something else to think about..
what's the micro rating of our filters..the Md and cummins?

I ask because...
I ran BD in my bus for years without much problems..10 and 30 micro filters..

wife bought an '06 liberty(33kmiles)..after a couple of filter we thought the system would be clean..a couple of filters more...not good.they're not cheap..I should mention that ther're also 3micron...oops...I was filtering to 5..not less..

got a '99 dodge with a Vp 44..yep several filters in it, but the last one has lasted the longest..changed just after using the 2 micron filter at the end of the process..

SO what are you going to filter too? what are you requirements??
I would bet the MD won't care...good fuel/ bad fuel..just clean..
the Cummins..it will care..but not as much as a common rail Cummins..

On your dodge do you have a fuel pressure gauge?? if not GET ONE!!!! lets see $50 or less verse spending 1000-1500( if you change the VP yourself)..you decide..no saying a fuel pressure will save you VP but keeping the PSI over 10 should help.

-dkenny

no washing / dry washing is becoming a problem for me.I have recently realized that there is a difference between my summer fuel of lard/tallow and winter fuel hydrogenated soy and canola using heat/air forced removal of methanol to enable gly drop out it worked great for lard with consistent passes of shakem, 3/27 acid,tests but the same process for plant based oil is not working it has all failed the 50/50 test, this is same as shake em test i figure. I believe this to be due to lard being saturated and plant being unsaturated double and single bonds, unsaturated acidifies and polymerizes quicker and easier so my method for lard wont work for plant oil.Perhaps this is why so many in America use water wash? I cannot water wash here so will need to use something along the lines of jamsr1/fabricator methods.I will 1. pull a vacuum on the processor right after reaction has completed using the latent heat of the reaction 55-65C, to remove as much methanol as possible with near zero oxygen present oxidation should not be a problem ( fabricator) 2.then remove glyc from the bottom and transfer bio to another drum for final aggressive bubble wash( Jamssr1). To do this and not suffer the hassle of reverse reaction i will need to use an acid to neutralize the base i do not wish to use copious amounts of phenolphthalein to know when so can this be worked out using stoichiometry say i use acid base/base 154ml 98% h2so4 and 1000g 90% KOH in a reaction of 85l oil what amount of either 98% h2so4 or 85% HCL would i use to neutralize every thing to allow demeth with glyc/bio mix and not suffer reversal. If any one is using KOH and plant based oil also dry washing with forced removal of methanol by heat and aggressive air and no vacuum then i would suggest they perform rigorous soap tests and smell for polymerization thanks all andy

quote:

Biogirlz, are you not aware of the 50/50 soap test. How do you quantify the soap content of your bio. Of course you'll get soap dropout in your tank if you put soap laden bio in.
How good was your demething, what percentage of the batch did you get back, did you do a prewash settle and drain down the glycerol then demeth or was it a whole batch demeth, did you work to the stoichiometric measure?

yes I am very aware of the 50/50 shake test.. weird thing is after it went thru the Thermax it passsed and at that point should not have had any soap. I did not learn til later if you use KOH and demeth then it takes a lot longer for fallout. I do not recover my meth..it evaporates. I did prewash, then dried and circulated for hours to demeth before running thru the drywash...

I just never had the goopy dark dark soap fallout before.. using virgin oil it was never that dark, but it sure did a number on my truck.. I learned my lesson and changed my process..
Now I over kill

Has anyone tried heating up raw BD in their appleseed after settling and draining the glycerol?! I wonder if it would be safe to heat it in the same appleseed to say 160-180F?

Dude, you NEED to read www.graham-laming.com like 10x. There's so much info and experience that you haven't been exposed to yet. Yes you can heat it in the water heater. That's part of the methanol recovery stage. Heat, mix, vacuum, condense. If you want pure methanol, limit the temp to around 155F. Build a plumbers delight condenser and contact Jamesrl about fabricating a venturi for you. Read read read. Most of your questions have been answered here and your future questions will already be presented and answered too.

I have been reading GL's post(s) - each one is well over 30 pages... needless to say it takes time to study and digest it all. From what I've read he uses Appleseed-like device to react and a SEPARATE vessel for de-mething and reprocessing...

That's great if he's got the room for it and the equipment... I don't, so I'm trying to figure out how to adopt my appleseed to his method without having to scrap what I have or without having to build a dedicated de-mething device like he has (at least in the plans that I saw). I'm just asking some questions as I go in hopes of adopting my rig the best way that I can, so please...

Nope. React and demeth in one vessel. Settle out soap in a different vessel. If you want an all in one solution, get the BioPro.

quote:

From what I've read he uses Appleseed-like device to react and a SEPARATE vessel for de-mething and reprocessing...

He uses a single reaction vessel in both the GL-1 Ecoprocessor and the Push/Pull processor. He does have a separate settling tank, which everyone has anyway. It really doesn't take much space.

yep, all in the same tank. works great. thought would recover more methanol but not complaining. Anyway as others stated, there are good instructions on the GL eco processor. We did add a step of adding 1st run glycerine from the previous batch, which reduces the titration...

could someone point me in the right direction, with simple steps, to react & demeth in the reactor.

I'm not (currently) bothered about recovering meth yet, I need to get the demeth process correct first - I tried it in a seperate vessesl but got 'back reaction' I think I heated the bio up too much for too long - so I also need to know the temp & time for demething......

I tried water washing my second batch, but it completely immulsified, but that was simple to sort - 3ml salt in 25 litres of warm water did the trick in less than 6 hours. Thanks for the info on this forum.

Smitty,
If you are emulsifying that easy are you passing the 3/27? It shouldnt be that bad if you are. If you are going to demeth and using KOH make darn sure you understand the later soap fallout and let it settle for quite some time or you will end up with soap in your tank even if when you dry it the BD looks great...

Sometimes if your a little heavy handed on the catalyst you can run into problems washing..

To answer this thread tho my last batch after demething, I then left the bubbler on for at least 24 hours? not touching the bottom of cone bottom tank. Switched off. Came back the next day and my soap titration was only 0.2mL of HCL so approx 60ppm. Shakem test had crystal clear water. Also sandy brie water test was well under 100ppm water (due to excessive bubbling). I Was really surprised with the quality and I hadn't done any washing techniques.

Today I put thru my purolite to further increase quality and for piece of mind with final product.

But I can see how some people can get away with no washing just settling and final filtering. It takes a little longer not washing but seems to work fine