AltFuel anyone out there tried Bio Diesel on Bj40s?

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Off Road Costa Rica

Off Road Costa Rica

10 Year 15 Year
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Threads
6
Messages
45
Location
Tamarindo Beach, Costa Rica
Website
www.offroadcostarica.com
We are www.offroadcostarica.com , we try to show people the real Costa Rica by letting them drive our Cruisers through tropical forrests, white sand beaches, rivers etc.
Our guides point out all sorts of wildlife and I consider what we do to be adventure-ecoturism. We are all offroad maniacs, but we are also environmentalists.

Someone out there gave us a sugestion of using Biodiesel. This seems like a good idea, it would be an honour to be the only folks in this countries Tourism industry to use an environmentaly-friendly fuel. The question is, how do the cruisers take this stuff? Does it beat up the engine? Are there any mods that need to be done?

I appreciate any guidance.

Pura Vida :cool:

Fabrice

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3 Fjs
7 Bjs
and counting
 
biodiesel tends to plug up filters and fuel system a bit. i believe biodiesel has more lubricative qualities than regular diesel though have also heard the opposite. if you do run biodiesel expect to change filters more often. some folks try to offset this by adding acetone, which is suposed to help clean out your motor but also bonds to water pulling it through water traps and such. if this is harmful or not i dont know, some acetone additives made for this contain acetone with water in it, but i would drain water trap or sedimenter before adding acetone to be safe. this question has been asked a couple times i think you'll be able to find more by searching than what i can tell you. also i think there is a few folks that claim to get a better longevity from using biodiesel.
 
There are two concerns you should consider with good quality biodiesel in an older 3B diesel engine. Biodiesel has natural solvent proporties that will gradually eat through any rubber seals/hoses that it comes in contact with (delaminated my engine mount below the primer pump). This characteristic will also cause the biodiesel to "clean" your fuel system from the inside. This is why the fuel filter must be changed requently when you first begin running biodiesel. It's cleaning all the crud from inside yur fuel system. After a few tanks this stops happening.
Second main concern is gelling at low temperatures (28-32 F) but that shouldn't be an issue for you...
 
Do it!
The 3B's love bio, I ran it for 3 years in my BJ42, and didn't have a problem, my brother has been running it in his BJ60, for almost 5 years now, still hasn't changed the rubber lines, but might have to in the future.
Good luck.
Cheers,
Deny
 
Are you the company who has all the beautifull white FJ-40s..Cruiser.com or something to that affect. If so nice rigs...saw them a couple weeks ago while on our fourth visit. Man Tamarindo has grown........



Pura Vida
 
I run it in my bj-60. No problems so far. But I wonder with the onset of winter how low of a temp I can run it before it gets hazy and could plug my filter? Other then that it runs well. Expect not to get as good as fuel economy it will drop a little. It smells sweat and nearly oderless at the tail pipe with B40 bio.
 
haryv said:
But I wonder with the onset of winter how low of a temp I can run it before it gets hazy and could plug my filter?
Click to expand...

If you are running B40, it should be good to some pretty low temps. I know the first winter we ran it, I ran B50 and didn't have a problem when it dropped to the coldest -12 (Vancouver BC area) but my brother, being the cheap guy he is ran B100 as long as he could, and on the -12 day, he couldn't start his BJ60, becuase it gelled solid, we had to push it in the shop and warm it up, he tried taking a torch to the filter and lines, but he just couldn't get it going.
Cheers,
Deny
 
I have an HJ60 and will begin running it on biodiesel (B100) in a matter of days. I have devoured the available info on the subject and so far, and the news is very positive. The methanol does behave as a solvent and will clean the fuel tank of old deposits as well as what might be in the fuel lines, so as others have said, check your fuel filter FREQUENTLY, don't just wait for sluggish performance. As for the rubber gaskets, hoses, rings etc., the premature aging and decomposition of them is a little overhyped. Several years will go by before they need replacing and when you do replace them, Viton, Teflon or a few other compatable synthetic rubber components should be easy and really no more expensive than OEM or natural rubber parts.

Your engine will thank you, particularly if you live in the states with our very low sulphur diesel. Sulphur, while not environmentally friendly, was the natural lubricant in petroleum diesel fuel. With it nearly eliminated, the famous diesel engine lifespan is significantly reduced. Biodiesel, on the otherhand, is vegetable oil with methanol (or far less frequently ethanol) replacing the glycerin to reduce its viscosity. It's still essentially just fatty acids, as slippery as it can be, which will reduce engine wear to next to nothing.
 
The new UltraLowSulfurDiesel is required in it's specification to contain lubricity additive to equal old #2 diesel, before it can be sold at the pump. The lubricity additive most commonly used in ULSD is biodiesel.

Don't confuse ULSD with old low sulfur diesel, which did have lubricity problems.
 
In2cruisers said:
Are you the company who has all the beautifull white FJ-40s..Cruiser.com or something to that affect. If so nice rigs...saw them a couple weeks ago while on our fourth visit. Man Tamarindo has grown........



Pura Vida
Click to expand...

Pura Vida! We are the company with the 10 gorgeous, rebuilt and modified orange Bjs and Fjs. Im interested in this other company though, I thought we were the only ones into this.
heres our URL
www.offroadcostarica.com

If you are ever in town again, give us a holler, we have special prices for ih8mud members.

