Hi welder,

The point that I was trying to make was conducted heat goes down from the HE to the filter. Many people think heat ONLY rises.



Hi Dana,

I understand your point about not having any heat adding device after the final filter. I agree with you about that when using electrically heated elements in the oil but not with coolant heated FPHEs. I am rather picky about flushing any possible debris out of the system just before the final connection to the IP so there shouldn't be any crud after the filter in normal operation. Anything small enough to get past the main heated filter would get thru a small inline filter element. And I just stay away from crappy filters that flake.

Hi Ron.

Yes, I understood your point that heat will move down from the HE through pipe nipple into the filter element. I'm not too sure how fast this would happen though. I mean, sure the HE gets plenty hot, but it's sandwiched between the head and the element and mostly only touches both surfaces through elastomer seals. Rubber does conduct heat, but since it does so slower than metal, greater surface area would be beneficial to transfer heat. I'm thinking it might take quite a while for the heat in the HE to get through the gasket and pipe nipple into the cold element.

A hose wrap or band heater would really compliment the sandwich style HE quite well, I think. I pay about $60 each for those HE units. Adding $5 worth of hose wrap would really get things moving.



Hi Dana.

I guess because I live in the Pacific Northwest area (B.C. and Washington state), I basically forgot about the potential for high melt point fats to clog up the little inline filters. You are the only person I know of who has reported trouble with this. I may be in the dark on that. Are there others you know of?

I don't know your definition of filter, but if you want to call the little in-line filters "screens", then I'm fine with that. As I understand it, they are really only meant to catch large "chunks" anyway. For that purpose, they seem to work well for most svo people who use them.

Have you ever verified the material composition of the support tubes used inside common filter elements? Ever since I noticed that the Amsoil 2 micron bypass elements have an internal zinc coating, I've wondered how many other filter makes and models are zinc lined.

I've heard from both you and others here that water content figures significantly in vegpoly formation. The other members mentioned that info in relation to using mild steel fuel tanks, but it was reported that after 4 years in a mild steel container, dry deacidified wvo was found to be in good condition with no noticeable decay.

Perhaps the earlier reports posted on this forum regarding the zinc die cast Goldenrod heads forming grey sludge were caused primarily by water and water based acids reacting with the zinc and forming a grey form of vegpoly. Perhaps when vegpoly is formed with different metallic ions as catalysts, it formes vegpoly of different coloration based on the particular metal ions present. That would explain the mildly differing vegpoly colors reported.

Saving an old used veggie filter element and cutting it open to inspect the support tubes inner surface for vegpoly formation might yield some interesting info.

Hopefully, there would be no deposits at all. If deposits were found, it might be good to install a stainless, plastic or aluminum in-line screen filter until the primary filter manufacturer was able to verify if any surface plating was used or not.

It may be that zinc has a high enough reactivity to cause vegpoly formation fast enough to contaminate an elements innermost surfaces in the meantime between element changes. If wvo water content currently considered an acceptable level were found to be causal in this hypothetical (but strongly plausable) situation, then it would not only pay to avoid zinc plated filters, but also to dewater much more thoroughly.

I know that I'm "preaching to the choir" when advocating stringent dewatering to you, but not everyone agrees on that. I used to agree with the German standard of 700 PPM, but that's likely for virgin rapeseed oil, not widely varying waste vegetable oil. Since that old thread has died down, I've come to see that very thorough dewatering is both simple and sane. If tiny amounts of water can react with zinc to form vegpoly in wvo, then filter element selection may be a more serious issue than some folks may have previously thought.

Until people start cutting open various different used veggie filters to inspect the inner core for internal poly formation, then we'll never know for sure if there's any issue. Just because vegpoly may form, it doesn't necessarilly mean that some will flake off and contaminate the fuel stream. If some did, and IP failure were to occur, unless the IP shop noticed flakes in the dead IP then some other cause may be blamed. I mean who responds to the death of their IP by hacking open their veggie filter?

quote:

Have you ever verified the material composition of the support tubes used inside common filter elements? Ever since I noticed that the Amsoil 2 micron bypass elements have an internal zinc coating, I've wondered how many other filter makes and models are zinc lined.

