11/21/2011: i still had about 10gallons of unfiltered oil in my living room at room temperature. when i was pumping it the other day, it was clogging my filter wand after a few gallons - which means i then have to take a toothbrush to the wand and brush the fattiness & crud away (ill spend about 10 minutes) & continue.
the thickness that is clogging the filter is caused by the fattiness and/or water content.
i decided to experiment in putting the oil on the stove to warm it & make it thinner, therefore easier to pump & filter.
my concern here is that the fat will be melted & will be passing through my filters. this is fine, so long as the temperature i have heated the oil to on the stove is not above 150. i didnt read the temperature, but i dipped my finger in & it was warmed -- not very hot, so, i believe this will be fine. if the oil can pass through my filters when warm, it will be fine for my engine when at 150 degrees.
so, after several rounds of filling pot, heating pot then filtering, i finished my last 10 gallons.
after many hours, i know have fuel for like 10hrs of driving!
COLLECTING OIL ON THE ROAD IN WINTER
i would manually scoop oil from the restaurant's barrel into my 2 big stove pots (=2.5gallons) and heat them on the stoves in patience. the oil heats VERY fast, maybe just 3 minutes. 6 rounds of that & i will have filled the van's tank. then i would want to fill the spares of course, if possible.
Veg Fixed + New Veg Temp Gauge + Winter Collecting
greetings!
well, i went with sam merrett of full circle fuels to make the veg repairs. he has a shop in Hudson, NY (right near the amtrak, conveniently enough. and 2hr train to NYC goes all along the hudson river, beautiful.)
i picked her up on november 11th.
okay:
he said that given the situation (when i switch "veg on", the diesel tank is supplying fuel & the fuel is returning to the veg tank...), there must be something wrong with the veg tank valves -- supply and return..since veg is not supplying, and the return is returning diesel...
so, he replaced the two valves. he said that spending the time to put them on the bench & test them to see which was broken or how they were broken might cost as much as getting 2 new valves & having them put in ($260) -- and then ultimately, you're still going to need 1/2 new valves.
he put in a new LED temperature gauge, because the lights of my other one were going out. i really should have gotten an analog one (simple needle), come to think of it afterward. oh well?
we still don't have the situation fixed where when i press "veg on", i immediately begin to drive on vegetable oil & the tank begins to heat up at that time. when i press "veg on", the tank is supposed to heat up THEN switch to driving on veg oil once the tank is heated to 150 degrees, but something about that communication is failing--the tank does not heat up, and it doesn't supply. so, in june 2010 (a few weeks after i got patience after the conversion), i had plugged a little fuse into spot which bypasses that communication...so that when i press "veg on", we immediately go to veg.
sam thinks that this is fine, so long as the engine is hot before i turn the veg on, because the hot head veg fuel filter heats the oil and then the engine will heat the oil. so, we're just letting that be. in order to make the system work like it was intended, sam would just have to figure out the electrical system on his own, which will be time-consuming (cost $), and he doesn't think its worth it, he says its fine to switch as long as the engine is running. (in the cold weather, i am being good about letting the engine warm up
he said that some of the veg hoses were loose and leaking. he tightened them.
there are no worries about biodiesel being in the veg tank.
i drove from hudson, NY -> yonkers. my pressure gauge initially was way down (-10), but then bounced up to like a -2, which is decent. it should ideally be at 4 (that is where it is when ive just put a new filter in), but so long as it isnt below -2, its okay.
11/13: i drove from NYC to baltimore. i noticed my pressure gauge way down again, at the beginning of the trip, so i pulled over to change my veg fuel filter. then when i got to baltimore, the weather was warm, so i creeped north on reisterstown road, since it was a nice day. i spent ~3 hours collecting/filtering 15 gallons and changing the 2 filters that are part of my RoadTote transfer pump/filtration system. one of those filters was S T U C K. took me 30 minutes to get off, for sure. its such glory when a really stuck thing DOES come off.
friday, 11/18: went to collect oil from a steel barrel. it was 36 degrees - i was excited to see how my pump would do. it started pumping, "hooray!", then it slowed down, then it stopped. (after 5 gallons). womp wommmmp. looked like i would need to bring the oil home, let it warm up, and pump indoors. so, a friend made a funnel out of cardboard, and we scooped oil out of the barrel using a 5gal bucked, and slowly poured it into a bunch of containers, got 20+ gallons.
and now, i just finished filtering 10 of those gallons in the living room, using the RoadTote. i'm powering the RoadTote by clipping its alligator clips to the alligator clips of my DieHard inverter. i had to clean the mesh screen of the filter wand once, and now i have to do it again, but i need to get a wire brush to clean it. theres a lot of old dried up stuff (ancient, really. been sitting, dried on there for over a year!) caught in the little accordion folds..i used the stick from a stick of incense to scrape some of the gunk out, and continued pumping, but didnt pump too much before it clogged again.
