'84 BJ60 3B WVO build up thread

[MrMoMo]

Originally Posted by joshoisasleep

Why are you using a 6 port?

I was just going to go with a 3 port... couldn't think of a use for the other 3...

Just so happened to be what I got... I didn't need the 6 port. My one thought was to use it to allow the VO to return when not in use. (would require the use of a seperate pump) something like this...

[joshoisasleep]

Oh so you could add in a purge line and feed back the excess veggie when switching to diesel?
Would you worry about contaminating your veggie tank with diesel? I mean I don't see why it would be a problem anyway but?

[MrMoMo]

Originally Posted by joshoisasleep

Oh so you could add in a purge line and feed back the excess veggie when switching to diesel?

Nope, but so I could have a continual loop of HOT veggie, so that I didn't have a cold spot leading from the filter to the valve. The line to the filter is heated, and the filter is heated, and with the way I have it now, the line to the valve and the valve will be heated so I'm not as concerned. Originally I had envisioned a cold spot between the heated filter and the valve. I didn't want to switch over to veggie and find that everything quit because I shot it full of cold oil. As I said though, it would require an electric pump to circulate the VO, which is more than I want to do at this point. I don't see this as a common feature so I think I can get by without it.

[MrMoMo]

Well hopefully this weekend sees a lot of change here... but lets start with some off vehicle playing. - worked a bit on the processing side of things tonight.

CPVC pipe & fittings, 3/4" glued together. Quick, simple and tidy. Goldenrod filter (15micron) Feed pipe stops about 4" from the bottom of the barrel.

Took more time in Canadian tire to figure out the bits I needed than it did to assemble it. Hose barb on the "out" side of the filter connects to garden hose end (good thing it's winter and I can raid the shed and cut up old hoses!) Garden hose goes to a drill pump, which goes to another section of garden hose, with a double hose barb to a short section of clear so I can see the beautiful oil...

[MrMoMo]

The rig set up and ready to go... just need barrel #2 set up and ready to go!!!

So.. oil comes up the CPVC tube, into the filter, down into the pump, and back into the barrel (for now) The drill pump works well at low speed, but seems to cavitate at higher speeds. I havn't tried spinning it FULL speed yet!! In the picture that shows the whole setup, the oil may appear to be cloudy, it worried me at first but then I saw that it was full of tiny little air bubbles - the close up shot was about a minute after, all the little bubbles worked their way out and the oil is nice and clear again. (phew!) This oil has NOT been de-watered yet (other than sitting in cubies for 4 weeks), only filtered -600, 400, 200, 100, 15 micron! Barrel #2 will be the de-watering barrel. **edit** This order will change in the future, I will filter into the de-watering barrel, then pump from it, into this one, and from this one into the vehicle... To start with I only had a plastic barrel and HAD to start some processing. The heated barrel is steel and will be insulated. **/edit**

My little helper is actually getting old enough and strong enough to become a helper! - watching from a safe distance on his little step ladder.

[MrMoMo]

Ok, so a slow weekend again, but any progress is progress I guess. I think my processing setup is done, I am still working out the bugs though...

Got the steel drum set up. Welded in a fitting for the heater element - with no ka-boom. I will NOT describe my welding process, if you decide to weld on a drum you do so at your own risk!

After welding it in I re-sprayed it with paint, installed the heater element and thermostat (opposite side of the barrel) then wrapped the whole thing with R4 bubble wrap insulation. Worked really nicely and I'm happy with the end product (so far!) I left holes in the insulation where the head of the heater element, and the head of the thermostat are for wiring - and because aluminum foil is conductive and I didn't want the whole barrel to be live!. Wired up the heater and thermostat and made sure that all the foil & the barrel are grounded, and there are no shorts between the heater and the drum or insulation. Covered the electrical connections with an insulating material and then foil taped over them. The only exposed part at this point is the set point of the thermostat.

Got the steel drum next to the plastic barrel, and set up to transfer with the drill pump.

[MrMoMo]

So after the first 10 minutes I decided that the drill pump sucked. It slowed down to a dribble and was really cavitating (lots of bubbles in the output) I figured you get what you pay for when you only spend $10. I think the problem was more that the oil was not really warm enough to be pumped through the filter and was clogging it. What I found was if I spun the pump in reverse for a second or two, (not really good for a flexible imeller pump but it was only $10 so why not...) then went back to forward the flow increased dramatically. I figure the revers flow was blowing all the filter clogging material off the filter and allowing it to flow again. Needless to say I blamed the pump, and found this nice electric version to take it's place. Much nicer to operate, and 12V so I can take it on the road later. Unfortunately it suffered from the same problem, so I guess I need to pump hot oil (which will be possible since it's in the right drum now).