Because pure zinc reacts with diesel fuel fuel filters do not tend to be made of galvanized steel. I have never seen a galvanized coating on one. I think it is odd that even lube oil filters might be. I HAVE seen aluminized coatings in some filters. And I HAVE seen small inline flter screens (am only using that term to for clarity) which were cast from nearly pure zinc...but it is rare.

quote:

I've heard from both you and others here that water content figures significantly in vegpoly formation. The other members mentioned that info in relation to using mild steel fuel tanks, but it was reported that after 4 years in a mild steel container, dry deacidified wvo was found to be in good condition with no noticeable decay.

There are a lot of factors which can acellerate VO polymerization. I think that high heat and high O2 levels are agreed upon by nearly everyone as the most significant. Next come H20 content (and the water soluble contaminats in the H2O) and finally metallic ions. Since no O2 (other than the small amount carried in the VO itself) is present inside a filter polymerization is very limited. And since heated filters do are only heated while in use this acelleration factor is very limited as well. The accelleration effect of metalic ions is directly related to H2O and water soluble acids so if one is using adequately dewatered WVO/VO both of these are also very limited inside a filter. Finally ... since the rtention time of VO inside a filter is relativly short (especially if you change them every other lube oil change as I reccomend) the likelyhood of polymerization inside a filter is very low IMO except in the case of when an engine sits unused for a very long time. I do not want to stray too far off topic so if anyone wants to discuss how this relates to components other than filters please contact me by email.

quote:

Perhaps the earlier reports posted on this forum regarding the zinc die cast Goldenrod heads forming grey sludge were caused primarily by water and water based acids reacting with the zinc and forming a grey form of vegpoly. Perhaps when vegpoly is formed with different metallic ions as catalysts, it formes vegpoly of different coloration based on the particular metal ions present. That would explain the mildly differing vegpoly colors reported.

Give this man a cigar! I think you are either right on the money with this theory or very close. But again to discuss this lets either do so privately..or try starting another discussion.

quote:

I know that I'm "preaching to the choir" when advocating stringent dewatering to you, but not everyone agrees on that. I used to agree with the German standard of 700 PPM, but that's likely for virgin rapeseed oil, not widely varying waste vegetable oil. Since that old thread has died down, I've come to see that very thorough dewatering is both simple and sane. If tiny amounts of water can react with zinc to form vegpoly in wvo, then filter element selection may be a more serious issue than some folks may have previously thought.

Maybe...I have always felt that thorough dewatering was a basic for VO fuel. When WVO is used I believe it is even more so. Any water in VO will tend to absorb and concentrate water soluble contaminats also in the VO. With unused VO these may be only be presentin very low concentrations...but in wvo the concentrations and composition of these are an "unkown" until tested. Since teting individual wvo batches for water soluble contaminant concentration/composition is not an option for most folks using wvo fuel I have always advocated simply dewatering as thoroughly as possible to avoid notonly the minor problems associated with acellerated VO polymerization but also the more serious (expensive) problems associated with cavitation damage.

But again...this might be getting too far off topic.

quote:

Until people start cutting open various different used veggie filters to inspect the inner core for internal poly formation, then we'll never know for sure if there's any issue.

Good point.
I know that fleet mechanics often cut open lube oil filters. I will see if any are willing to do the same for the fuel filters they swap out as well.

Thanks for taking my seemingly paranoid filter element vegpoly concerns seriously Dana.

It would be interesting to see what the fleet mechs find in the fuel elements core. If you do get around to asking then to check this, please explain that the only surface that really matters is the interior of the support tube as this is the last filter surface to contact the veggie oil after it passes through the media. Hopefully they will find nothing.



I had no idea that diesel reacts with zinc. Thanks for the tip.

Hi Welder,

The heat doesn't just flow thru the nipple and thru the rubber gasket. It also conducts thru the oil that is between the heat exchanger and the filter top. As far as how fast, I have never had a fuel starvation problem when switching just as soon as the engine gets to within 10 degrees of operating temperature even with fully hydrogenated oil or lard at zero F.

Cold oil in the lines between components is far more of a problem and I solve that by either keeping them very short or making them HOH.

Geez, Ron, I'm embarrassed! I never even thought about the thin film of oil between the HE and filter element. How could I miss that?

I don't think veggie has the greatest thermal transfer ability, but it must have some ability to transfer heat or it couldn't fry stuff. It certainly must work better than nothing.



