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?!