To click on Foto Album:

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=44760975...59605551&m=867103392

Update March 12, 2008:

In november 2003, we left from Oakland, CA to drive with SVO to Argentina. This thread is the document of our trip, with help, support and encouragement by the tons of people on the biodiesel infopop.

The thread got erased somehow from the infopop server in 2008. Luckily there you can read the entire thread by clicking on:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070303082301/biodiesel.inf...59605551/m/936602174

That is an archive of the original thread.

Enjoy!
David



Nov 1 2003


Hi' this is david, mali and emilio (our 4 yr old)


We've begun our veggie oil trip with destination Argentina!

We left on Saturday Nov 1 from Oakland, CA, and we've already covered about 1,200 miles! But we haven't left the US yet. We're in Flagstaff Arizona. Drove highway 50 through nevada, utah, then down through capitol reef, escalante, grand canyon, etc. Gorgeous!

We have a 1981 VW dasher wagon, with a 17 gallon veggie oil tank (a cut 55 gal drum) sticking out of the spare tire place. It has 20' of copper tube to heat the oil, and we've a 6 port solenoid, with returns to the diesel and veggie oil tank. We've a 2micon Permacool filter for the veggie oil, wrapped in copper tube connected to the coolent overflow hoses.

It's doing pretty great so far! We've used about 37 gallons of veggie oil and 8 gallons of biodiesel. Now we've put diesel in the car for the first time (stinky!!!) We've not enough room in the car for to lug our biodiesel processer along.

This trip so far, if you know the Southwest, it all up hill and down hill. We've driven in the snow, crossed 9,400 foot passes. The svo set-up is hanging in there ok, especially considering this is it's maiden voyage...

First out, after about 60 miles the veggie oil prefilter clogged. I think I need to heat that little prefilter better. Since then we've been running on just the heated permacool filter without prefilter, and are preparing to backflush it with rubbing alcohol tonight.

Only problems are that after climbing any of the countless mountain passes, the car won't coast/idle in neutral in svo. It dies. So we drift down the mountains in 4th gear, and when we pull into a town, we have to switch back to diesel so we don't die at the stoplight.

And the car is doing a strangish vroom...vroom...VROOM! vroom...vroom...VROOM!
idle thing when it's tired, which isn't a problem to me, because the poor thing's exhausted, probably.

Our little dasher is really loaded down with us and our things! We've a camper box on top, and really go slow up those mountain passes.

Yesterday we had a funny adventure. Decided to take a dirt road "shortcut" near escalante, Utah towards Page AZ, and it was gorgeous, but at one point the road was too steep. Dasher couln't make it, it would just quit, about 200 meters from the top, so we had to unload a bunch of crap, and I backed down to get another running start, and backed it into a sand pile, got stuck!!! After digging it out, mali got in and zooomed up over the hill, and we carried the stuff over. That was done surrounded by gorgeous red-yellow canyons under the moon, so it was actually a lot of fun in the end.

Getting oil is a blast, we have had a lot of luck and lots of interesting conversations. We showed ranger friends at Capitol Reef how they should use biodiesel in their vehicles like the do in Yellowstone. WE've been burning this SYSCO "fry-on" oil that most of the restaurants have, it has partially hydrogenated oil. We heat it up in a 4 gallon pot, and prefilter it with cone filters balanced in a metal holder on top of a 5 gallon drum. Then pour it through one of PeaceNick's rad sock filters he gave us, which is inserted and held through a hole cut in the bottom of a bucket
which is turned upside down and rests on another bucket (I wired little wooden slats on it to keep it from falling off). Those sock filters seem to do a great job, except for the last 2" which just sits there because they need gravity to push the oil through. (I squeeze the last parts out)

Then we just put it into the tank and we're off.

We can go about 450 miles on a full tank of veggie.

Today is a rest day in Flagstaff. This morning I discovered a problem: I started on diesel, and going into town the car had to die, because the diesel prefilter was clogged with what looked to be exactly like grease. Hmmm... How is grease getting into the diesel tank? Is just a little getting in due to the switching? Should I just find a way to heat the prefilter then? Or could that just be a high-altitude/cold thing?

We'll see. Today I'm going to work on heating the veggie oil prefilter. I'll install it inside the car maybe, where is will snuggle next to the hot coolant lines.

And I'm going to re-do the vacuum meter, reposition where it taps into the veggie fuel line. RIght now it is tapped in between the tank and the filters, by the passenger's feet. I think I'll tap it into "between the permacool filter and the 6-port solenoid". Does that sound right?

All right, next stop is tucson, and then we'll cross the border in Nogales in a few days.

Lots of love and thanks to everyone so far who has given us advice, examples and encouragement!

david, mali, emilio

1981 dasher svo

This message has been edited. Last edited by: david moders,

Luckily, there is a site that archives the contents of most of the internet on regular intervals. Here is the entire old thread thanks to the wayback machine at archive.org:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070303082301/biodiesel.inf...59605551/m/936602174

Someone could copy it to here if they like.

Hi SunWizard,

Thank you for showing me that website.

I have figured out how to use it ! ! !

Thank you so much ! ! !

Thanks, Steve