Just curious as to anyone else's experiences. I've secured a source for good WMO to augment my WVO supply. I've run small amounts of WMO in the past with no trouble and right now I'm setting up a second cold upflow setup for the WMO only. I always filter to 30 then 1 micron at slow speed with a gear pump.

What percentages do these trucks like? Anyone over 50%?

A friend here has successfully been running cold WMO/diesel blends in his unmodified 93 IDI 7.3 Ford pickup for the last 35,000 miles or so. His stock truck has two factory fuel tanks, he starts and shuts down on diesel and switches to the blend once everything is up to temp. His preferred blend is 50/50 WMO with diesel, this works fine in warm weather with the only difference being that the fuel filter light blinks on occasionally due to the thicker fuel. He has run up to a 60% WMO blend and did not see anything all that different but he said it just did not feel right, I suspect this was due to the engine being just on the edge of fuel starvation due to the added thickness.

The truck had around 150,000 miles on it when he bought it and started burning the blend, after about 35,000 miles of very lightly loaded long-haul vacation type trips from Illinois to Florida and California the engine was becoming harder to start, was producing much more smoke, and it occasionally lost some power. He replaced the injectors with a cheap $150.00 set of Ebay injectors and he says the truck now runs better than when he first bought it so I suspect the original injectors were already having problems. He did a simple drip test on the injectors and 3 of them leaked drops even when not under any pressure at all. After saving around $2500 bucks in fuel costs he said he would be more than happy to put in a new set of injectors every couple years if needed.

The lightly loaded single wheeled 1 ton truck does NOT have a turbo and he gets an amazing 30 to 31 MPG at freeway speeds even on the blend.

Thanks Tim.

I doubt I'd have the starvation problem as I'm running an electric lift pump. I also agree on his injectors likely just being old. What I'm amazed by is his mileage! Mines a van so aerodynamics plays a roll for sure but I average 14 city/hwy no matter what fuel I use or how i drive it. I had a bad IP that I replaced with a good used one (appears recently rebuilt) that fixed some issues that I thought where trans related but the mileage is still the same. Has he done anything to get that kind of mileage? advanced timing etc?

My van has needed glowplugs since I bought it over a year ago, I have to plug in the block heater if it sits more than 8-12 hours. I haven't had the time to install them so it's on a timer for work in the morning. I've run 80% WVO in this thing with no issues using the block heater. The trouble is my sources for WVO aren't changing their fryers as often and I'm driving more, plus I haven't secured any new sources. The WMO source is a new local gargage owned by a friend of a friend. I dropped off two nice barrels for him to start collecting on Saturday and told him I'd pay him a fair rate if he kept the nasty stuff like coolant and brake fluid out.

Since WMO doesn't gel like WVO in cold weather would it make sense to stock pile some for the winter. I do know that the viscosity of WMO vs. WVO is about 33% higher, likely the reason most posts I read suggest 50% max WMO. I'm currently thinking stockpile WMO for winter and in winter stockpile WVO for summer. I'd got unsually cold here last winter so I installed 12V and 125V heaters on the tanks and filters. If I get the time I gonna make a heated tank with a HIH setup and go the twin tank route in the colder weather.

What about detergants (surfactants)in oil and ATF, any problem with them emulsifying water?

I was surprised by his millage also but he has checked it on most of his trips and says that is what it figures out to be. These trips are mostly long trips at fast freeway speeds, probably 70-75 mph, over long unbroken periods of time, with a basically empty pickup. The only thing different with the pickup is that he added a cab-height bed cover, no other changes have been made to the completely stock truck. We did a quick look to try to determine what the rear end gear ratio is but did not find any obvious info on any of the vehicle info stickers, being a 1 ton truck I suspect the ratio is 3.50 to 1 but am just guessing. This truck has an auto transmission with overdrive.

