I am thinking of converting my truck to run vegtable oil on a secondary tank. I wont do this untill the factory warrenty runs out, approx 2.5 yrs and/or 85,000 miles to go. No sense voiding the warrenty so early.

Have any of you done this before and what is your thoughts on this? Any potential problems or short comings of this? Advice in general?

I beleive the biggest problem would be filtering the oil before it is put into the tank. What is the best way to do this with a minimal amount of headache. I dont really want to change or clean a filter every ten gallons. Looking for ideas. Thanks.

Good Idea or Bad?

 

There are a number of folks on this site who purchase bio fuel for thier trucks, new ones too. I think all they do is pump it into their tanks, no extra filtering or conversion required. I didn't think there were any warranty issues concerning its use either.

If it was more readily available here, I'd pay a little extra and run it for a while to see how it works. Unless there are warranty issues....

And if I had to treat it as a high school science experiment (squeezing corn cobs into vats) and worry about suspect fuel going into my tank I wouldn't do it. But I wouldn't hesitate to run retail bio fuel.

Try a search here on Bio fuel.

 

I saw in my owners manual last night, not to use Bio Fuel or methanol or ethanol blends. Something tells me that because that has been clearly stated, warrantees probably wouldn't cover damage caused by it.

 

Good catch, I need to look closer in my owners manual. In my DRM it talks only about #2 and winter blends, and says nothing about bio or ethanol fuels. It does say that high cetane "premium" fuel may offer improved starting and warm-up performance.

I wonder if bio could be called "premium"?

 

If I remember right, on the Cummins FAQ page they have no opinion on Bio fuels. They don't recommend it or say not to use it.

Pete

 

I think biodiesel is fine in the 1st & 2nd gen trucks, but because of the high pressures in the HPCR, the fuel that is "bled off" tends to "floculate." (I think that's the term) In layman's terms, (more my language) because the fuel is raised to such a high pressure, then (overflow) released again to atmospheric pressure, the fuel molecules get sort of chunky.

I've run a few tanks of 5% in mine without problems. I think some monitoring of fuel pressure or flow thru the filter might be a good idea though.

 

But what does DaimlerChrysler say? They're the folks who honor our warranty, not Cummins.

 

From what I have read it has a higher cetane and better lubricity than #2 diesel and the truck will run quieter. It also will free up any crud that has been sitting in the tank so you need to change fuel filters more often. One company sell it on line as an additive in gallon jugs. Can the ECM detect this has been used? The only other way they would be able to tell is crud in the fuel filter.

 

Bio Fuel? I am talking pure vegtable oil straight from McDonalds and the local Pizza joint, NOT bio fuel. FREE vegtable oil from your local greasy spoons.
Check this link: www.greasecar.com

 

There was a retired mechanic in Alberta about 4 year's ago who did some minor conversions to his diesel and ran it on left over grease form McD's. He drove the truck across Canada both ways. I read about some student's who did the same thing in the US about a year ot two ago. In Germany they are not allowed to make dead animal parts into feed for farm animals since the serious Mad cow crisis in Europe. I read about the renedering plants in Germany running all of their trucks on animal, grease 2 years ago. They were going to set up pumps eventually to sell it to the public. They use a canola derivative as an additive for lubrication. I also read in a Dodge booklet they sent out, that about 30% of vehicles in Europe run on diesel, and that 65% of new sales in Europe are diesel. I would go on the internet to find out all I could about conversions, and get in touch with McD's. The retired guy was getting his "fuel" for nothing!!

P.S. The German inventor by the name of Diesel did not run his original on any special diesel fuel. I'm sure he also ran it on grease.

 

My understanding on runnning veggie oils is that it has to be heated. I can't remember the reasons why, but it has to be heated before it's pumped into your motor.

 

There's a thread called "Running on vegetable oil" under General Diesel Discussion.

 

BAD IDEA, do not run SVO in a 3rd gen cummins. You might be able to pull off small amounts in a 2nd gen but SVO and HPCR injection don't mix. You can run biodiesel in a 3rd gen in lower blends with great results.

 

I've run nothing a blend of Soy Bio diesel in my "99" and I'm at 136K miles and going strong. I just changed my 1st lift pump and it was still pushing 12 psi at idle. Bio has better lubricity and burned cleaner than #2 alone. PLUS! it helps soybean farmers. Soy bio diesel....you can trust it.

 

Just don't tell the dealer.

The vege oil needs to be heated to lower the viscosity. Its quite thick at room temp.