Treatment for cold weather

Its getting pretty chilly now so I have been looking into ways to ensure the fuel doesn't wax up and clog the filters.

I stumbled across an additive called coldflow350 which claims to lower the point at which the fuel waxes by stopping the crystals from forming. My fridge test was pretty conclusive as you can see in this video, the first pour is treated and the second isnt :-

It works out pretty cheap as you only need a very small amount. The batch used in the video was mixed for a few minutes at room temperature.

Since this video was made I have been on a trip over to Bruges for the Bruges beer festival using treated veg. We stopped off in Poperinge to visit our favourite beer shop and dropped in on the monks at the Abbey of Saint Sixtus in Westvleteren. They brew some mighty fine beer which can only be obtained by visiting them in person. Well worth the trip though.

Details of the monks and the beer can be found here :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westvleteren_Brewery

Winter running

I was recently asked about the obstacles to running on vegetable oil in winter, so even though it is still nice an warm (here in the U.K.), I though I'd post an explanation.

All fuels suffer problems at extremely low temperatures, including Petrol,
Diesel and Vegetable Oil. Petrol works to lower temperatures than Diesel
and Diesel works to lower temperatures than vegetable oil. Different
types of vegetable oils work to different temperatures. I have found it
difficult to use neat Soyabean oil below about 0 celcius. Rapeseed oil
seems to work a few degrees colder. The problem with all fuels is that
they first go cloudy, which clogs the fuel filters, and then at lower
temperatures, they go completely solid.

There are a number of ways to work around the cold problem. The easiest
way is to mix in a small amount of Diesel with the fuel. Other things we
have done include putting electrical heating tape on the fuel injection
lines and a heated wrap around the fuel filter. You can read about both
of these elsewhere on this website. Another solution which we haven't
tried personally is to get a twin tank conversion, where the car runs on
diesel until it is warmed up, and then it runs on vegetable oil that has been
passed through a heat exchanger.

The retro car show and Kenny's trip to Criatia

Kenny has just got back from his latest trip to Croatia.
He drove nearly all the way there and back using vegetable oil but they did have to put a little Diesel in the tank at one point.
There were a few problems with leaks in the fuel system, but I'll let him explain those once he's had a chance to catch up on some rest.

Yesterday was the Retro Car Show at Santa Pod. This is the third year I've taken my vegetable oil powered 190 to the show. We showed it off on the mercedes190.co.uk stand, amid other, shinier cars. This year, two of the 190s on the stand were running off vegetable oil - fewer than in previous years. For anyone reading who owns a 190, I'd recommend mercedes190.co.uk, which is a free owners club and Internet forum. There's lots of good information exchanged on the website and they use the annual Retro Car Show as a good excuse to meet face to face and try out the cars on the quarter mile strip, and on the handling circuit.

The modifications continue

The 300td has been running very well for quite a while now and another Europe trip is planned for the end of June 2009. A few modifications have been made to make it more comfortable as a Euro cruiser.

A second tank has been added in the cubby hole where the rear facing 6th and 7th seats would retract to, giving a total of 110 litres, or about 800 miles range. It has a large inspection lid which can accept a sock filter so I can filter on the move if needed.


I have also managed to squeeze in 2 batteries in with a cutoff switch on each earth. This enables me to run on one, the other, or both. I can remove both the knobs and make it impossible for anyone to steal. The idea behind this is that I can happily run the battery flat using the fridge, music, or lights, knowing that in the morning I have a fresh battery to start the engine. I can then charge up the first while on the move.


And finally, I changed the 4 rear interior lights for LED festoon bulbs. I chose the Large 2W ones which work out about twice as bright as the standard 10W that came with the car. More importantly they wont get hot and they wont run the battery down. The left in this pic is 1 new 2w LED, the right is 1 old 10w standard. I left the front interior light as standard because I prefer the warm glow from the old bulb. The front light is controlled separately to the rear bulbs.

Veggy thief

I now collect regularly from three restaurants/take-aways and occasionally from others. Recently, I went to collect from one place and discovered there was less oil than expected. Apparently, someone has been taking it without permission, and they got there before me.

The restaurant used to pay to have the oil taken away, so they aren't too concerned about the value of the oil, but it does mean that they don't have the paperwork to prove to the environment agency that their waste has been disposed of responsibly.

Brrrrr

During the cold snap last week, when temperatures were around -5C, we had a few problems with the fuel waxing. We temporarily solved it by blending it with thinner fuels. Both Kenny and I ran our cars last week on roughly 70% waste soybean oil and 30% fossil fuel. It runs very well on this and I suspect it only needed about 10% dino juice. This is the first time I've had to resort to this since I bought the car in 2007.

I was caught out by the difference between the waste soybean oil and clean rapeseed oil, which we had tested previously in cold weather. I am making a few improvements to my fuel lines and thinking about switching to rapeseed oil during cold weather.

Company cars

Now that Kenny and I are both running our cars on waste vegetable oil, it shows a company really can have a carbon neutral transport policy without using offsetting.

Most "environmentally friendly" cars are not carbon neutral, although many are better for the environment than the petrol and diesel equivalent.

I don't believe that carbon offsetting is good for the environment - it is just a way to "pass the buck" without doing anything constructive yourself.

Summary of first few days

Here are some notes from the first few days of the journey. Kenny couldn't post them earlier because he had problems with his laptop.