:cheers:

Fabrice
 
This seems to be like a prety thorough site, lots of homework to do...

http://www.biodiesel.org/

thanks to all of you for your comments!

Fabrice
 
well...i havnt done this but i have done some hw on it and it depends on what kinda bio you run (strait veg, diesel/bio or a veg meth mix are the ones i know). i know a guy who runs his BJ60 on home brew B100 and hasnt changed anything but i have been told from other people that you need to change fuel lines ect...and i think there was a guy on here a while back who did a deisel swap and used some sort of heated fuel filter or somthing to keep the fuel warm and running through the lines...not that you would have a problem with that where you are but for reference...

for anybody who is interested here is the heated fuel filter i was talken about:

http://www.vegpower.com/order/
 
Straight veg sounds like the way to go, but I guess a bit of meth may be necesary for added power? Anyway, Im thinking to recycle the grease restaurants produce in this area. I never thought I would be sad to see Burger King leave town, it could have been an important grease contributor.

:pig:
 
Strait veggie oil is the way to go but something I find lacking in info on the net is the long term negative effects that wvo will have on the injector pump. Something you need to also check on for long term IP suvivability is a low PH of the waste veggie oil as oil that is over heated at the resteraunt. If the oil is heated to long and is dark, there will have alot of free faty acids suspended in it. This will lead to long term metel etching in the injector pump. Another factor to worry about is water suspention. Offroad, you are in a good area as its always warm there so heating the oil in the tank might not be nessesarly required. Heating it before the IP mabey required. WVO needs to be heated so its viscocity level can drop to the same level as diesel. A IP can be damaged if there is to much vacume placed on it with unheated veggie oil in colder enviroments.


Last thing to consider is filtation. Filter the oil down to the 10 micron level or smaller. I went to a semi truck wrecking yard and found a 10 micron Racor filter and mounted it to my air cleaner housing. I have yet to finish everything as the tank that will be built will cost more then all the other parts combined. So you need to buy or build the aluminum tank. If the wvo is to be heated make sure the 2 way switching valve is mounted just before the fuel supply port on the IP and then tap off the wvo oil return line back to the tank. This way with the wvo in circulation mode the entire line will be warm. You need a tank pump of some kind for this to work. Need a vacume gage to monitor the vacume of the wvo and obviosly a temp gage so when to switch over. 160F is the time to switch to wvo as its viscosity is the same as diesel.
 
Do a search for "biodiesel" and you will get plenty of hits. A lot of this has been rehashed already.

I'm going on 2 years running bioD in various blends in my BJ42. Runs fantastic. I've only changed the filter about 3 times during this period, haven't bothered with the fuel lines yet. The only concern I have is the fuel filler neck. Might take some work to source a replacement piece of hose in Viton etc. for it.

B
 
I have been running mostly B99 in my BJ60 for six months and have no problems to report. Most of issues i am aware of have been covered in the responses and as stated before a search for biodiesel will yield a wealth of info.
 
I have been running biodiesel now for many years and in 3 cruisers, two of which ran the 3B. It runs great, and after the first couple thousand miles (and all that petro diesel gunk has washed through) you change fuel filters just as often as you used to.

In Costa I do think that Straight Veggie Oil (SVO) would be great, as you have the oil sources and its always warm which is generally the only problem. The only other problem can be in direct injected diesels which have low cylinder head temps (CHT). The 3B, and the 2H are indirect injected (and therefore good for SVO, while the 12HT and 13BT are direct injected and may have long term problems.

There are ways to correct the CHT problem, you can insulate the head a bit to get its temps up a bit higher to ensure complete combustion, but this would take some good gauges and experimentation.

Other than that all you need is a way to start the motor on normal diesel or biodiesel, and then switch it over once its hot and back before you shut it down.

Good luck! I hope to come by some time... :)
 
Thanks for your input! Nothing better than having folks like you, who have tried this great alternative and learned though experience the way to implement it.

Off Road Costa Rica is going to go ahead with Biodiesel, no doubt. We are buying the equipment from the states and shipping it down, it should be 2grand plus shipping, but that seems like a very reasonable cost, considering what we will save on diesel fuel, and of course the positive impact it will have on this gorgeous ecosystem.

We look forward to pride ourselves in being the only tourism company in this ecological country to use biodiesel. If we have any doubts or run into any problems, I know where to post. :D

THanks again guys, if you are ever in our area, look us up, we'll give you the best price, and do the best wheelin Costa Rica has to offer, on biodiesel!

:cheers:

Fabrice
 
Fabrice--

Just be aware that bioD production does require some nasty chemicals and does have biproducts (themselves useful--glycerin for soap). If I were you, since you are doing it for high volume for your business, I would figure out the most effecient and eco-friendly ways of dealing with these things well ahead of time, or you're going to end up with the toxic mess horror stories that people talk about all the time with backyard producers.

That being said I think this is a fantastic idea and I love the thought of the smell of biodiesel in the morning wafting through the jungle.

Welcome to the BioD BJ40 club!

B
 
Thanks for the advice, believe it or not we have a soapshop right next door to us that make their own homemade soaps, I think they got themselves a new glycerin supplier! Their name is Alegria soapshop, and they finally came in handy.
as for the other byproducts, I will make sure they are dealt with properly, you know what they say, "one man's trash is annother man's treasure."

its an honour to soon enter the BioD BJ40 club!

Fabrice
 
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