Here are a few pictures of my conversion in progress. First is underneath the driver's side of the vehicle, the custom tank along the frame rail. It's black so it blends in, I painted it with roll-on bedliner from Walmart. The stuff on the front of the tank is a FPHE to both boost heat before the fuel pump, and transfer some heat to the fuel tank in front where the fuel pickups are.

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This is the hose on hose coming up over the brake master cylinder and around to the veggie filter/FPHE. I used aluminum fuel line for the HOH.

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Here's a shot of the veggie filter (PermaCool) with heater hose wrap, and the 26 plate FPHE. The red stuff is high heat silicone, I used it to glue the heater hose together so it stays in the nice wrap it's in. I hope that works, we'll see if it stays.

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I am 99 percent sure the high temp "glue" will not work.

Has anyone made that hose wrap out of aluminum? Has anyone tried making that filter wrap out of injection line heaters? I mean successfully.

I still can't find the return line for my 6.5L Suburban (except under the car) Can anyone help? I would like to tap into it as close to the IP as possible.

quote:

Originally posted by B.K. Hosken:
I still can't find the return line for my 6.5L Suburban (except under the car) Can anyone help? I would like to tap into it as close to the IP as possible.

i have 1994 K3500 with a 6.5 TD. you have to take off the top of the intake manifold, and turbo duct work. dont get too worried, it only takes a few minutes with air tools. the plumbing you are looking for would best be tied into in this area as it is always hot under hear. so hot that the PMD mounted on the side of the pump always goes bad. put in a check valve between your fuel filter housing and your pump so you don't get oil in your filter too. also, by an extension kit to relocated your PMD (Fuels solenoid driver) away from the pump and allthat heat. if it hasn't gone bad yet, it will. I have replaced 3 of them on my truck, and finally relocated it and have no problems anymore.

quote:

Originally posted by maddasher:
I am 99 percent sure the high temp "glue" will not work.

Has anyone made that hose wrap out of aluminum? Has anyone tried making that filter wrap out of injection line heaters? I mean successfully.

3/8 soft copper tubing works really well for similar filters (engine oil). it is a bit pricy anymore though. the benefits are:With hydraulic adapters the heat lines can be ported into and out of the heads and block rather than tying into the heater hose lines. Copper transfers head really well too. Down falls are that the fixture has to be mounted on the engine, other wise all the rattling and shimmering of the engine will work the plumbing loose or break it. better heat to filter transfer though.

quote:

Originally posted by maddasher:
Has anyone tried making that filter wrap out of injection line heaters? I mean successfully.

I bought a spool of heater wire from pelican wire. I made my injection line heaters (installed, but not wired in yet) and 100W worth of fuel filter heater for my MB. The fuel filter heater is wired in.

-Jim

Noel, if I don't put a check valve in the line between the IP and diesel fuel filter, you think it will let veggie back up into those lines? There's a check valve in the fuel pump, so I would think it will act to keep the veggie out of the diesel lines...

OK, got my fuel pump today and put it in, and mounted the VO Control console and ran the wires into the engine bay. Now I just need to mount the relays and wiring in the engine area, then last thing is cut into the heater hoses and fuel lines to finalize the conversion. Might make it by the end of the month!

Very nice looking tank installation. Like the idea of sticking a FPHE next to pickups in tanks for heat purposes. I keep looking at the small cabover Isuzu's or Chevys box trucks they have all sorts of holes predrilled in frame to mount any number of tanks and whatnot, thought one might be nice to convert, except the engines don't seem to hold up well.

quote:

Originally posted by B.K. Hosken:
Noel, if I don't put a check valve in the line between the IP and diesel fuel filter, you think it will let veggie back up into those lines? There's a check valve in the fuel pump, so I would think it will act to keep the veggie out of the diesel lines...

I guess I always over-engineer everything. Your right, the fuel will stay inplace, but I guess it is a matter of preference of if you want some vegeoil creeping into your filter or not. The petro will probably thin anything down that gets in there anyway, so it shouldn't create a problem.

One thing to consider, however, is the strength of the check volve in the transfer pump. is the valve able to with stand PRESSURE? how much pressure does the Vege Oil pump have?

I'm using the same pump for veggie oil as for diesel. The stock pump on my Suburban is the Carter/Napa pump frequently recommended on the forums, so I am going to try it out. It has 2 check valves internally. I have a Walbro 6065 which is a heavier duty pump but it has no check valve so I'd have to add one. I think the factory rating is 10psi.

B.K. I tried two carter pumps one for Diesel and one for Veggie, The Veggie one just wouldn't do it . I now have a Carter at the veggie tank and a Mallory on the firewall (both pushing veg. fuel) three pumps in all, two for Veg. one for Diesel. I have not had any trouble with this setup.
The return was the most difficult to figure out on my conversion. If you havn't figured it out pm me a phone number and I will try to help out.

Mike

Maybe I will go ahead and add the extra pump. It's sitting there on my workbench. I was told I can get hold of the return on mine by pulling the intake horn. It's gotta be under there somewhere...if you can tell me give me a call. PM coming.

B.K. I called and left my number. I made my return connection to the left of the engine behind the belt tensioner to the right of the alt. on the passenger side. I will tell you it is tight and a pain with some odd size hoses (lots of runs to the hardware store). The 99' may be different, I have seen a 96 with the alt. on the drivers side. Have you gone to the Frybrid sight? Go to the gallery section and look for Robin Meyers 96' Suburban conversion, there are good pics of the engine if you scroll down.

Mike

Sorry for the empty post . I have made several fuel filter heaters by using nic wire fiberglass sleving sandwiched between two pieces of aluminum flashing held on with hose clamps . Works well and is stronger then using aluminum tape.

B.K. are you looking for the return for the coolant or the return for the diesel fuel returning to the tank? If you're looking for the diesel return, it's right on top of the IP. (or it was on my 1994 K1500...) I know there is a photo on here somewhere pointing out which is the input to the IP and which is the return... I just used 2 greasecar 3 way valves to control what goes into the input and what tank the return line goes to. I looped the return with a T that has a needle valve on it so i could bleed out any air but still let some of the fuel recirculate through the looped return to keep the temps up. I added a sight valve right before the IP (after the input 3 way valve) so i can check everything visually.

I also have 2 lift pumps for veg oil and 1 for diesel, i found that otherwise I had so far that I was pushing VO (i have 2 26 plate FPHE's that i'm pushing through not to mention all that hose from the bed of the truck up to the IP!) that i wasn't getting the 5-6psi with only one pump. I mounted one on the bottom of the truck right beneath the bed where the tank is, and the other right before the IP.

The other thing i found helpful with this engine is to add an auxiliary coolant pump. I bought an old VW one (but mercedes also uses them) and put it right under the bed of the truck to help "push" the hot coolant up into the bed of the truck so it can go through the hotfox and heated filter. I'm seeing consistent temps of 170 - 180 with just coolant heat.

I removed the restrictive air filter and added an aftermarket K&N filter. I also made a big 5x5x2 inch aluminum heatsink and mounted the PMD remotely to it over next to the air intake using some CPU thermal grease. I kept the original PMD on the IP so if my remotely mounted one dies on the road, I can switch over to my backup on the IP (plus it's a pain to remove the pmd from the side of the IP).

i have a 95 suburban and i mounted the PMD in the air filter housing,so it will always have cool air flowing over it.
Randy