i think it will take a lot of patience to filter this oil! maybe its time for a new one of these mesh screens? i expect it to be like $25, i'll have to hunt it down. or, maybe i shouldn't be using this oil. hmm...but it looks pretty good...brown & translucent..im thinking ill filter it & brush the screen clean often. it will have 24 hours sitting in the house here for a gravity settle...all things combined, there will be another 10 gallons to be had. those 10 gallons will be good for about a 3.5hrs drive - a lot of work, huh?!
well, i went with sam merrett of full circle fuels to make the veg repairs. he has a shop in Hudson, NY (right near the amtrak, conveniently enough. and 2hr train to NYC goes all along the hudson river, beautiful.)
i picked her up on november 11th.
okay:
he said that given the situation (when i switch "veg on", the diesel tank is supplying fuel & the fuel is returning to the veg tank...), there must be something wrong with the veg tank valves -- supply and return..since veg is not supplying, and the return is returning diesel...
so, he replaced the two valves. he said that spending the time to put them on the bench & test them to see which was broken or how they were broken might cost as much as getting 2 new valves & having them put in ($260) -- and then ultimately, you're still going to need 1/2 new valves.
he put in a new LED temperature gauge, because the lights of my other one were going out. i really should have gotten an analog one (simple needle), come to think of it afterward. oh well?
we still don't have the situation fixed where when i press "veg on", i immediately begin to drive on vegetable oil & the tank begins to heat up at that time. when i press "veg on", the tank is supposed to heat up THEN switch to driving on veg oil once the tank is heated to 150 degrees, but something about that communication is failing--the tank does not heat up, and it doesn't supply. so, in june 2010 (a few weeks after i got patience after the conversion), i had plugged a little fuse into spot which bypasses that communication...so that when i press "veg on", we immediately go to veg.
sam thinks that this is fine, so long as the engine is hot before i turn the veg on, because the hot head veg fuel filter heats the oil and then the engine will heat the oil. so, we're just letting that be. in order to make the system work like it was intended, sam would just have to figure out the electrical system on his own, which will be time-consuming (cost $), and he doesn't think its worth it, he says its fine to switch as long as the engine is running. (in the cold weather, i am being good about letting the engine warm up
he said that some of the veg hoses were loose and leaking. he tightened them.
there are no worries about biodiesel being in the veg tank.
i drove from hudson, NY -> yonkers. my pressure gauge initially was way down (-10), but then bounced up to like a -2, which is decent. it should ideally be at 4 (that is where it is when ive just put a new filter in), but so long as it isnt below -2, its okay.
11/13: i drove from NYC to baltimore. i noticed my pressure gauge way down again, at the beginning of the trip, so i pulled over to change my veg fuel filter. then when i got to baltimore, the weather was warm, so i creeped north on reisterstown road, since it was a nice day. i spent ~3 hours collecting/filtering 15 gallons and changing the 2 filters that are part of my RoadTote transfer pump/filtration system. one of those filters was S T U C K. took me 30 minutes to get off, for sure. its such glory when a really stuck thing DOES come off.
friday, 11/18: went to collect oil from a steel barrel. it was 36 degrees - i was excited to see how my pump would do. it started pumping, "hooray!", then it slowed down, then it stopped. (after 5 gallons). womp wommmmp. looked like i would need to bring the oil home, let it warm up, and pump indoors. so, a friend made a funnel out of cardboard, and we scooped oil out of the barrel using a 5gal bucked, and slowly poured it into a bunch of containers, got 20+ gallons.
and now, i just finished filtering 10 of those gallons in the living room, using the RoadTote. i'm powering the RoadTote by clipping its alligator clips to the alligator clips of my DieHard inverter. i had to clean the mesh screen of the filter wand once, and now i have to do it again, but i need to get a wire brush to clean it. theres a lot of old dried up stuff (ancient, really. been sitting, dried on there for over a year!) caught in the little accordion folds..i used the stick from a stick of incense to scrape some of the gunk out, and continued pumping, but didnt pump too much before it clogged again.
i think it will take a lot of patience to filter this oil! maybe its time for a new one of these mesh screens? i expect it to be like $25, i'll have to hunt it down. or, maybe i shouldn't be using this oil. hmm...but it looks pretty good...brown & translucent..im thinking ill filter it & brush the screen clean often. it will have 24 hours sitting in the house here for a gravity settle...all things combined, there will be another 10 gallons to be had. those 10 gallons will be good for about a 3.5hrs drive - a lot of work, huh?!
