Thought I start this in a new thread. I noticed you have your bus converted to veg oil. Just wondering how long your bus has had this conversion and how it's woking for you? Mileage? cost / mile and sources you get your oil from.
Thanks
The conversion works great. It was done by golden fuel systems in springfield missouri about 3 years ago.
It has its pros and cons. I could go on for quite some time about it....check your messages for my cell phone number....feel free to call me anytime between 9am-midnight.
Anyone else interested send me a PM
Would be kinda cool to see an article in the magazine that goes over the REAL LIFE pros & cons. Versus all the hype & hysteria. . . . .
Well I recently saw up close and personal a WORKING real life system on ex member Charley Davidson's coach when he was here in Union City a couple weeks ago. I was a cool set up, and he's been across the country and back with very minor issues and hardly any fuel costs! He refuses to post about it because of all the negative BS that would start from those who don't know about it, or "know way more than those WHO ARE DOING IT DO!"
Just thought I mention I saw it and it is working! FWIW ;D BK ;D
I have seen 4 busses and a few cars and pickups. some having problems but most not. This is the part of the world where more people are doing it. It's always good to have someone to show you how not to do it.
Last sunday I flipped the switch and my bus started running on WVO. It took 6 months of research, 6 months buying the parts and putting it all together and $2500. Thats a 90 gallon aluminum tank and a completely separate fuel system with electronics to switch between the two. In a couple of weeks we leave on a 6000 mile trip around the southwest and Mexico. so we shall see.
The problem is you have to do it first to see if it works for you.
Good luck
Jerry
It would be nice to see a fair & balanced report of the issues actually involved & how they are dealt with.
Too many times the pro hype glosses over the difficulties & the con hype ignores the positives.
Seems like there is some interest in the real pros and cons, so let me try my best to explain all of them!
As far as pros, i can only think of a fuel. The biggest....free fuel. You cant top that one. I've also heard that it is better for your engine, and it actually cleans it as it burns, and adds extra lubrication. Again, this is what i have heard, i dont know if its true or not, so to me i dont look at it as a pro. its just a fact that might be true, might not be. not at all a deciding factor in my WVO decision.
There arent any more pros that i can think of. Maybe some people do it for the environment, i dont know....honestly, im not a big environmental guy....i just want my free fuel :)
Okay....cons. Theres alot of them. But to me personally none of them beat free fuel!
First off....its a dirty dirty process. You get old veggie oil all over you, your sticky, and it dries black, you ruin clothes, you ruin shoes. For me, a dickies jumpsuit is going to be a smart investment for our next tour.
Secondly, you dont always find it. Not all resturants have good oil, so some days you might be driving around searching for 3 hours or so. We are always on the go, and having to drive an average of about 400 miles a day and be at a show at a certain time, there comes a point when we have to stop searching and just buy diesel if we dont find it.
There are a few tests that you have to do in order to see if WVO is usable or not. There is good and bad WVO. some has water in it, some has animal fat in it. salt and sugar were originally thought to be not good, but turns out that they are not soluble in oil, so salt and sugar just passes through your system and doesnt do damage.
Once finding WVO we filter it. We have a pair of 2 micron filters that we use. The pump is half hour on, half hour off. With new filters, a half hour will pump about 60 gallons or so. Now how long the filters last, all depends on how good the oil you choose to filter is. That is why we spend alot of time looking for good oil. Theoretically you can filter most oil, but we have had our filters last for almost 1000 gallons of oil, and we have picked bad oil and killed our filters after almost 10 gallons.
Filters cost 15 bucks each. And is the only maintenance that we have to do. We also have a 10 micron filter that goes between the clean veggie and the fuel filter. This has to get changed every 3000 miles or so.
Even if you choose bad WVO and you have to change your filters every day....$30 is not a big deal compared to spending hundreds on fuel.
I have heard stories of people breaking down from WVO. We have yet to. We havent encountered any mechanical problems due to it. Seems like those that do, are those that dont really filter the WVO and just take 5 gallon buckets and dump it into the tank.....YES THERES PEOPLE THAT ACTUALLY DO THAT! not sure if they know, but water and food particles are probably not the best for their engines!
You just gotta ask yourself if it makes sense to go through all of that. For us, it is.
Here is a video tour blog that we did, and part of it shows us doing the WVO....for those curious on how the process of filtering works
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzZYCHkYiSc
Peach; reading your pros and cons this stuff doesn't look free to me ruining clothes and shoes plus buying filters and the time involved also what type fuel milage do you get on veggie oil compaired to diesel fuel, have you ever ran a cost to see how much a gal it cost to produce I am curious about the cost per gal I read $.50 to $1.00 is that about right have a great day
Well financially, at the price of $4 a gallon we are spending on average $320 a day if purchasing diesel.