WMO thickness depends a lot on what it came from. The WMO this fellow is getting is from heavy trucks and city buses so is mostly 40 or 50 weight multi-grade oil from diesel engines, this is a lot thicker than the WMO that a normal neighborhood automotive garage will have, most of there oil will likely be the much thinner 20 weight oil used by the newer passenger cars, I suspect the lighter weight oil would allow a bit higher percentage to be used, don't know for sure.

I think ATF is fine, I have read posts where folks were burning 100% ATF in warm weather, it is very thin, around 5 wt. A lot of folks say they fill there new fuel filters with ATF rather than diesel fuel. There seems to be a difference of opinion on weather it should be used as fuel, mostly due to confusion over the advertising indicating it contains "friction modifiers", some say these are there to INCREASE the friction so auto transmissions won't slip, others say it LOWERS the friction so things don't wear out as quickly. I tend to think these "friction modifiers" are there to lower the friction, this would be a good thing for the injection pump. I have read over MANY ATF websites trying to determine just what is meant by "friction modifiers", they are confusing, in one paragraph they say they add them to reduce wear in the trans but in another area they also say they use additives to reduce slippage? I tend to think the "friction modifiers" are added to REDUCE wear of the metal parts, since "slippage" only occurs in the clutch plates and bands that are covered with fiber friction material I suspect the stuff they add to reduce the slippage has to due with making the fiber material grab better, hopefully this stuff only affects the fiber material and not the metal parts, still reading to try to determine this for sure. My truck has a limited slip rear differential, the factory Dodge manual says to add "friction modifiers" to the gear grease so keep the limited slip steel clutch plates from grabbing so aggressively on slick roads, this is another reason I think the "friction modifiers" in ATF are there to lower the friction. I burn all the ATF I can get.

Cold WMO - It does not gel but it sure gets a lot thicker, I gave up even trying to filter WMO that is below about freezing, even with 100 pounds pressure it took at least a half hour to push 5 gallon of the cold 50 wt oil through a 5 micron whole house water filter, Unfortunately, you will have the same problem on the vehicle, the oil needs to be warm, or at least only use a low percentage in the blend, you will have to do testing on your vehicle to find the max amount you can run in your blends at different temps. The friend here doesn't switch to the blend until he gets into warmer weather on his winter trips, I have to do the same thing with cold veg blends. On my winter trips to Arizona I run a high diesel blend til I get about to the east edge of Texas, I then switch to a 70% veg blend but I have even had fuel flow problems with that blend on a cold night if I shut down for a few hours sleep.

Detergents -- These don't seem to be a problem in fuel, they are added to gasoline on purpose, maybe even to diesel. I have done several water-wash cleaning tests on WMO with several different soaps and detergents mixed with water, nothing worked. After a couple hours all the volume of water and detergents ended up setting on the bottom of the container and were just as clean and clear as when I first added them, they did not seem to remove anything at all from the WMO and the WMO did not show any trace of emulsion. The only thing that I have run in to that will hold water emulsified in the WMO is ANTIFREEZE, this stuff is a bummer, I tried burning what looked like good WMO in my drip stove but the antifreeze that had been mixed in the barrel was holding so much water that it put the fire out in the hot stove, still trying to find a way to reliably remove antifreeze from WMO. This problem is why I quit picking it up from the local farmers, they lie, almost all had dumped antifreeze in with the oil. The water, and some of the water/antifreeze mix, will separate and drop to the bottom of the barrel, but the antifreeze will create a wide layer between the green water and the WMO that is unusable. Out of a full barrel of WMO that had antifreeze in it I could only get about the top 1/3 of the barrel to burn in the stove.

Hard starting -- Does it also smoke excessively when it first starts, this is the problem we had with his 93 7.3, he had to keep it plugged in last fall, plus cycle the glow plugs a couple times (they were all working), then crank for 30 sec to a minute, when it fired it smoked a LOT til it warmed up, the new injectors eliminated all these problems.

I have friend who has been successfully running WMO blend in Ford IDI with good results . He just pumps off the top of a settling barrel and filters it before blending . I wonder if the uplow settling /dewatering system will provide the same results with WMO as it does with WVO. I have read somewhere that MO /ATF contain additives ( "detergents" ) that are designed to keep particles in suspension .

