More than 12,000 miles on waste vegetable oil now with out any problems associated with the vegoil. Sure beats $2.16 /gal of diesel fuel and it's cleaner too.

 

Congrats, I am at about 15,000 myself, with the biggest problem being I drive so much more when fuel is free. I have had my truck since May 28, and have put 18,000 miles on it However i just figured out a few minutes ago, that I think my fuel pump is on its way out. that's okay though, time for improvement!!

 

I've put on over 12,000 since the beginning of May. I replaced my fuel pump 4 months ago. It had 230,000 on it so I guess it was time. Do you notice that you have to change your fuel filter more often?

What climate do you live in? I'm curios to see how it works in the winter for me here in WI, but the way I have it set up I think I'll be fine. How do you have your system set up?

 

My pump made it to 130,000. At least I hope that is what it is. You live in a lot colder climate than I do, being here in western washington, it averages in the low 40, upper thirties in the winter. I have accidentally started up on oil in the 20's though. Man the truck hated that, but did it. I no longer go through fuel filters like I used to since installing this bad boy... and I only pay 7.69 for replacements The filter is 4"x10" big rig filter. Being right above the exhaust manifold it gets a lot of heat from there, and works out great. I have not replaced my factory filter in better than 7,000 miles now. I also have a host of other heat exchangers along the way, but the filter is what makes it work for me. What is your secret to success?

 

I've got a 100 gallon tank in the bed that is heated with engine coolant diverted through a couple heater cores at the base of the tank. The tank is heated only for winter purposes. All of the vegoil heating is accomplished in a shell and tube type heat exchanger that I have mounted under the hood. Prior to installing my large capacity DAVCO fuel filter/heater (This Bad Boy with the coolant heater option) I was going through fuel filters about every 1000 miles.

For those below zero mornings I installed This Bad Boy to warm the engine block and my vegoil tank before starting. I don't think I'm going to have to worry about winter. Almost all of my equipment was found on e-bay.

 

Impressive to say the least. A bit spendy to buy the stuff new, but doesn't take long to recoup the costs, especially at 2.30/gallon and rising. I almost ordered a Racor heated filter that greasel sells, untill I found out that the heater does not kick on untill it is like 35*, and does me no good. However that Davco with the coolant heater is a great idea. Did you make your own tube and shell heat exchanger? I have thought about this, but have not done it. What did you do?

 

I found a shell and tube heat exchanger on e-bay for $40. It's about 4" x11". Just search for "HEAT EXCHANGER" and in a few days you should have plenty to choose from. If it was my only heater I would want a little bigger one, but my vegoil is injected at about 170 deg. with the combination.

What do you use for vegoil collection and how do you filter?

 

Since I have started to do a final filtering, where I put a sump pump in the bottom tank and pump it through the identical fuel filter that I have on my truck. I can usually filter around 100-130 gallons with the air filter and 300 or better before replacing the fuel filter. Right now I am researching hydraulic filter seutps with a cleanable stainless steel mesh screen so that hopefully I can get to the point where I can just dump the stuff straight into my 70 gallon tank and not have to prefilter it. The filter housing is a tank mount housing that the top half comes off. I am considering making a small tank that I can bolt it to and run coolant through it to heat the filter. Hows your setup work?

 

I too had a pretty serious learning curve and a lot of messes before I ended up with my current process. Right now I collect about 100 gallons at a time between two drums in the back of the pickup using a little 12v transfer pump. Takes a total of about 45 minutes. I take the stuff home an transfer it with a 1/2 horse water pump into two barrels on the floor of the garage. Takes about 15 minutes. Once in the barrels on the floor I heat the oil with a 1500 watt stock tank heater to let it settle out. I have the heater on a timer to run 2 hrs at a time a couple times a day for a couple days. After heating/settling I pump from the barrel directly to my tank with whole house water filter (5 micron) attached to my 1/2 horse water pump. The filter is good for about 100-200 gallons and costs $1.50.

If I wanted to get a power inverter I could use my 1/2 horse water pump with the filter attached at the restaurant and go straight to the tank, for over the road trips.

I've thought about the stainless steel mesh thing too, but haven't really been able to find them. Do they make them as small as 5 micron? Do you have any links to sites with stainless mesh screens? Racor sells those little square ones, but I'd be interested in something higher capacity.

 

At home I use my air compressor and positive pressure to transfer the fluids around. works pretty well. I tried buying a 12v general purpose pump, but after waiting about 30 minutes for it to pump 20 gallons, it went back, and I continued with my bucket brigade method. A little messier, but takes about 5 minutes to fill a 55 gallon drum, at least until I find an affordable pump that can pump more than a gallon a minute. This is the filter I am looking into right now and is made by zinga. the filter element is available in a 200 mesh stainless steel reusable cartridge, that filters 75 micron. IT has a surface area of 151sq in. I am planning on using that as my pre filter, then go to my large fuel filter under the hood. What I am not sure about is how many stages of filtering I will need to do. How long will the 75 micron last before needing to be cleaned? How long will my 5 micron filter last getting fed from a 75 micron filter? I wish I knew what the micron rating of the Air filter I use is. In fact, I will probably use it in my garage filter setup first to test it out.