new to WMO
 

a couple years ago i started saving up waste motor oil with the intent of building a waste oil furnace for the workshop, but that project is still waiting for to to build the rest of the walls on the workshop.
so as i stand right now, i have 3, 55 gallon drums full of WMO, including small quantities of gasoline, ATF, gear oil, and possibly small quantities of other automotive fluids.
i've read quite a bit around here about burning various oils as fuel, and personally have tossed in a quart of ATF with every fuel filter change, and thats about it. tonight i walked out to the workshop, pulled a gallon of oil from the middle of a barrel, ran it through a 100 micron paint filter, and poured it into the truck. its an 87 E350 with a 6.9.
as it stands right now, i have one gallon of WMO added to about 21 gallons of diesel in my rear tank, and plan to drive it tomorrow and see what i think. from what i've read here, people have consistent good results from up to 50% concentration, but i see no need to push it. i run 40,000 miles a year, so even with just a 10% mix i should consume my oil supply at a quite acceptable rate

i plan to start carrying a spare fuel filter at all times, and up to this point have been changing it about every 3 months, without being too precise about it.

are there any other concerns i need to consider for running such a low concentration of WMO?

You know I say go for it:)

I only ran WMO once, about a 50/50 mix (15w-40) with diesel and at that ratio my truck was dogged down, didn't want to accelerate, could barely reach 60mph, but other than that ran as normal.

I just dont want to run it cause I'm not really saving as much compared to running WVO. With WVO I can run as high as 90% WVO and still easy starting in morning. And on WVO my truck makes more power than diesel, is quiet, doesn't shake as much, etc. On WVO my truck actually accelerates up steep hills with a load no problem!

I have read that many use a 85%/15% WMO/gas ratio, but I have not put that much gas in my truck so don't know...

With a turbo you might not notice that "lag" as much as my NA IDI...

Also, I have read in various places that you should NOT add Diesel Kleen or any other additives when running WMO as the additives seem to react with the WMO and cause problems, separation, globbing, etc.

I only ran about 6 gallons of WMO with about 6 gallons of diesel, didn't notice any filter clogging, etc.

They also "say" adding gas to WMO helps to drop out metal shavings, etc...metal shavings would/should be the only real concern.

I've run W80 (80% centrifuged WMO, 20% regular unleaded gasoline) in my '83 Mercedes 300SD, but it smokes like crazy. Power seems about the same, engine seems to run hotter than normal (makes sense, since WMO has more BTU/gallon than diesel fuel).

The thinking recently seems to be that although regular unleaded gasoline is a great thinner, it has about zero lubricity and may cause issues with your injection pump and/or injectors. I'm not sure if that's really true on older, indirect-injected engines, since sometimes those manufacturers would actually advise you to use up to 20% RUG in the wintertime to avoid gelling of diesel fuel, but who knows.

I'd recommend you filter your oil better. 100 microns is definitely insufficient to avoid problems with your injection pump and injectors. You want to get it down to 5 microns tops, and preferably sub-micron (with a centrifuge). Also, you really want to get all the water out.

FILTER, FILTER, FILTER!!!!! aim for 10-20 microns. dont try to filter it all at once, work your way down to a smaller number. I have a 16 on my garage pump and a 10 on the truck.

From the sounds of it your oil is sitting still in a barrel, thats good, Best thing to do is let it sit in a hot building or the sun directly and let it gravity settle as long as possible, 1 week or more. Suck the good oil off the top and push it through a water trap fuel filter. I prefer the Golden Rod clear housing with replacable filters just so I can see whats in the filter. People say the water trap ones are a waste but more then once I have gotten a bit of water I didnt realize was in the oil and the filter stopped flowing, so it did its job, I think they're cheap insurance.

The bad thing with WMO is the high carbon count, carbon doesn't burn, it's SUPER hard and will score almost anything it goes through. if it's diesel oil there is ALOT of carbon in it, the blacker the oil, the more carbon. if it's gas oil it's got lots of corrosive stuff in it, that's why gassers use a PCV, they develop lots of weird toxins the cranckcase, which gets into the oil.

at the rate your using it I don't think you will have any problems immediatly but I would be cautious. I have not experimented with centrifugeing WMO yet, I have everything just haven't tried it yet to see just how much carbon it will sling out I think if you got the carbon out it would burn alot better.