Day 1: Long drive to Speyer in Germany

Day 2: Hung around and went to a Micro Brewery that brewed Weiss Bier - it was wicked! On the way home bumped into some German students who were about 16 years old and hanging in a Roman Church (better than the British Bus Stop!). They had earlier in the day taken their English Vocabulary exam, so they wanted to show off their English Skills. Very funny night and strolled back to camp at 4.30am.

Day 3: With very little sleep drove to Austria. The scenery was incredible, drove through a valley in the Alps and surrounded by Lakes. Arrived in Zell Am and stayed by the waters edge. That evening we were desperate to find something to do as it was pretty out of the way and we came out of campsite and walked 2km to find a bar.

Day 4: We learnt if we had walked the other way there was a Beer Festival only 500 yards away. D'oh! Anthony did his early morning run in the Alps as he is in training for a 1/2 marathon and raising money for a Nottinghamshire Hospice.

Stewing in Croatia

Kenny is in Croatia now - They arrived in Omiš yesterday, powered by vegetable oil.

He had mounted a cooking pot on the exhaust manifold so he could cook dinner as he drove, which worked up to a point. He cooked a nice vegetable stew in it but later the mounting broke, so they will have to resort to more conventional cooking facilities. He will post some pictures when he gets back.

Underway

I had a message from Kenny this morning to say he is in Speyer in Germany.
He can't pick up any legal Internet connections with his wok-fi at the moment, so he asked me to post this for him.

The car is running fine, but the fuel consumption is impaired by of the roof box and extra weight. There's an electrical problem which means that occasionally the windows and sun roof open by themselves. When it is raining that is quite refreshing - just what he needs to keep him awake after getting very little sleep last night.

wokfi

I have now finished making the WokFi antenna booster for the wifi dongle. £1 for the wok strainer.

Initial tests show its a great success. Using the device from my window I can pickup 6 access points when I normally only get 1, mine. Should be able to blog from anywhere now !

Almost ready for the next big trip

Modifications to the 300td have been going well. Its now running well and ready to take us over to Croatia again on the 14th August. Not long now !!

I have replaced all the fuel lines with clear pvc ones so I can have full confidence and can see what's going on. I have also mounted a pressure cooker to the side of the engine (above the exhaust manifold) so in theory we can cook food as we drive along. I am having trouble getting the pot up to temperature due to the cold air coming in from the front but I hope to have that sorted by the time we leave by shielding it.

The route will be similar to last time although we will be staying a couple of days in the black forest in order to sample more of the weissbiers. And we don't plan to stay in Belgium or Austria.

In Croatia Last time, due to weather issues, we mainly stayed in Zadar and the inland parts of Croatia. This time we will be checking out the Croatian part of Istria. Its had an interesting history and been part of many countries over the years. The varied influences apparently go to make it quite unique.:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istria

From there we plan to head right down the coast down to Split and Dubrovnik. We had planned to get to Montenegro but the vegetable oil laws are proving hard to find. We may park up and walk across the border.

We are taking a laptop so blogging should be a bit easier. I am also making up a homebrew 'wok-fi' antenna for finding access points, more details of wok-fi can be found here :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WokFi

Here is a very rough idea of the route out. Once we get to Istria we will take our time exploring the coast.

BBC Panorama / comparison with electric cars

I just saw an episode of Panorama that was first broadcast last week.
They took an electric G-Wiz up the strip at Santa Pod, a similar idea to what we did a few weeks ago with my vegetable oil car.

I bet mine was a lot quicker than the G-Wiz, although they didn't show their time.
My car is also a lot better for the environment and cheaper, which is what the TV program was about.

My car runs on a waste product (cooking oil) which was going to be disposed of in a way that produces carbon dioxide. Instead of disposing of it that way, I collect it, filter it and put it into my car. In the Santa Pod example, I dispose of the waste by turning it into carbon dioxide whilst also accelerating along a quarter mile track from a standing start. No more carbon dioxide is produced than if I had not intervened in the process. I pick up the waste oil from restaurants using my car, so there's no source of net carbon there either, and there is no cost.

The G-Wiz runs on electricity which comes from the National Grid. A large proportion of electricity in the National Grid comes from fossil fuels, which is a separate problem that I'd like to see addressed. If you plug your G-Wiz into a wind turbine, then well done - you've found a good way to power your vehicle (albeit very slowly, over a short range). If you plug it into your home power supply, then you are responsible for adding extra load to a stretched grid, burning fossil fuels, emitting carbon dioxide and costing yourself money - you are just doing it in a way that isn't immediately obvious.

Vegmobile mkII finally arrives.

Kenny here,
Since arriving back from the Croatia trip I have been on the lookout for an estate merc to run off veg oil and take back out to Europe. Finally after seeing many go way above of my price range or have problems with the expensive to fix self-leveling-suspension I have now bought a lovely 300td, which is sitting outside. Its running off vegetable oil as it is but I will be fitting the mothercare mod and bypassing the fuel thermostat. I also have a plate heat exchanger so will do some heat tests with and without to see how much difference it makes. The w124 is very similar mechanically to the 190d so I already know the car pretty well.

The car has done an amazing 380k miles and to listen to the engine you simple wouldn't believe it. The steering components are showing their age,I have replaced the steering pump and will need to do the box at some point in the future. It needs a good clean up and some niggles fixing but the all important sls is working fine and there is very little rust. The next trip is now being planned. London to Montenegro (biodiesel for the france portion due to the law). I plan to convert the back to contain a bed but for this trip I will be camping again.

The trip is due to start around the 14th August and there will be 2 passengers plus myself.