in a perfect world I'd have a tank fabricated up for the belly....
but i'm thinking of adding a 30 gallon HDPE drum to my '92 E350 (7.3L IDI)

the truck is a former ambulance and has an exterior "Closet" just behind the driver's door that will fit said drum upright.

I'm planning on pirating bits (valves/filter ehater, etc) from a previously used Greasecar kit for under-hood items but am going back and forth on how to heat the fuel and access oil.

I *have* a number of closed head drums already... thinking a copper coolant loop and a copper fuel pickup fed through a bunghole and siliconed in would work.. ( "L" shaped so as to run down the side, then across the bottom.

I'd also thought of using a hotstick/hotfox/etc but i don't want to mess around with extra holes/fittings below the oil level if possible

(p.s. i dont know of any 30" long fuel level senders offhand.. will likely just use a translucent(White) tank)

It should work. Use aluminum tubing and fasten the pickup tube to leg(s) of the hot water loop to get some heat .

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Do you have room to wrap heater hose around the outside of the drum? Or have the drum sitting on a coil of hose? That's essentially what I've done for both of my vehicles. The tanks are warmed by EXTERNAL hose or tubing. There is no coolant inside the tanks. Both of my vehicles have well insulated svo tanks. The Jetta tank has a ridiculously small heating hose contact area - the hose is only about 5 feet long, and snakes in an "S" across the flat bottom. The fuel pickup is in a corner, without direct heat closer than a few inches away. The fuel flows through the 1/4 inch ID pickup, through a foot of 5/16 clear hose to a boost pump, through a foot of copper tubing wrapped with one of Dana's Injector Line Heaters, then arrives at the filter (mid-80's Ford) which has only a single loop of heater hose around it. Then HIH to the front of the car, where it arrives almost hot enough to inject. I have one more Injector line heater just before the IP.
The svo in the fuel tank only needs to be hot enough to flow well. I don't like the idea of heating a large quantity of veg oil in a metal tank too hot - it leads to polymerization. Add the heat when the svo is definitely going to be burned momentarily.

Cheers,
JohnO

i figured if I put the horizontal portion of the "L" inside an oh, say 1.5" pipe it'd create a "sump" of sorts concentrating the heat to WVO that had to flow the 2' ALONG the horizontal coolant loop before it got to the pickup.


my thoughts are... tank-side... to just get the oil near the pickup warm enough to flow ( and do so ASAP) vs heating the whole tank

RKPATT:
why aluminum vs copper?
just less chance of corrosion, or other reasons?

rb

I would not make the horizontal part of the "L" very long.

Aluminum seems to be a much better material for WVO systems than copper with respect to polymerization and corrosion . Search those compatible metals topics here and the other WVO forums .


BTW- Here is photo of pastotx's horizontal barrel tank using a (DIY Hot Fox inspired) coolant heated pickup .

This message has been edited. Last edited by: rkpatt,