I'm curious about your HOH. Is it homemade or store bought? Does it work well in winter? I know that seems off topic, but keeping good flow is also a filtration concern. If homemade HOH works well in moderate cold, I'll likely just make my own. I had planned on building a special leak proof HIH, but my friends machine shop insurance doesn't cover biofuels related stuff. HOH I can do myself.

Hi Welder,

It's homemade HOH. In fact, it's actually carefull routing of existing coolent hoses that already go between components routed so they touch the fuel hoses.

I have run Lard, fully hydrogenated veggie oil, margarine and even butter in the dead of winter.

My tanks always have heated pickups or heated sumps and I use homemade HIH between the tank and the engine compartment.

Groovy, Ron! "The Butter Buggy"

Smells like popcorn.

I have about 5 gallons of FRESH canola saved up to mix with cinnamin and nutmeg oil for Thanksgiving and peppermint oil for Christmas.

I thought about adding menthol to veggie before actually. Awesome for biofuels PR at auto rallies.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SVO-WVO-COPPER-COIL-HEAT...dZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SVO-WVO-BIO-MASS-VEGETAB...0165525203QQtcZphoto

Hi Omar. Are these last two posts showing pictures of your products, or are they from another E-Bay svo kit vendor?

these parts (above) are from Bergsma Motorwerks (mercedes source? I think) up north in WA. state ... he sells a lot of mercedes parts and some svo parts on ebay ...
Omar

Hi Omar.

I think there are a growing number of svo kit vendors on E-Bay.



This may sound extremely picky, but after looking closely, I noticed that my spin-on element had a little excess play in the threads where it screwed onto the nipple on the remote oil filter mount. I suspect that all spin-on type filters do have some tolerance in the threads.

I welded up about half of the 9/16 oil entrace port with aluminum and ground it flush with the mating surface on the bottom of the mount. I had the local gasket guy make up a 3/16 viton washer that fits over the pipe nipple and will form a tight seal when I screw the element onto the mount.

I think I might have the only spin-on fuel filtation setup on the planet that fully seals the threads of the nipple with a proper seal instead of just trusting thread tolerance to seal the oil.

It probably wasn't really necessary to do this filter mod, but the thought of a tiny trickle of unfiltered veggie blowing by the gap in the filters threads kept nagging at me.

I tried to buy a spin-on filter mount with an o-ring or gasket seal on the nipple, but I couldn't find one anywhere. All the systems I found only had seals on the outer circumference of the element, but had nothig to guarantee a seal on the nipple.

quote:

I think I might have the only spin-on fuel filtation setup on the planet that fully seals the threads of the nipple with a proper seal instead of just trusting thread tolerance to seal the oil.

It would be fairly simple to test if the threads are sealing completely or not. But it would be off topic and buried where no one will find it later. Is it worthy of a new discussion?

Welder, First Gen Dodge Cummins uses an O-ring on the fuel filter threads,
Ryan

Hi Dana.

I think Ryans' info pretty much remove any reason to test for blow-by.


Hi Ryan.

Thanks for the tech tip! If I had known that, I would've just ran over to the wrecker and grabbed one for cheap instead of building my own unit. Oh well...

Hi Welder,

I just picked the proper thickness of O-ring to match the amount that the threads are recessed below the gasket on the filter. Don't forget, different filter brands may require different thickness o-rings.

Hi Ron.

So you decided to seal your nipple threads too eh? Why not? For the price of an O-ring or washer, we have a near perfect seal. I just couldn't stand the idea of putting together all these little parts only to be left with a filter that leaks blow-by at the threads. Good to see you are picky too.



I am getting ready to use a Moroso brand remote oil filter mount. It has a 4" diameter perfectly flat face on it's bottom side. Any spin-on filter with a seal OD of 4" or less can be mounted there as long as the elements threads match the 4/4"-16 TPI pipe nipple.

I chose a big Donaldson brand 10 micron hydraulic element. It's 9.75" long and about 3.5" in diameter (part # P550255).

I had my machinist buddy spin off an adapter to properly mate the 1" filter element opening to the 3/4" pipe nipple on the filter mount.

For a straight edge, I laid a ruler across the top of the gasket ring on the elements mounting face. Using a second ruler offset at 90 degrees from the first ruler, I then measured the gap between the top of the elements threaded face and the bottom of the first ruler.

The gap was 3/16". I paid the local gasket maker to punch out a viton washer 3/16 thick, 1" ID and 1 1/2" OD.