Diesel Rod

my oil is indeed sitting quite still. the barrel i pulled from hasn't been moved in a couple weeks, my other 2 barrels for several months. on the current barrel, about a month ago i ran the pump from the bottom of the barrel until all the coolant/water was gone and i hit oil, then i let it sit for awhile. as mentioned above, when i pulled from it, i was pulling from about halfway up.
dieselrod, i look forward to hearing your results from centrifuging WMO, both from gas and diesel applications. my stock is primarily gas engine oil, with some ATF, diesel oil, gear oil, and possibly small amounts of whatever else i have around (brake fluid, solvent, etc), as until recently, all waste fluids went to the same place.

having run my current mix of 1 gallon in a full 22 gallon tank today, i'm pretty happy. there was a slight smell of burnt oil i could notice with the windows open, but really not much. otherwise, i think i may have noticed a slight power increase, but that may have been caused by a miscalibration of my butt-dyno, as those instruments aren't terribly accurate :)

i'll look into better filtration systems, i just figured the paint filter i had handy would pull out any sand or other big problems. reading around here, i saw a number of people filtering the oil through a pant leg, does anybody know an approximate micron level that gives you?

fueling up tonight, i found that if i neglect the WMO from my numbers, the fuel consumption appears to have not changed. i'm not sure if this is a difference in how full the tank got tonight, or if the truck is less efficient on this mix, but after i got home i added 1.5 gallons of WMO to go with the 16 gallons of diesel i had just pumped into the rear tank. i plan to check economy on a 5 tank test-run to see if it really saves me money, and go from there

I have done a fair amount of centrifuging waste oil. I have an IBC in the back yard into which I dump all my waste oil (engine oil, ATF, hydraulic fluid) and let settle for a while, then I pump off the top into a centrifuge barrel.

I've done 12-15 passes on this oil (which is black as midnight) after heating to 195 F, and while the centrifuge does pull some crap out, it doesn't change the color of the oil at all. Even after mixing the finished product 50/50 with No. 2 diesel, I can't see anything through it, even with a really bright light.

The centrifuge seems to be doing what it's supposed to, but I can confirm what lots of other people have said: a pressure-operated centrifuge (mine is a PA Biodiesel 120 GPH model) does not get the carbon out of used motor oil. Maybe a direct-driven, higher-RPM centrifuge would do a better job; I don't know.

I can tell you something interesting I discovered, though. Lots of people on alternative fuels forums will tell you not to thin oil with diesel fuel, because according to them diesel fuel is not a solvent. They say you need to use kerosene or gasoline.

Well, it's not true. I took a sample of my centrifuged oil and mixed it 50/50 with No.2 diesel in a clear glass jar and let it sit for a week. There's no separation whatsoever. I also took another clear jar and put some virgin ATF and virgin 5W-20, and mixed those 50/50 with No. 2 diesel, let it sit for a week. Same result; no separation. Also, mixing 50/50 with No. 2 diesel noticeably reduced the viscosity of the oil. So I would conclude that you can use diesel fuel as a thinner without worry. It's not the cheapest solution, but it works well.

I read somewhere there is a way to make wmo translucent but can't find it now..

here's some good info
Waste Motor/Hydraulic Oils & Blends

here it is...mmm that stuff looks good:)
http://www.microcogen.info/index.php?topic=2633.0

That stuff is produced by a guy named Jeffrey Brooks, of Beyond Biodiesel. I agree that his results sound very promising, but his equipment is specialized and I don't believe I've ever seen anyone else reproduce his results.

In any case, by Jeffrey's own admission this is a very labor-intensive process (more labor than I feel like doing, anyway), and as others have pointed out, we have no assurance that various additives and contaminants have been removed. Just because you can see light through it doesn't necessarily mean it's good for your injectors.

I agree.
The problem is that WVO is not so readily available anymore as it's a commodity now and many corporations are involved in it. So, the small guys like us who just want it for personal use are being shut-out.

WMO is very available but is far less desirable in many ways to WVO.

I think soon enough WVO will be almost impossible to get, stricter emissions will also probably soon be enforced to try and eliminate all older vehicles too.

It sucks, best fuel in the world (best because it's a waste product and more green-friendly) and the common man can't get no WVO...

There must be a simple way to process WMO (that is 100% pure WMO, no contaminates) so that it will mix easily with diesel, etc and get rid of any bad side-effects...we just haven't found it yet...

