Caution!!! Home made Bio-diesel can be bad news!!!!

I have a old friend that is so tight he squeaks when he walks. LOL Some other friend of his has been giving him old French fry grease/oil. He has been blending it with his farm diesel and running it in his tractors. I am not sure the ratio as he will not own up to how much he has been mixing in. I am willing to bet way too high of a percentage.

Now the trouble. I just got done rebuilding/cleaning the THIRD injection pump of his over the last eighteen months. The first one had a bad dampening ring so I never really thought much about it going bad.

The second one kind of threw up some flags as the pump was in good shape inside but just gummed up. The pistons inside the head where stuck and would not come out against the cam ring. I had to soak it for over a day to get the gunk out of it.

So I told him to quit using his home brew in his tractors. Tried to get it through his head he was not "saving" anything with his old French fry grease/oil. The few gallons he would have been replacing/saving of diesel fuel would not even buy the parts for the first injection pump.

I was doing this as a favor to him as he give me fresh garden produce all summer long. So I just was having him pay for the parts.

This time I told him it was going to be full boat just like I would charge everyone else. He complained. I told him if he wanted to check around to see if he could get it done cheaper elsewhere he was welcome too. He soon found out what the "real" cost of an injection pump rebuild is.

So he brought the tractor to me yesterday. I had him stand right by my side as I took the pump apart. I showed him all the fat/junk inside the pump. I had to boil it in mineral spirits to get all the stuff out of it. I have not found a parts/carb cleaner that will cut that grease/diesel combination very well.

I finished it up today. It runs fine. I "think" he realizes he was messing up his equipment.

Also I handed him back half of the money he thought the repair was going to cost him. I really was not going to charge him "full' price but I sure wanted to hit him with what it could cost him if he does not quit with his home brew.

So I would not be running old oils/grease in any tractors of mine. The few gallons you save will not cover the potential repair bills.

By the nature of the brand KUBOTA we see a lot of the yeepies that want to burn that home brew stuff, always ends up just about like your experience have got where I just charge them and don,t feel sorry. Used to try and help them but it is a never ending saga, bottom line is that junk harms a fuel system sooner or latter and most times sooner.

He doesn't know what hes doing! When done properly, you can use used veggie oil in an diesel, and will not have any problems. Sure, you may have to swap out a few filters at first, and cut your veggie oil in the winter, but it can be done, and done safely! I made it when I had my Powerjoke, sold my setup to a neighbor who runs it in his 4020, 3010, one newer JD I cant remember, his truck, which I think is an 05 Duramax, and he hasn't had any problems other than clogging up the first few filters.

There is all kinds of info on the web and in print explaining the dangers of running SVO and bad biodiesel in rotary pumps

Find something with an inline pump for him to burn it in!

I've never so much as owned a diesel powered anything in my whole life, so you can take this post for what it's worth (not much if anything).

I have, however, read a fair bit about biodiesel just as a point of curiosity. I've never heard of anyone who is proposing to run plain old grease in an engine.

The process of making biodiesel involves multiple filtrations, addition of certain chemicals to the oil, and blending with standard diesel fuel for use. I believe that the equipment needed to make biodiesel costs upwards of $1,000.00, and typically it costs nearly $2.00 per gallon to make the fuel.

But then again, I have no experience with any of this. It's simply based on what I've read and heard about.

Tom in TN

Tom the French fry oil is just old vegetable oil. New vegetable oil would be just about the same as the soy oil that most bio-diesel is made with.

I have read up on guys mixing 5% or so and then filtering it really well. I would bet that he is mixing it stronger and is not filtering it very well.

I think I got him convinced to stop doing it.

He can use the old French fry oil in livestock feed and get some good out of it that way. I have used soy oil in hog feed to help with dust.

I had some left over oil in a pan. Figured I'd cheap out and burn it in the 2600. It worked for a while, then the tractor started acting up. Became harder to start and would just up and die for no apparent reason.

We were just about to hoist the white flag when my brother decided to check the screen where the fuel line comes out of the tank. It was clogged with vegi oil gunk.

Read one success story on bio-diesel but they were running SVO not WVO or processed WVO. It was in a detroit though, 6-71 I think. Obviously no potential for pump problems.

What you are describing is SVO, and takes modifications to the fuel delivery system to work.

Homemade biodiesel is a different thing, cooked out of the SVO in a long heating and mixing process to get the glycerin out of the fuel using methanol.

I agree your friend is not doing things right and the problems you are finding, but that does not mean properly processed homemade biodiesel is all bad.

You need the equipment and process to do it right.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O9MtCMebBHo

These homemade units and methanol isn't always safe, but it is an interesting process.

Paul

makes a compelling case to forget about homemade biodiesel and concentrate on homemade ethanol. ;o)

black diesel works great

When I was at the tech school a few years back, a guy came around who ran his VW TDI on recycled cooking oil. Thing is, the cooking oil has a copper tube from a heater hose run through the SEPARATE veg oil tank, and the veg oil solenoid is NOT turned on until the engine--and the oil--are up to operating temp. So the car is started on regular diesel from the pump at the gas station, and run on that until the engine AND the veg oil is fully warmed up. And at shutdown, the car is switched back to diesel until the system is "purged" of any veg oil that might solidify in the primary diesel system.

In other words...if your neighbor wants to run veg oil, he has to be smart enough to HEAT it before he runs it through his fuel system. If he's not smart enough to do that, he's just not smart enough to run the stuff, and deserves whatever ill effects happen to him. That's MY opinion.
Top 5 Things To Know When Running Veg Oil

That's not biodiesel if he is just running old fryer oil. That's straight veggie oil, totally different animal. Biodiesel is modified from veggie oil...

Do you even know what biodiesel is? Dumping unfiltered fryer oil in you tractor fuel tank with diesel fuel is not biodiesel, there's a whole process involved in making biodiesel, and when done right it won't cause the problems you describe. I think your topic should say, caution runing untreated fryer oil in you tractor will cause problems. Sorry JD, I don't agree with you here.

Paul has biodiesel covered. The cooking oil needs to heated and mixed with lye and methanol. Washed with water then filtered , preferably in a centrifuge .
Filtering cooking oil through through an old sock then pouring into the engine is just looking for trouble.
Even waste motor oil even if filtered to 2 microns can accumulate ash in combustion chambers and ports.
If you want to tinker with waste oil. Follow up with the Petter and Lister experimenters on listerengines.com
Those are simple old engines that can be torn down and cleaned up with out great expense or effort.

I agree with those noting this guy isn't running bio, he's running grease. We've had a lot of people up here do the same thing and the results is exactly the same. Others that did it right had zero problems.

This is pure operator error.