So I made a bypass pickup, and put a Y valve (garden hose style) on the input to the pump. Now I can draw from a barrel without passing through the filter, and infact I can draw from anything without passing through the filter. I made this pickup exactly the same way I made the pickup for the filter, with the CPVC fittings and hose - I love that stuff - it's really easy to work with. As you can see, the 12V pump has enough suction to require proper suction hose, the clear vinyl that I was using is not working! I replaced that section with garden hose and it worked fine, but it was nice to be able to see the oil flowing through the pump input with no bubbles, and only bubbles in the output of the pump. Flattened the hose right out though! I was amazed at the amount of flow still coming through the squashed hose.

SO.. now I have a steel drum full of veggie oil that I am going to cook.

UN-fortunately, I didn't get a THING done on the Bj60 this weekend - but I guess you need to have the oil before you can run it.

Plant supervisor appears to have lost his white hardhat.

[MrMoMo]

Have to include this link for anyone who has not found it. I was just sent it by a friend.

The Fill Up For Free Straight Waste Vegetable Oil GreaseCar SVO / WVO Network

[MrMoMo]

OK so apparently more pre-filtering would be a good thing.

On a good note, it seems that I have no water in my oil - other than the frozen cubie. I did a few hot pan tests and the results were no water, none, zip, nada from the first sample, and less than a bubble per inch on the second sample (second sample was only filtered to 100 micron, 1st was to 10 micron)

Searching around for a better pre-filtering method I came across quite a few. The coolest by far that I have found (for the entire setup actually) is by our very own M John Galt

Have to post it:
Dewatering and Cleaning VO with Upflow Settling - Topic Powered by eve community

M John Galt - that is a brilliant setup. I take back every nasty comment I ever made about you.

I'm definately going to incorperate it into mine, it will be the pre-filter into my heated barrel - It just pumps nicer when it's thinned out!

First 55 Gallons now filtered down to 10 Micron!

[M John Galt]

Thanks for the positive feedback. The upflow settling could be easily added to the well designed system you've assembled. I adapted my cold upflow system from Ron Schroeder's heated upflow system. For a single tank cold blend fuel system the cold upflow filtering is best, for a heated two tank fuel system a heated upflow can be used as described here:

I have a trouble free settling system that gets me more than 1000 gallons thru a 2 micron Racor filter element.

My settling tank is very evenly heated and well insulated. I introduce the oil into the bottom of the tank slowly to not stir up the oil already in the tank. The outlet is about 6" from the TOP of the tank so I am only draining the top 10% of the oil in the tank. The outlet gravity flows thru the 2 micron filter into my storage tank. If I put 5 gallons into the tank a day, it takes over a week for that oil to work it's way up to the outlet. by that time almost all of the water and solids have settled out. I get over 1000 gallons thru the filtering station filter and I have NEVER had to replace an in the car WVO filter even after 70,000 miles on WVO.

I use a settling tank that has a little more capacity than the amount of oil I use in a week. With PHO Soy, I ran a little over 120F in the settling tank and about 80 in the storage tank (I am intentionally keeping the animal fat clear). With Canola, I am running about 100F.

No problems with polymerization.

I can heat it either with hot water from my boiler or with electricity. The tank is wrapped with PEX pipe with a spacing of about 3" turn to turn and is also wrapped with ice melt cable between the PEX turns.

The water loop is fed from a tempering valve so a constant water temperature is circulated around the settling tank. The circulating pump that I am using only draws 5 watts.

The electric heat is controlled by a proportional controller rather than an on/off controller. Once up to temperature, it takes less than 60 watts to maintain temperature. With good enough insulation a 60 to 80 foot ice melt cable will get you over 200F. That temperature will probably damage the cable. I have had no problems up to 150F.

Normally I just use the circulating hot water heat.

I also heat the incoming waste oil with an inline thermostatically controlled electric heater (like a 120V version of a veggietherm) to the same temperature as the tank so there is no temperature differential between the incoming oil and the oil already in the tank.

My in home filtering has been working so well that I used a stock fuel filter for WVO on my last WVO conversion ('85 MB 300D)


Ron
'85 300D
Since '81 former WVO conversions:
'83 240D
'80 Audi 4000D
'83 Isuzu Pup
'86 Golf
'76 Honda Civic with Kubota engine
Several generators
Kubota Tractor

from:
BurnVeg.com Forums :: View topic - Dewatering systems

[83bj60]

I got to say, this is one of the most informative, best threads on MUD. I am learning a tremendous amount from you guys.

