Biodiesel. How do I make the change?

Question

Is it worth me adapting my Diesel car to Biofuels..And what would I need to do. Thankyou

Answer 1

yes

Answer 2

Some manufacturers say that their engines are not guranteed to work with bio deisel, mainly because a few of the seals are not tested with bio diesel. they may perish. Apart from that bio diesel is just like other diesel, but better.

Straight veg oil, is another matter. in cold weather it can give problems. In hot weather no problems at all. Here we have quite a few vehicles running on straight coconut oil as fuel is expensive but coconuts are free. (if you grow them yourself) But this is the tropics and its never cold!

Answer 3

Try looking for the same question on earlier posts.  You may only find about 4000 of them so be careful and read them all.

Answer 4

My Skoda Fabia (1.9 litre diesel, no turbo) runs on bio-diesel with no conversion at all.

Check out this website, it is really useful:

http://www.biofuel-uk.net/

Answer 5

First you need to get straight in your head what you mean by biodiesel and biofuel.  Biodiesel is diesel fuel that has been processed from vegetable oil.  Biofuel is a generic term for any fuel that has been processed from a biomass, such as rapeseed oil or ethanol made from sugar.

Biodiesel has all the characteristics of mineral diesel fuel and will run in any diesel engine without conversion to the engine.  Most diesel engines will work perfectly well on straight vegetable oil (SVO), but some engine modification may be necessary, depending upon the engine and fuel pump.

The main difference between SVO and mineral diesel is that SVO is thicker and the fuel delivery systems on some cars can't cope.  Common rail diesel engines (CD) are not suitable for SVO.  

I have been running my old Citroen 1.9D on waste vegetable oil (WVO) for the past 18 months, but I have had heating added to the fuel system, to thin the oil, and a reserve tank installed for mineral diesel to aid starting... when the oil is cold and thick the fuel pump has trouble pumping the oil into the engine so, near the end of a journy, I switch to mineral diesel so the fuel in the lines is nice and thin for the pump when I come to start it next time.

My old car runs better on veg oil than it does on mineral diesel; the performance is better and it's quieter, but I have to change the sump oil more frequently (every 5,000 miles) using a mineral sump oil, not synthetic oil as the veg oil reacts badly with synthetic sump oil.

Answer 6

Yes! Depending on how much time you have there are two options:

Biodiesel if you want to get it at a station:

No conversions are needed, depending on the blend the fuel lines could get clogged with all the gunk the biodiesel will clear out, so they will need replaced at first.  If you go to www.biodiesel.org they have a map showing where you can buy it.  

There are TONS of sites showing how to make it if you want to make it yourself. Also Biodiesel is a legal fuel, the straight vegetable oil is not.

The other is the waste vegetable oil stuff.  Not my favorite, but you have to convert your car and make the fuel or find a place to buy it.

Answer 7

The changes are minimal, the biggest part of process is processing the fuel. I'd imagine there are a number of recipes available over the net.

But, for the most part, you can run cooking oils straight with some filtering.

Answer 8

Check out

http://etruk.com

They have details on making your own bio and will sell you all the equipment you need. They do recommend a gradual change over as the bio will give your engine a good clean and will block your filter with the gunk it clears out. You can make up to 2,500 litres per year for personal use (tax free), at around 12p per litre!!

Answer 9

if you are planning on running a mix of diesel and oil then you don't need any change and the fuel mix is all you have to figure out.  If you plan on running your car on vegetable oil exclusively then there are changes you need to make to your engine.

Answer 10

You dint have to do any convert ions to your vehicle.  Bio diesel is diesel which has been manufactured from a renewable source i,e. Wheat, Barley, Rice the list of source base products is growing has we speak?

Answer 11

There’s nothing to adapt, if you are using Bio-diesel you pump and go. Now if you want to use straight vegetable oil (SVO) then you need to make some changes. This is assuming your pump can handle ultra low sulfur diesel. If not you’re going to have to replace a few parts, not many, and you’d have to change them anyway because all diesel sold in the US will be ultra low sulfur diesel.

I’d have a few fuel filters on hand, the bio-diesel will clean out all the gunk in your tanks so you may have a clogged fuel filter to deal with, but other then that you’d don’t have to do anything.