Fixing the Veg System
9/15: I sent a big long email to GreaseCar (Massachusetts) & Full Circle Fuels (Hudson, NY), describing whats going on with Patience. Greasecar emailed me that they wouldn't look at Patience because she doesn't have a GreaseCar system. Sam at Full Circle Fuels called me back & we talked for a good while. We talked about how there was a boom in the veg conversion industry when diesel prices were really high, then business quieted down. (We were speculating on what happened to VegPower, who converted Patience). He said he's worked on VegPower systems before, and that it is a good system & that he has worked on them before. He said unless something wild was done incorrectly during installation, it shouldn't be a problem to diagnose & fix.
On 10/3, I dropped Patience off at Sam's Full Circle Fuels shop which is right near the Hudson, NY Amtrak station -- I just made my train to NYC. A 2hr ride, $34. The ride is BEAUTIFUL, along the Hudson River the whole way...
10/5: Sam is going to look at Patience today. And fix my passenger window! (I'm interested to see if he identifies anything I haven't, and if his fix will fix it once & for all.) So far, we figure that the signal for the fuel return line is not working, which is why biodiesel is returning to the veg tank. At this point my veg tank is slightly overflowing, trickling out of the side of the van, where I fill the tank.
I wish I could diagnose & fix everything myself. I spent time on 9/4 staring at the diagram of the veg system, and figured that something was keeping the return valve open when it should be closed, which would you would think would be a problem with the sender...So, I have a diagram of the sender, but finding (identifying) it IN the van would be hard... Maybe I can have an hour of Sam's time where I make him show me where everything is, which would be a good start. The actual working of electronics continue to be a bit of a wizardry to me. I know most of the theory on how the pieces of the veg system work. I can identify (show you) where a lot of the pieces are, but not all.
Other things on my mind: How I'll collect & filter veg oil in the winter. The issues are:
1. The transfer pump I have is not supposed to be used when it's freezing out (don't know if this actually a really bad thing to do, or if its one of those warnings you can ignore)
2. You're not supposed to pump cold oil. (The oil I collect is always outdoors, so it will be cold & extra thick in the winter.)
There are numerous solutions in my mind, I will discuss them with Sam.
On 10/3, I dropped Patience off at Sam's Full Circle Fuels shop which is right near the Hudson, NY Amtrak station -- I just made my train to NYC. A 2hr ride, $34. The ride is BEAUTIFUL, along the Hudson River the whole way...
10/5: Sam is going to look at Patience today. And fix my passenger window! (I'm interested to see if he identifies anything I haven't, and if his fix will fix it once & for all.) So far, we figure that the signal for the fuel return line is not working, which is why biodiesel is returning to the veg tank. At this point my veg tank is slightly overflowing, trickling out of the side of the van, where I fill the tank.
I wish I could diagnose & fix everything myself. I spent time on 9/4 staring at the diagram of the veg system, and figured that something was keeping the return valve open when it should be closed, which would you would think would be a problem with the sender...So, I have a diagram of the sender, but finding (identifying) it IN the van would be hard... Maybe I can have an hour of Sam's time where I make him show me where everything is, which would be a good start. The actual working of electronics continue to be a bit of a wizardry to me. I know most of the theory on how the pieces of the veg system work. I can identify (show you) where a lot of the pieces are, but not all.
Other things on my mind: How I'll collect & filter veg oil in the winter. The issues are:
1. The transfer pump I have is not supposed to be used when it's freezing out (don't know if this actually a really bad thing to do, or if its one of those warnings you can ignore)
2. You're not supposed to pump cold oil. (The oil I collect is always outdoors, so it will be cold & extra thick in the winter.)
There are numerous solutions in my mind, I will discuss them with Sam.
Veg Off for like a year - Engine Rebuild, broken Road Tote, etc.
ENGINE REBUILD:
The Maryland Renaissance Fair was Patience's last excursion in Oct 2010 before the engine went kapoot. She went into the shop in like late October & didn't come out til late May, cause it took months for them to start working on her, then time waiting on parts. Desmond (from Desmond's Auto Services, 2621 Taylor Avenue, Parkville, MD 21234-5536, (410) 665-8787) did an engine rebuild, it was a bit under $3,500. The piston rings were all loose, cracked or broken. The cylinders had some scratches on the walls. He had the cylinders bored out & got slightly larger pistons.
When I got the van back, I drove on 2 tanks of veg oil. My veg tank still had oil in it, and I had some spares. It ran on veg fine.
