary IMHO.

As for the injector, try running the engine under reasonable load for 10 minutes and then touching the injector. If you can hold your finger on it for more than a split second, you have far more heat resistant fingers than I do!

What I would do is just set up a 2 tank system with a cheap 3 way manual valve like available from marine shops. Just warm the engine up on Dino or Bio and then switch over to the oil and vice versa for shutdown.

These engines and their IP's are not at all like those found on vehicles so do not have the same requirements for heating the oil. Once the engine is up to temp, any oil running through the fuel system will also be plenty hot.

If you still want to go that road, you don't need to go to something as complicated and impractical as using some sort of fluid medium.

Wrapping the exhaust is perfectly safe. Get a bit of asbestos type lagging and put a layer around the pipe. Wrap a coil of 1/4" copper around the pipe and re wrap with the lagging.
For some reason I can't fathom, people seem to thing that the exhaust is automatically going to heat the oil to 500oC because that is the exhaust temp. If that were the case, there would be no need for more than a 1 plate FPHE.

The amount of heat you get depends on contact/ Surface area so you can fine tune the heat of your oil by the amount of wraps you put around the exhaust. Exhaust heat will vary, but you don't need to to have the oil at an exact temp, you have at very least 50oC margin, probably a lot more.

With the engine being air cooled, you could also put a wrap of copper line around the barrel between the cooling fins. I wouldn't put it between more than one or two fins but if you put it in good and tight, once around should be fine.

Again, based on practical experience and having pulled the pumps apart, I see no need for heating the oil in these engines what so ever but if you feel the need to do so, keep it simple and practical and use your logic as to what is really needed on such a setup.

quote:

lebnjay

- Those Deutz engines are very durable engines . Could you please post some pics of the engine in that VW Van . - Thanks

I try to stick to the question about the DEUTZ engine for VEHICLES

I own a farm tractor Deutz Intrac model 2004 for many years and run the engine on veggie.
I have shown the tractor during our “ Get together on Veggie “

The engine is A F4L912 meaning a 4 Cylinder version. DI but INLINE pump.
Lebn’s engine is a F5L912 , same style.
I include a picture of the engine which also shows a INLINE injector pump ideal for use with veggie. Second picture shows the mechanical pre-pump.
All the talk about using exhaust heat is nice but not productive and also dangerous.
The temp fluctuation is just not controllable.
Just cut into the lines going into your engines oil cooler and feet an FPHE.
That’s all. More heat then you ever need.

All parts for this engine are available in the US, Canada, Germany, China, India …all over the world

BMW Fan

http://www.crawldog.com/klausold/

BMW Fan

http://www.crawldog.com/klausold/

I missed the realization about this being a 5 cyl engine with an inline pump.

That being the case, I would say the normal veg oil rules definitely apply.

OK guys I worked for a Deutz Dealer here in Ca.

1. The pic of the engine needs to show me a better view of the back half of the injection pump as they made 2 styles of pumps. The pic looks like a pump for a industrial engine and not an automotive one. The automotive one has a large cyl. coming off the back of the inj. pump and it also has a special inj. pump gear inside the front cover that adv. the timing as the engine rpm increases.

2. As for the heating of the oil the Iveco Trucks that used this engine had a special oil filter base that had lines and a valve coming from it to heat the cab using engine oil.

3. If this engine is going to be used in a cold area, remember if it doesn't have glow plugs on the heads it might be a little
hard to start at times. Now saying that Iveco used a special heating element on the intake manifold that would heat some fuel and let it go in the intakes to help with this, but if this part fails you will burn the rear cyl piston from over fueling.

I have the manuals for this and other Deutz engines from a small 1 cyl to the v12 twin turbo inter-cooled engines

Those are excellent engines. I used to work on a similar Deutz in some older Kassbohrer snow cats. One interesting thing about them is that they do not use a headgasket, it's metal to metal.

I have a little Yanmar aircooled in a generator. It has a plenum to exhaust hot air from engine (and exhaust also runs through it) I installed a Trans cooler in it and it works fine. I remember that the Duetz has a similar plenum, maybe you can install an HE in there?

As mentioned above, recovering engine oil heat could also work, there is probably some plugged ports on the block you could tap into for a FPHE?

Actually, after closer reading above post that oil filter adaptor for the cabin heater sounds like the way to go.

If your in a cool climate, I would 2 tank it. If in a warm climate, maybe just run a light blend?

You should make sure you monitor cyl head temp and oil temp so you do not accidently overheat it.
I had an Iveco 14' flatbed truck with a water cooled Deutz engine - the engine and drive train were good but the rest of the truck needed work, it was a rusty lobster truck from ME. It was scary expensive to work on so I got rid of it. It was a cool truck though, I kinda regret selling it.


Sounds like a cool van.