[MrMoMo]

Moving forward again!!

Well I had to spend the morning re-building my rear shock mounts, but that's a
different story!

With that out of the way I got back to the important stuff.

Got the tank almost finished today, only one spot left open on it - my "inspection/assembly" plate. The fuel draw & coolant loop will go into the top right beside this plate - the plate will be rivited on, so I can remove it if I need to. - don't worry, there will be pictures

Other than welding in the fittings, the only thing left to do on the tank is air test it - I don't want to waste 110L of veggie oil to find out if it leaks! After that I can insulate it and install it

Next step is to mount the coolant heated filter in the engine compartment, and run the rest of the lines.

[MrMoMo]

Just a couple other random shots I have that may be of interest to some people.


1) Nice clean oil...

2) Oil in the barrel, with the heater element (picture taken through barrel bung!)

3) Nasty Nasty Nasty junk in the filter. After 55 Gallons (208L) the filter was pretty much clogged. (going from 100 micron to 10!) Even still, at ~$6 for a filter it only cost me = ~$0.03/L !!!!!!! The nastyness flowing out of the filter is a result of backflowing the filter momentarily. I would do this and then leave for 10 minutes to allow the junk to settle to the bottom of the filter bowl. After 55G the filter bowl was full of this junk. - Just plain NASTY!

[MrMoMo]

From what I have read, and found online - this appears to be dry oil.

This is what my oil looks like in a hot pan test.

Oil smeared on bottom of pan until it smokes, then a 1/4" layer poured in.

No bubbles, just heat lines - which I think are OK... anyone care to comment?

[83bj60]

Originally Posted by MrMoMo

From what I have read, and found online - this appears to be dry oil. [...] anyone care to comment?

W O W !

[M John Galt]

Yes that looks to be clear clean dry oil.

My VO processor goes from ~100µ [bugscreen/pantyhose] to ~20µ [jeans leg bag filter] to 5µ [whole house water filter]. Most of the 'stuff' gets caught in the first screen, nearly all of the rest settles out in the upflow barrel. A little 'crud' collects in the bottom of the bag filter, and the 5µ water filter cartridge lasts for hundreds of gallons.

[MrMoMo]

Originally Posted by M John Galt

Yes that looks to be clear clean dry oil.

Good to know, thanks.

Originally Posted by M John Galt

5µ [whole house water filter].

I assume you are using the "sediment" filters, not the carbon ones... I saw these on ebay the other day and wondered if they would work.

like this;

Whole House Water Filter/Sediment/Biodiesel wvo svo/RO - eBay (item 360035657222 end time Mar-27-08 09:31:20 PDT)

[M John Galt]

I'm using a 5µ sediment filter cartridge in a similar, but single stage filter.
rainfresh advantage
A hand crank barrel pump pushes the oil through the cartridge filter after it's been bag filtered at ~20µ.
A filter cartridge is very inexpensive and easy to replace.

[83bj60]

5µ... Hmmm! Made me smile and look for the alt character codes this morning...

Seriously, I would love to see your setup

Where exactly is Possum Lake anyway? Nipissing area by any chance? I have fond memories of that area, had a hippy friend there living off grid that I've unfortunately neglected to visit...

[beejay42]

MrMoMo,
just want to thank you for a great thread- or two.
I have subscribed to both and will be eagerly following.
I am looking into converting my 3B to a two tank WVO system at some point- IF I can manage to get a reliable source of oil in this city (Melbourne is apparantly quite dry now that big companies have moved into oil collection)
I am still in the early stages of research however.

Asking about the 3B elsewhere I have been told by two people that their 3B's actually ran better on WVO/SVO than on Dino- one of whom did some partial verification of this 'intuition' with some 'limited Dyno testing'.

anyway- keep up the good work- I am learning heaps.
Hans.

[MrMoMo]

OK guys, I PROMISE an update soon. I am very close to done now but with the warm weather here now I spend much less time at the computer!! Have no fear, I have still been taking lots of pictures - and will post them here.

I would have been done this weekend, but my Pollak valve failed!! (I'm glad it failed when it did - BEFORE I started using it. I had heard bad things about these valves, but already had it!!) Thankfully a 3-port solenoid valve is in the mail to replace it.

Props to Edward Beggs @ Plantdrive.ca for the hassle free swap to get me up and running again.

Update soon!