With WVO, since we pump good stuff that doesnt ruin our filters, it costs us about $6 a day to travel.
Right now, since we are just starting out, we get paid $300-$400 a show. So if that is what we get paid, and we spend that same amount in fuel to get the the next show, to us, it is absolutely worth using WVO.
We dont factor clothes in as far as financial loss, because we are pretty dirty guys. We dont replace clothes....we keep wearing them haha.
So if your a broke band on tour....WVO makes sense. If you have a form of income, or money saved up, and a family, or even just on your own.....it doesnt seem like it is the best choice.
Oh i forgot to also say that since WVO gets thick in cold temperatures, it prevents us from touring in the winter. Well....we do have a 12v hotstick that we can put into the veggie bin that heats up the oil.....but thats just where i draw the line hahaha
WOW;6 bucks a day my heating system cost more a day to run on diesel than that thank you and have a great day
Thanks, best explaination of actual use yet. Please continue with the real story & keep us posted. Add more detail when you can, really helps sort thru all the hype. ;D
Although we will probably never make the switch, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your real-world take on the subject. Thank you and good luck. PS-keep us posted.
Kyle and others,
I have read a ton on this subject and have a shop down the street that installs the system. Find someone that has done it and get their parts list and shop for a good price on everything. Like Jerry Campbell.
These systems come in a number of types. One is for sumer only, like Peach is using. At the other end is what is called the 4 Season version. It has heaters in the tank, lines have engine coolant flowing around them and there is a heater up front that gets it hot befor it lets the engine have it. You can design them to work in any cold climate you desire but the lowest I have seen them rated is 10 below. No testimony from me on that one.
EVERY authoratative and objective eval done by a university that I have read....maybe 4 long ones...has said that the WVO leaves deposits that will ruin the engine after a period of time. They base that on the deapth of the deposits from a 1000 hour test run in a lab. There must be something all the educated wizzards are missing cause there are people all across the country that 100,000 miles on an engine and they have no problems other than filters. Filters are a real pain and some for diesel are real spendy. The anecdotal evidence is overwhelmingly in favor.
MPG will dop about 5% and I have read nothing by anyone that indicated they could feel the difference in power.
You can purchase filtered and dewatered WVO around the country form collectors/vendors. Cost fluctuates but 1$per seems common but 2 dollars a gallon was quoted on a board I visit. In farm country they have a commodity called "out of spec Veg oil". It can't be used for food so it is a problem for the "squeezers" to dispose of in their normal channels. It is cheap and pumps quick.
PROBLEM: Only the older "mechanical" engines will digest this WVO no matter how you filter it. The modern "fuel rail" engines will be ruin't immediately. Won't even flinch. The sole exception is the VW D. Go figure? Now if you process the WVO into BioD you can use that anywhere.
A comment was made by Peach about the lubricity of WVO. Some of it is far superior to DinoD and none of it is worse. Anyone remember the days of CASTERBEAN oil being a fuel additive? Nothing better known to man...in the day.
HTH,
John
Our tank is 4 seasons. Just like stated earlier, we have coolant lines that go underneath the tank and heat it up. So it can be freezing outside, and we will still be fine running off of WVO.
However, since we are not purchasing it, but instead gathering and filtering it from out back of resturants, that is the issue that we run into in the wintertime that prevents us from touring, not the WVO system installed.
Oh, the system also cost 7 grand to do, and was done by the band that previously owned the bus. When buying the bus from them, they needed money and that 7 grand was not factored into it. I'm not sure that is an investment that we would have made had we bought a bus and then decided to install the conversion.
Though some of you guys will probably be able to figure out from a parts list how to build your own. The concept is pretty simple.
Peach,
Sorry about that :-[ ;D You sound like you have a first class system and did the first time I read about it. Have you looked into purchasing WVO that has been cleaned?
John
Nope, but that is something that I def will do. Especially on the west coast....california we were not able to find WVO at all. The bins behind resturants are welded shut and you are not getting in there at all. Not to mention navigating through california parking lots with a bus and trailer is near impossible!
What about fresh vegetable oil? Can it be bought in bulk cheaply?
As far as i am aware, a gallon of vegetable oil in the store is more expensive than a gallon of diesel
When D was $5 a gal I saw VO for less than 3. Most of it was selling for less than $5. I was not watching the market all that close but that is what I recall. You can get VO at serious discounts dealing in bulk. 55 gal drums can be lots cheaper than the going gal rate...of course. What is neat is that you can drop ship the stuff to your destination and pick it up while en-route. I have heard of all kinds of schemes but have no "hands on" experience.