VEG OIL DISASTER:
Then, I went to collect veg oil one Friday night and had what I call the "veg oil disaster". In Vancouver, I once upon a time cut an extra air hole into the handle of my spare container so that it would pour faster. (It was pouring slow because I wasn't putting the nozzle on the spare right, sheesh. Silly.) So, on this Friday night, one of my spares that still had some veg oil in it tipped over & was slowly leaking veg oil out of that small hole...My rug got gunked up, as did the big rubbermaid box that holds the RoadTote, and the track that my side door glides on. Major cleanup.
ROADTOTE BROKEN:
The next time I went to get oil, the pump of my RoadTote wasn't working. I speculated it was related to the Veg Oil Disaster -- maybe it got gunked up. Here is a picture of the pump for you, more photos (for myself..) here.
Specs: Tuthill brand, model FR1604, Fill Rite Eccentric Pump, 12volt, 7 gallons per minute. This pump comes with those alligator clips so it can be powered from a car battery, or from my inverter, which has been very handy -- the DieHard Portable Power 1150 Jump-Starter/AC-DC Power Source.
This pump costs like $200 but it comes with a one-year warrantee, so I was able to get a new one for free, but it took months. They don't warranty it for veg oil anymore, FYI. I hooked that pump up to the rest of the RoadTote business (hoses & filters) & it works.
I partially disassembled my broken pump & it really didn't seem that the veg oil had really affected it, EXCEPT for where a fuse plugs in along the length of wire that connects the alligator clips...In cleaning it, a plastic piece broke, so I just cut off that whole fuse section & hard-wired the wires together. I feel like it will work, but haven't tested it yet, which is weird come to think of it...
Anyway, I have a working Road Tote now in Sept 2011.
MY VEGPOWER GUY HAS FALLEN OFF THE FACE OF THIS EARTH:
This June 2011, I emailed my guy at VegPower when my RoadTote was broken, and said I wanted to fix the temp safety sensor (that had failed back in June 2010--I've been running with a fuse plugged in to bypass it ever since) & that I wanted him to check the van out since the engine rebuild, make sure everything is okay, and that I'd pick up some filters...I got an out-of-office response from his email & voicemail that business is like temporarily shut down...I was patiently waiting for him to return to my life, but 4 months later & still the same message & no response. Disappointing. :(
VEG SYSTEM GONE CRAZY:
I recently used the RoadTote to collect some oil (I got half-tank, or 7 gallons) I started driving to VT & switched "veg on". The light came on, my pressure gauge did NOT go up (it is supposed to, unless its time to switch the filter -- but even then, I would notice it go up a little at least..), my temperate gauge did not seem to go up. I say "seem" because its really hard to read the digital display because portions of the lights are out, I don't know why that would be happening. Its LED, they shouldn't be "burnt" out already..
I left "veg on", and after 2 hours, my veg fuel gauge told me that I now had a full tank, and my biodiesel gauge had gone down...
So, biodiesel has gone into my veg tank.
I have not & am not running on veg.
THE SEARCH FOR SOLUTIONS:
I am beginning to find someone to solve & fix Patience's numerous veg mysteries...She is, as people often call her, the Mystery Machine.
Wish me luck! I'm wishing to find someone good. I know I will.
SUMMER 2011: NON-VEG RELATED BETTERMENTS:
2. My side door handle wasn't really working. Everyone was having a really hard time opening & closing. I took the panel off & removed the handle & saw that a crucial metal piece was broken into 3 pieces. I bought a new handle from GoWesty.com ($100) & installed it. I'm actually having the same difficulty opening & closing the door, which I think results from a certain screw not staying screwed in as tight as possible. I think the struggle in opening & closing the door is what ended up braking the old handle's metal piece, so I need to fix this before stressing the new handle too much. I put some nail polish on the screw that seems to come out some, but after a few open & closes the door was really hard to open/close again...I think I need a new screw in order to be able to screw it in as far as possible to begin with -- this one is a bit stripped.
3. I got a new rug for the floor from The Loading Dock, a non-profit materials re-use center in Baltimore. It is green & tweed - not what I envisioned, but I really needed a rug to get the old sticky rug out & protect the original rug.
SO HAPPY TOGETHER:
SUMMER 2011: NON-VEG RELATED BETTERMENTS:
1. I parked outside Rachel & Haley's in Charles Village & listened to Patti Smith & finally cut out the old top tent screen & sewed in new screen. :D Here is a pic during the process:
3. I got a new rug for the floor from The Loading Dock, a non-profit materials re-use center in Baltimore. It is green & tweed - not what I envisioned, but I really needed a rug to get the old sticky rug out & protect the original rug.
SO HAPPY TOGETHER:
Who is? We are! Its been a great summer.
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