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

quote:

Originally posted by rkpatt:
I have friend have been sucessfully running WMO blend in Frod IDI with good results . He just pumps off the top of a settling barrel and filters it before blending . I wonder if the uplow settling dewatering system will provide results with WMO as it does with WVO. I have read somewhere that MO /ATF contain additives ( "detergents" ) that are designed to keep particles in suspension .

This was my concern as soaps are surfactants and are commonly used to create emulsions. However upflow settling takes "skimming the top of the drum" to another level. I run mine at 10 gallons/day so I'm only getting the very top of the drum.

Tim, thanks for the tip on the injectors. I have been under the impression this truck had needed injectors for a long time. While it currently only has 101000 miles on it the hour meter (former cherry picker truck) indicates it had a lot of time idling. Replacing them should help my mileage as well. While I don't expect 30-31 mpg I have heard guys commonly getting 18-20 average. Thank you for the tips on cold weather as well. I'm gonna test samples for viscosity at various blend levels and temps as winter approaches. I really need to take the time to do some testing in the lab. Fortunately my new source has a company to pick up used antifreeze he assures me the will only be oil and ATF in my barrel, questionable oil will be put in pails I provided.

I run it in winter,when peoples windows are up.2. it gives the diesel more heat to burn all its fuel.I never run over 35%,stinks to bad over 35%.

Another caution about WMO/diesel blends, other posts have indicated that adding some of the after marked diesel additives to the blend causes the WMO to gel and drop to the bottom of the tank. I did a couple tests trying to thin WMO using alcohol, methanol caused the WMO to gel almost instantly, E85 ethanol caused the WMO to gel after a day or so.

quote:

Originally posted by Tim c cook:
Another caution about WMO/diesel blends, other posts have indicated that adding some of the after marked diesel additives to the blend causes the WMO to gel and drop to the bottom of the tank. I did a couple tests trying to thin WMO using alcohol, methanol caused the WMO to gel almost instantly, E85 ethanol caused the WMO to gel after a day or so.

I would agree with this for WVO as well. These additives are formulated for diesel not WMO or WVO.


Nathan, thank you for the reply but is your experience specifically related to an IDI Ford? your signature suggests otherwise? I have found that a blend that runs poorly in one vehicle may run just fine in another based on what I've learned on this forum and others. If your reply is based upon experience with a Ford IDI then what condition are your injectors? I note that Tim's friend has new injectors and can successfully run 50% WMO, I am certain the spray pattern of the injector has some influence on his blend concentration as well as economy. For example I may find 35% to be the limit in mine until such time that I install new injectors which would atomize the blend better and allow higher WMO % without smoking or other issues.

I am running a 93 7.3 with an engine that haS BEEN TOTALLY REBUILT. It has a total of 188,000 on the vehicle. I just drove 218 miles at an average speed of 65-70 on I-95 in So Fl. I have an actual 3.55 rear end. I am burning 70/30. I filled the tank that I used to check my mileage. My 300sd nor my 300tdt run on the same blend and I only manage 21 to 25 MPG with those 5 cyl diesel. I have a heat exchanger from Frybid on the Ford and have been using wvo for 4 yrs. I would give up one of the MB for 30 mpg. I have never got more than 3,000 miles on the ford filter.When I had the 4:10 on the ford I was accustomed to 10 to 12 MPG

You guys are discouraging me, based on my friends mileage info I have been seriously considering pulling the 413 V8 gas engine and 3 speed auto trans out of my old motor home and replacing it with a Ford 6.9 or 7.3 diesel, 12 MPG is still 100% better than the gas engines 5-6 MPG so I am still looking for a wrecked Ford with an IDI diesel and an overdrive automatic trans, the fuel saved by the better gearing of the overdrive would probably pay for the conversion. I had considered a Cummins but the V8 Ford should fit much better in the frame than the straight 6 Cummins, may have to rethink this since I get 19 - 23 MPG with the Cummins, the power of either of these engines is about the same but the Ford torque seems to peak a couple hundred RPM lower than the Cummins, with a turbo on the Ford it wins the power comparison by just a bit, in my opinion a turbo is almost a necessity if traveling at higher altitudes.