John
I had ran into a bus owner that bought a bus with a conversion, he also owned a restuaruant and would order through there, an extra pallet from the vender, delivered.
I just bought 50 gallons of filtered and centrifuged oil in town for $2 a gallon. I'll go get another 50 to fill the tank before I leave. I'm looking for places to get clean oil in California, Nevada or Arizona on my way south.
Jerry
Jerry, don't plan on cheap fuel in Mexico ,we were in Juarez today and fuel is about $2.50 per gal and going up they say gasoline prices are about $.25 a gal higher than Texas good luck
Jerry,
There are BBs that have lists of people and their locations that have oil. Gregg's list also has people on it that sell oil. Try the Yahoo groups and ask there for additional info. There are a bunch I know but I haven't been active in that arena for almost a year. I have seen numerous instances where a guy had a couple hundred gallons for very cheap only because he couldn't process it fast enuf and his sources need it picked up or he would loose the acct. It seems a never ending quest but after you get it together it doesn't take all that much time. Wish I could give you specifics but I'm sure you will do OK.
HTH,
john
Quote from: JohnEd on October 31, 2008, 09:06:10 PM
Kyle and others,
I have read a ton on this subject and have a shop down the street that installs the system. Find someone that has done it and get their parts list and shop for a good price on everything. Like Jerry Campbell.
I have read plenty on this subject &, as far as I'm concerned, 'the mechanical part of the system' is child's play as its the easiest part for me.
What isn't easily found is the REAL LIFE stories that aren't pushing the hard sell on wvo. It is rare indeed to find long term users that tell it as it applies to themselves without the sales pitch.
Peach did a nice job of telling his experiences without 'selling', he told it as it is without trying to hide the dirty parts. That is what is really needed. It's all too easy to get wrapped up in the hype & "the savings" that some don't see what is really involved & end up with a big expensive mess on their hands.
There ain't no free lunches, but occasionally you get lucky & find a cheap one. ;D
Iminaccess, The way you are collecting and filtering is going to lead to disaster in a few ways. First dumpster diving for oil is the worst oil you can get for on the road filtering. Those dumpsters are used for not only waste oil but they also dump the water they use to clean the fryers in there. People put trash in there also. The next issue is the rightful owner of the oil after it is dumped there. It's not there for you to take and really aint worth taking from those containers. Next your filtering system leaves much to desire for on the fly filtration. Your not letting water settle out and even if you do there is still suspended water is still present. Water filters will NOT remove suspended water. You should be using a centrifuge if your going to continue collecting oil the way you do. Even if you didn't dumpster dive you should use a centrifuge. So far I have burned over 600 gallons of WVO in my bus with NO issues. I currently have the capability to carry 860 gallons of oil with me and clean oil the proper way. That "One Shot" filter system you have is cool looking but the oil your using is not the type of oil your using. Another thing about dumpster diving is you don't know what type of oil your using such as PHO or Clear Oil. Both will burn ok but clear oil is preferred. If your touring then you should be putting in your contract that the venue should save at least 100 gallons for you buy the time you get there if they have fryers. Also ask your fans to help get you oil and bring to your shows in the 5 gallon cubies. I currently have 400 gallons in my possession of which 200 gallons is clean and ready to use. I have another 500 gallons spread over the country. While your sitting at home not touring you should be collecting oil locally and searching for sources on you tour routing. With several band members you should be able to collect and filter plenty of oil to get you a good ways down the road. After cleaning it put it back in the cubies and it's easier to stash inside the bus. You need to sign up and read/study this forum thoroughly. http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve
Kyle, Wvo is in my opinion "sweat equity fuel" it is hard work and not for the weak. It's dirty, messy and challenging but can also be fun. I am always looking to improve my system from collection, filtering, storing and burning. I have over 2500 miles on a DDEC engine with no issues so far.
Wet stacking is a big enemy and any idling should be avoided at all costs on WVO.
Quote from: tiredofjerks on November 01, 2008, 07:55:52 PM
Kyle, Wvo is in my opinion "sweat equity fuel" it is hard work and not for the weak. It's dirty, messy and challenging but can also be fun. I am always looking to improve my system from collection, filtering, storing and burning. I have over 2500 miles on a DDEC engine with no issues so far.
Wet stacking is a big enemy and any idling should be avoided at all costs on WVO.
>
>
"Good to see you posting"
Tired,
Can you expand a little on the cent filter you use on the road? Type, brand, cost "G" force....any info.
