How long have you run WVO in your 3b?

haryv · 09-29-09, 11:39 AM

I never brought this up in the forums. About a year ago, I was experiancing some major drops in myfuel economy. It was so bad, I had to do something about it. So I went to the local FI repair shop discussed my situation with the shop mechanic and he suggested I take the injectors out to have them inspected. Sure enough the injectors were very worn out. Had them rebuilt and I reinstalled them. My fuel economy is back to where it was. This issue happened within a 1to 1.5 years of installed my home build veggie kit and then alternating between diesel and WVO.

I want to see if others have had issues with there 3b and WVO and injectors. I have a hot water line leading from the second heater core to the spare tank. A 10 micron semi truck filter for the oil and a heat exchanger plate just before the injector pump.

Thanks

kris_maier · 10-09-09, 01:56 PM

I've been driving on wvo for about a year now with no issues like you describe. Sometimes the injectors get plugged up a bit but a good purge and some high rev's clear it up no problem. I have been thinking of getting the injectors rebuilt but have heard more than one person say they have noticed no change at all (obviously not in your case!)

moosecruiser · 10-13-09, 08:00 PM

7 months and no issues . down and dirty manual valves , home made not fox fuel preheater in tank and 10 micron wvo filter under the hood . a few failures to purge have taught me it is essential .
a learning process and some of it comes from here .
moose/mike

magnus_heydoc · 10-14-09, 09:53 PM

my rig has been on WVO for a couple years and it did "saw" back and forth from time to time indicating an injector that wasn't functioning as well as the others. I just used more fuel conditioner and everyhting was fine for a while. I was considering having my injectors rebuilt but then someone suggested liquid moly diesel purge. It is hooked up direct to a line and takes about 20mins.
The results are pretty awesome; totally different truck and seemingly no need to rebuild.

MrMoMo · 10-22-09, 08:32 PM

More info needed on that!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by magnus_heydoc

then someone suggested liquid moly diesel purge. It is hooked up direct to a line and takes about 20mins.
The results are pretty awesome; totally different truck and seemingly no need to rebuild.

I have been running for just over a year and a half. About 6 months ago I pulled my injectors, and I also pulled the injectors from my parts truck. Both sets looked IDENTICAL. I put the parts truck injectors in the veggie truck and noticed NO difference at all. From that I conclude (and I'm sure someone will argue) that there was no change in my injectors from running veggie for a year. (I didn't notice any performance difference with the swap)

SO..... Maybe your veggie is not hot enough ? Not clean enough? or most likely... not dry enough? How often do you hot pan test? how do you de-water?

magnus_heydoc · 10-25-09, 04:04 PM

Basically I let my oil sit for at least 2 wks but most of my oil ends up sitting for at least a month and sometimes several mos. Then it's filtered through 10micron bag filter, 5 mic whole house, 5mic goldenrod and the a 1micron whole house filter and then into my truck.
I'm careful to not pour in any of the sediment in the bottom of the oil collecting jugs. Supposedly the water is contained in that sediment. I have a heated sedimentor in the svo line which is supposed to get the oil very hot and have any remaining water drop out.
I've done the hot pan test and have had decent results. Not perfect but minimal water. I suspect changing over to svo too soon and really short purges (in my history) were the cause of the injectors working in an un-uniform way.
Either way I'd recommend LM2005 (part #) as a super wicked cleaner once every year or two especially when running SVO. It made a huge difference for my rig. (When I mentioned "rebuild" before I was referring to rebuilt injectors after a bench test proved them to not be functioning right.)

Can anyone say for sure what the symptoms of having water in the fuel might be?
I hope this helps
Aaron

magnus_heydoc · 10-25-09, 05:13 PM

The posts above got me thinking it was time to check my settling tech. to see if my oil was dry. So I did a couple hot pan tests.
The first sample from from the stop cock on the bottom of the goldenrod 'water separating' filter. This filter is made to remove water from fuel but was intended for fossil fuel water removal. I understood from various forums and listening to the so called experts that it would not separate water from oil. I decided to put this theory to the test.
The sample was darker colored but didn't show a separation line indicating two differently weighted liquids. This filter is a 5 or 10 micron filter of particulate in addition to H2O. I let the stop cock open until I had a 5th of a coffee mug full.
The result was a mildly positive HPT. Little micro bubbles formed in the bottom of the pan but no big bubbles.
There is some water being pulled from the fuel somehow.

The second HPT was a pull of a few mm of final product. This would get the GR filtering and go through the final 1 micron filter as well.
The result was a negative HPT. Dry fuel.

Before I can conclude anything let me start by saying Mr.Chong gives me only the top grade waste oil from his restaurant. The bottom really gunky stuff he gives another guy that uses it for bear bait. I'd suspect the oil is pretty dry to start with. Then it settles for a while and I put a trouble light behind the stream of oil as I carefully decant the top out of the 5gal collection pail. Through the light I can see the first sign of a color change and then stop with that bucket. the last few mm goes to the DQ oil barrel as my waste. The GR filter does remove some water although it seems there's not much there to start with. What I mean is I've filtered around 1 thousand L of oil this summer without opening the GR stop cock and when I did there was only a very little amount of darkened sediment, maybe a 6th or a 7th of the bottom of a standard coffee mug. In that darker sample there was a very small amount of H2O pulled from literally 1000 or more litres meaning the oil was pretty dry before it got to the GR filter in the first place.
Either way I'm happy as it appears I have dry fuel. I had been hoping I wouldn't have to spend a grand or so on a centrifuge. So far I won't bother.

To answer the question in the beginning of this thread I've been using SVO from my methods above in my 3B for over 15000kms and possibly 20K kms (not exactly sure how many surf trip I've made in the past 2 years----each round trip is around 1300kms and during hurricane season I'd make 6-8 trips per year.)
I hope this helps
Aaron

MrMoMo · 10-30-09, 02:10 PM

If it makes you feel any better about not buying a centrifuge... I have one of the diesel craft ones sitting in my back room. I don't use it any more. I do plan on installing it in my processing system again some day to help save on filter costs, but currently, the settling and filters, and starting with fairly clean/dry oil seems to be working fine!!

magnus_heydoc · 10-31-09, 11:51 AM

After speaking with some people they seem to insist the only way to get dry fuel is to centrifuge. Looking back this individual also sells centrifuges so I did take it with a grain of salt but it still instills doubt in me. The thing is that, if I get negative HPT ,is that an accurate enough test to ensure I have dry fuel? If it is then I'm fine and my system for processing my fuel is successfully creating a good product.

As far as filter costs go I bought some 10micron bag filters, like 100 lot or so, 2 years ago and I've used 4 total. I've only changed the GR filter once and the other 'whole house' 5 micron and 1 micron filters, not in 2 years and 15000km of fuel. Something seems to be going well, either the fuel I pull with my crank pump at the DQ oil barrel is very clean or Mr. Chong's oil is already darn clean or both. It could also be the strength of the processor design. My oil goes through the 10 micron gravity bag filter into the 45g drum, then it's pulled through an inline 5micron whole house filter with a 1HP clear water pump. Then the pump pushes it through the 5 micron GR filter and then through the 1 micron whole house filter and then into my truck.
Who really knows? Whatever the answer it appears to be working.