The only thing I can think of for his high mileage figures would be that his rear end gearing is much better than normal or maybe his speedo is WAY off. He does not have any type of calibrated fuel flow meter on the truck but by measuring the size of the fuel tanks we have calculated there volume and he carries extra fuel in a 50 gallon 2ft X 2ft X 2ft farm-type supply tank in the bed of the truck so he has a pretty fair idea of how much fuel he is actually burning on the trips. I will slide under the truck and see if I can find a gear ratio tag on the differential housing.

From reading many waste oil burner furnace websites they seem to indicate that heavier WMO has more energy in it than diesel fuel, and considerably more than veg oil, this may be part of the reason for the better mileage. Diesel is usually stated to have 120,000 BTU/Gallon, veg is around 90,000 to 100,000 BTU/G, WMO is stated to be as high as 145,000 BTU/G?

No. 2 diesel fuel typically contains about 140,000 Btu/gallon, while biodiesel/vegetable oil contains about 130,000 Btu/gallon, or about 92% of diesel fuel
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ageng/machine/ae1240w.htm

OK , I won't argue the point, the numbers are different depending where you look them up, The Biodiesel Board shows the numbers a bit lower than that though, Folks can look it up for themselves. The point being is that WMO has as much or more energy/gallon as #2 diesel, probably more than winter diesel blends or the current low sulpher stuff.

Tim,


My gears are 3.54:1, I don't really understand why though. Common sense would indicate that given the greater torque of a diesel at low RPMs a higher gear should be used like maybe a 2:70 or so. I feel my engine revs a bit too much on the freeway even with OD and a lockup converter. The van is also reasonably quick for what it is, likely due to the gearing. Remember when the 5.0 Mustangs came out? 2:73 gears from the factory and quick as snot at the time. You got the 3:55 or 3:73 in the 4cyl cars to help performance of the smaller engine. An IDI in your motorhome with the right rearend gears would probably get really nice mileage. My wife had a 5.4 Expedition, she gets 12 in town and 18 on the highway, it's a little quicker than the van (same weight) but not much. I just did a full tank of city only, short trips, on 75% WVO and got 14.25 MPG driving it the way I like (a little heavy on the go pedal) This is by far my most common driving so I'm compiling data while I collect WMO. That way I can run some WMO blends and compare mileage.

Bill, is that 70/30 WMO/diesel or 70/30 diesel/WMO? As for your filters, I used to go through them faster than that. Now I'm settling for one month then cold upflow settling. I then pump through a 25 micron into a 1 micron, both string wound after blending in my thinning agents. So far I've got about 4000 on this filter. I also put a oil filter inline on my van, standard fram PH8A spin on filter, I buy the generics for a few bucks and change them about every 4th tank. I've got a ball valve on both sides of the filter so I can change them quickly with little mess. With a Holley pump I just purge by running the pump.

After looking at pictures and videos of various centrifuges on the web I can't help but think I should just build my own. I've got a full machine shop and could turn up to a 20" bowl. I'm thinking this is the way to go with the WMO, probably a 10-15" bowl driven by a motor from the scrap pile.

Do it .

quote:

After looking at pictures and videos of various centrifuges on the web I can't help but think I should just build my own. I've got a full machine shop and could turn up to a 20" bowl. I'm thinking this is the way to go with the WMO, probably a 10-15" bowl driven by a motor from the scrap pile.