Thank you,
John
We do numerous tests on the oil to make sure there is no water in it. I absolutely believe you that what we are gathering is not the best at all, i'm just saying that we do a good job of making sure that what we gather is good oil....at least compared to what is in the average dumpster haha.
My other question as far as you stated you carry over 800 gallons on board....i would love to do that.....our current capacity is about 110 gallons....is there a certain point to where it just becomes a weight issue since your carrying SO much?
Peach,
If you were being sloppy in the QA dept you would have been left on the side of the road long before now. IMHO!
Keep on keep'n on,
John
I was wondering how long you can store wvo once it is cleaned/dewatered etc.
I only use my bus in the summer so I was thinking of collecting the oil during the winter for use in the summer.
Thanks
Fred Mc.
Folks, this is by far the best discussion on ACTUAL use of WVO in buses I have seen!
Jack
Quote from: Fred Mc on November 01, 2008, 10:40:18 PM
I was wondering how long you can store wvo once it is cleaned/dewatered etc.
I only use my bus in the summer so I was thinking of collecting the oil during the winter for use in the summer.
Thanks
Fred Mc.
If you properly filter and dewater your oil and store it in plastic, stainless steel or aluminum containers with as little air space as possible you can store it for a very long time.
Quote from: JohnEd on November 01, 2008, 08:11:47 PM
Tired,
Can you expand a little on the cent filter you use on the road? Type, brand, cost "G" force....any info.
Thank you,
John
I'm using a spinner II centrifuge with 60 GPH rating. I have 2 different pump motor combinations. I can pump oil onto my bus, off of my bus and from any onboard tank to tank I want to.
It seems to me that I read that someone was using a power steering pump as a centrafuge.
Anyone have any comments on that.
Fred M
Quote from: Fred Mc on November 02, 2008, 09:31:17 AM
It seems to me that I read that someone was using a power steering pump as a centrafuge.
Anyone have any comments on that.
Fred M
They are used to "Power" the centrifuge with oil pressure. Not as a centrifuge.
tiredofjerks,
do you have any pictures available of your setup? i am very interested in learning more.
also, is it worth carrying over 800 gallons on board? how much weight is that approximately?
Peach,
I built a centrifuge for filtering VO and then lost the access I "thought" I had all sewn up for getting it. (a supposed friend that said I could get all I could handle)
So if you would be interested in a 55 gallon barrel centrifuge......... ;) See it here: http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g279/Skulptor/Centrifuge/
Good luck with it!! I'm extremely envious.
Chaz
Quote from: iminaccess on November 02, 2008, 09:58:25 AM
tiredofjerk
also, is it worth carrying over 800 gallons on board? how much weight is that approximately?
I drove 1,600 miles without having to stop for fuel. And if I had a co-driver I wouldn't have to stop at all.
Veg oil is 7lbs a gallon.
so your getting 2 miles to the gallon?
my current capacity is about 195 gallons and i can go about 1000 miles with all my tanks filled.
Quote from: iminaccess on November 02, 2008, 11:14:44 AM
so your getting 2 miles to the gallon?
Where did you come up with that? I drove 1600 miles without getting fuel but I only used about 300 gallons. That's how things get all screwed up on this forum.
Guys,
Google "Simple Centrifuge" to see an alternative to the "Spinner" that Tired and many others are using. My reason is that 3400 rpm on an 8 inch wheel makes spooky G forces. Spinner works, though.
2 cents,
John
My apologies....I thought you meant 1600 miles until you were out of fuel
Quote from: Ednj
tiredofjerks
"Good to see you posting"
Ed I too am glad to see him posting again!
And I'm glad to see that this
post thread is actually being civil and informative! FWIW ;D BK ;D
Quote from: Busted Knuckle on November 02, 2008, 03:55:02 PM
Quote from: Ednj
tiredofjerks
"Good to see you posting"
Ed I too am glad to see him posting again!
And I'm glad to see that this post is actually being civil and informative! FWIW ;D BK ;D
???????????????????????????????????????
Quote from: tiredofjerks on November 02, 2008, 04:19:28 PM
Quote from: Busted Knuckle on November 02, 2008, 03:55:02 PM
Quote from: Ednj
tiredofjerks
"Good to see you posting"
Ed I too am glad to see him posting again!
And I'm glad to see that this post is actually being civil and informative! FWIW ;D BK ;D
???????????????????????????????????????
Glad to see ya BACK posting! And also glad to see that everyone is getting along, asking good questions, and listening to the answers, and not being negative and starting the usual ruckus that usually comes up on this subject! ;D BK ;D
If I wanted to be outed I would have done it myself