Biodiesel in a 1HD-FT

[KahaLC80]

New Zealand, as of the 30th of March, is charging $3.40nzd per litre ($7.40us per gallon). For reference, it was $1.89 a month ago, while it is not an emergency just yet we only have a month of total diesel stock left. Because of this, I’ve been looking into biodiesel lately and wanted to see if anyone here has real-world experience running it in an 80, especially a 1HD-FT.


I’m aware there are some old threads talking about running SVO or biodiesel in 2H/14BTs, but I’m hoping someone has had specific experience with a direct injection engine like the 1HD-FT platform.


In terms of what biodiesel I’m making, I have a mechanic as a friend and his boss will let me take all the motor oil I want from his collection tub, as it saves him from paying to have more hauled away. I’m not opposed to making vegediesel either, as I understand the production is much quicker.


I would like to know what’s needed to run anywhere from 50–100% biodiesel. I’m pretty handy at working on cars, so I don’t mind if there are upgrades or replacements. I just don’t want to come to a point where I need fuel and can’t get it because I live on a small island in the middle of nowhere.

 

[ikarus]

You might get more responses in the Diesel Tech section:

Diesel Tech / 24 volts

BJ/HJ diesels (3B, 13BT, 1KZ, 1HZ, 1PZ, etc) and other diesel conversions (ie: Isuzu, Hino, 4BT, 6BT, etc)

forum.ih8mud.com

 

[Marvelicious]

I went down this rabbit hole years ago with an old Mercedes. My experience was that running SVO gummed up the rings and I started getting severe blowby. I pulled the glow plugs and gave the top end an extended soak with a mix of PEA based fuel system cleaner (Lucas if I remember right) and Marvel, switched back to pump diesel, and then gave it the old "Italian tune-up" (ran it HARD for a bit to burn off the crud). Lo and behold, my extreme blowby problems went back down to being fairly manageable. I would not run SVO unless I was literally stranded somewhere and that was the only option.

Biodiesel is good stuff if you're getting commercial stuff, or if your process is right. I never produced my own, so I don't know how difficult that is. Of note, It's an incredible solvent, and can attack many plastics. I'd absolutely second @ikarus on the recommendation to check out the diesel section and see if anyone knows if the Toyota fuel system is biodiesel friendly.

 

[TheBussman]

Not sure how to make biodeisel from waste motor oil, usually waste veg oil is used for that. Pyrolysis could be used to convert motor oil into a diesel like fuel though. last time I read about it it was somebody in NZ that was selling a kit. would require alot of time, and energy (heat) to do it though. you would also be left with a unusable waste product you would have to figure out how to get rid of.

 

[KahaLC80]

I went down this rabbit hole years ago with an old Mercedes. My experience was that running SVO gummed up the rings and I started getting severe blowby. I pulled the glow plugs and gave the top end an extended soak with a mix of PEA based fuel system cleaner (Lucas if I remember right) and Marvel, switched back to pump diesel, and then gave it the old "Italian tune-up" (ran it HARD for a bit to burn off the crud). Lo and behold, my extreme blowby problems went back down to being fairly manageable. I would not run SVO unless I was literally stranded somewhere and that was the only option.

Biodiesel is good stuff if you're getting commercial stuff, or if your process is right. I never produced my own, so I don't know how difficult that is. Of note, It's an incredible solvent, and can attack many plastics. I'd absolutely second @ikarus on the recommendation to check out the diesel section and see if anyone knows if the Toyota fuel system is biodiesel friendly.

yeah from what ive seen so far id need to upgrade to a better quality rubber hose and rings around injectors. the blowby is quite concerning though, was the mercedes fairly high on miles?

 

[KahaLC80]

Not sure how to make biodeisel from waste motor oil, usually waste veg oil is used for that. Pyrolysis could be used to convert motor oil into a diesel like fuel though. last time I read about it it was somebody in NZ that was selling a kit. would require alot of time, and energy (heat) to do it though. you would also be left with a unusable waste product you would have to figure out how to get rid of.

true and valid points. from what ive seen motor oil is slighly more complicated compared to vege, and ontop of that id have glycerine as a biproduct. but all things considered i think it's still the better quality fuel when done right. ill have a look around and see if there is still a kit for sale

 

[Marvelicious]

yeah from what ive seen so far id need to upgrade to a better quality rubber hose and rings around injectors. the blowby is quite concerning though, was the mercedes fairly high on miles?

It was around 300,000, but I should stress, it went from having some blowby in an engine known for longevity (OM617), to having a LOT, and then eventually back down to having what you'd expect, once I got away from the SVO. If you do an internet search for "SVO sticking rings" you'll find a lot of discussion of the issue. There are various workarounds people have tried, but the most consistently effective one seems to be turning the SVO into biodiesel.

 

[Delta VS]

NOT fuels:
SVO: straight vegetable oil = bad (lipids and proteins; lipids burn, proteins don't)
WVO: waste vegetable oil = bad (lipids and proteins, plus whatever sugars and acids bonded to it when it was getting used to cook foods)
WMO: waste motor oil = ??? is it synthetic nowadays? is it some percentage synthetic? does synthetic burn well?

Fuels:
home made bio-diesel: processing vegetable oil to cut off the proteins from the lipids, leaving you with the bio-diesel and the "waste" glycerine that you can make funny smelling soap from. As good as the home chemist who makes it is. Quite susceptible to sucking up moisture in the process and in storage. Usually made from WVO. Mostly sure the process of turning WVO into bio-diesel does NOT separate out the bonded sugars and acids, which is bad.
commercial bio-diesel: in the US, there are ASTM standards it must be manufactured to that make it (supposedly) basically indistinguishable from petro-diesel

bio-diesel: mostly known to have a little less lubricity than petro diesel, this is important for a rotary pumped engine, as the fuel is the lubrication for the pump, the pump that has micron tolerances in it

If any of your fuel system soft parts (lines, o-rings, seals, that type of thing) are original, those parts will most certainly be eaten up by the contaminates in WVO or WVO-based bio-diesel. MOST seals since the late 90s have been viton, which has much better resistance to bio-fuel, so if your injection pump has been rebuilt in the last 30 years, good chance it was with viton seals. Lines and whatnot probably haven't been upgraded though, and even if they were who knows if it was rated for bio-fuel.

Do what you will with that info.