Well I had a bit of trouble today. I put an 11 gallon batch in the tank a couple of days ago consisting of 5gal WMO, 5gal D2, and 1gal RUG, this was on top of 50/50 D2/WVO that was in the tank. Anyway today the van was very hard to start warm several times. It was warm here, at least high 80's, could it have been vapor lock from the RUG? Van ran great yesterday, this is the first sign of any trouble. I've topped it off with 5gal of D2 just to be safe. What is odd is it runs fine with no smoke and plenty of power, seemingly more that with the WVO blends. I've never had vapor lock issues before and I run a holley electric pump for a lift pump so if there was a vapor lock it would have to be after the filter or in the IP. I'm taking it out in a bit after sitting two hours and we'll see how it starts with the extra D2 in there.

Well it absolutely refused to start. I'm wondering what is going on. I'm gonna try it cold in the morning and see if she'll start up. I've got pressure from the lift pump at the filter head and I cracked open an injector line and cranked it, there's fuel there. Plus the van was running fine the past few days, even was running fine when I shut it off. I've let this oil settle for two months, I had 30 gallons and only skimmed off the top 5 gallons, if there was any water I'd think it would have settled by now. The fuel at the filter head is low viscosity, not much higher than D2 from the looks of it and it's not fully black like the original blend was. I filtered the blend through a 1 micron filter at low speed, about 1/2 gallon per minute. This van has loved WVO blends, run as high as 90 percent and it was running great on this blend which when figured in with what was left in the tank is probably only 30 percent WMO or so, less now that i've topped it off with D2. If it won't start in the morning I'm gonna bleed all the injector lines, it's acting just line a gas motor with vapor lock, long crank then finally fires up except now it won't even fire. I did notice it smoking a bit when trying to start it so there is some combustion going on. I'm really hoping I get this figured out since it seems I have a good source for at least 40 gallons a month, more as this guy gets more business (new garage).

On another note I did some viscosity tests in the lab at work, WMO is high viscosity at freezing temps but D2 didn't get that high, gonna test 50/50 at freezing to compare. My plan is to stockpile WVO for summer and WMO for winter. This way the each will have long settling periods and I can take advantage of higher WVO percentages in summer.

rsr911

You mentioned that your glow plugs were a problem? have you done anything?

Loose enough glowplugs and those engines won't start no mater how warm they are or what fuel, they must have them to start.

You can test them individualy with an ohm meter or check the current at the relay.

Relays were a big problem on those old gp controlers but you can change the relay and reuse the controler saving some money

No need for gasoline with wmo,it will cause problems.Wmo an wvo,my experince cause filter clogging.The wmo cause chunks to settle out of wvo.No I don't have an IDI ford,but mine is IDI too.Latter I will look for a Ford.One Guy mentioned no diesel additives with wmo,he is right,been there and made jello in my tank.
My best mileage and 0-60 times was running 35% wmo with diesel.They will run like a scaled dog.

Well I just got it to fire up, so it would seem that vapor lock was the issue. I'll be sure to leave the RUG out from now on.

12voltdan, do you know the procedure for testing the plugs? I had it somewhere but can't find it. The relay clicks so I think it's OK. If I don't plug in the block heater it's a bear to start no matter what fuel I'm using but in winter I can get about 4-5 hours after it's last run and it will start, maybe 8 hours in the summer then it gets more difficult. I keep WD-40 and starting fluid handy just in case. I've heard starting fluid can ruin glowplugs so it's only used in an emergency.

Nathan, that has been my experience as well. Unfortunately I can only get my tank down to about 1/8 before it runs out of fuel. I had the pickup in the tank break off and replaced it with the hose mod but I made the hose too long so I can't get to the bottom of the tank. Sometime soon I'm gonna drop the tank and fix it. That's why there was some WVO in there. Filters aren't plugged though, plenty of pressure at the filter head. I'm letting it idle now to recharge the batteries and hopefully flush some of that fresh D2 through the system. If my calculations are right there is about 15 gallons in the tank of which only 2.5 are WMO and about 1 gallon WVO. Should be about 1/2 gallon of RUG and the rest D2.

Truthfully I haven't had much time to work on the truck, my wife's been pregnant and the baby boy was born last week, I've spent my summer adding a room in the attic for our oldest (4 girls and now a little boy). Hoping to get a chance to do a bunch of maintenance in a month or so.