Tell me about it. Around here it can't be found, even offering to pay market rate (and educating local businesses on the fact that I'm local myself, not some huge out-of-state waste hauler that couldn't care less about keeping the money in our economy). And unlike some people I've read about in the news, I'm not willing to steal it, though it would certainly be easy enough to do so. It seems if you're honest and want to conduct business in a straightforward manner, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage.

Yep. I have had no problem getting people on Craigslist to give me literally more WMO than I know what to do with, but the quality varies widely. Some of it is fantastic (nearly new hydraulic oil from a local power gate company), while some of it is terrible (barrels left out open in the rain, antifreeze mixed in, things like latex paint mixed in, etc). WMO smells terrible, is carcinogenic, makes a huge mess ...

I hope out here in the Wild West, that's not true, though I do worry about moving to a bigger city that would require me to do annual emissions tests. These old 1980s cars are great except for that aspect.

Well, my experiments have proven to me that WMO will mix readily with pump diesel no matter how contaminated it seems to be. But as far as getting rid of contaminants, I'm not convinced there's any way to do that short of owning a recyling facility.

no doubt
my truck runs on it, and i got like 60 gallons from a guy with a Stroke F350, and it was 15w-40, and looked pretty clean, no other stuff, etc.

but, my truck ran like a slug, and pedal almost to the floor just to do 65mph.

probably should've been using a thinner oil but it's not nearly as cost-effective as wvo since you have to have at least a 50/50 ratio with diesel.

some say 85/15 diesel/gas but I just don't know if that high a percentage of gas is good, especially in summer heat...IDK...and generally any gas or alcohol is a no-no

OH BTW I used a pair of jeans, turn one leg inside-out, wrap ends of both legs with zip-ties, put inside-out leg into other leg (double-filter) and put a long funnel in leg, fill with 4-5gallons of oil and in about an hour you'll have filtered oil.
time would be less if oil is heated first or mixed with diesel/kero/gas
I heard jeans, especially doubled-up, are about 5-10 microns....

gas, acetone, alcohol all seem to help drop bad stuff out of the wmo, if only there were a simple way to recover the gas, etc.
alcohol would probably be the easiest to recover back out of the oil or no? cheap too.

and, I guess if you're gonna go the 85/15 route with gas, maybe just mix it in, let it settle, then filter it all from top and disregard stuff near bottom of barrel, etc

Oh. I meant to say that I would avoid brake fluid at all costs. It's corrosive and I imagine could do a real number on the insides of your injection pump, not to mention your cylinders and valves. :(

thats good to know about the evils of brake fluid... i suspect some is mixed into my drum. but i believe it attracts itself to water, so hopefully its hanging out with the water at the bottom of the drum, is that likely, or is that just way too scary to gamble with??

Hygroscopic?

I think brake fluid, PS fluid, Ethanol, are all Hygroscopic or attract water

from Wikipedia seems like everything attracts water

How many RPM's does your centrifuge spin? and how big is it in terms of inches across? The one I am using spins almost 8,000 RPM but is only 5 inchs across, so the gravitatinal effect is less then a bigger 12-14" one.

I did try a batch of old WMO I had a few Months back and all I seemed to do was get what little water was in it all mixed up, it turned grey and fell right to the bottom of a 50/50 WMO/WVO mix.

Diesel Rod

a couple mornings ago, i was getting up to speed, and when i hit 45, i lost power for about 3 seconds, then it recovered to normal power. this was about half a mile from home, as i was just starting out for the day.
the night before, i filled the tank at my usual spot, drove the 15 miles home, then poured in 1.5 gallons of WMO, and it sat overnight.
is it possible the oil settled and the engine got a shot of straight oil, or is it more likely to be a total coincidence? its been great since then, and i am saving some diesel

I doubt it. I've mixed virgin motor oil with diesel in glass jars and let it sit for weeks with no separation. It's possible that the WMO didn't mix into the diesel properly, though.

quick question about my oil supply:

a couple days ago i opened one of my other drums of WMO and drew some out of the bottom for non-engine use. what i found there had a strong smell of stale gasoline (at the time i used gas for parts cleaner and it went in with the waste oil). its flammability suggested about a 50% gas-oil ratio. when i get around to it, will this be safe to run my truck on, or does this sound like "bad" stuff i should stay out of? also, does the gas tend to settle at the bottom of the barrel, leaving the higher levels with heavier oils?

FWIW, when pulling oil for engine consumption, i have a probe at about the halfway point of the barrel that i'm pulling from, and my current barrel is sitting at about 2/3. how far down the barrel would y'all advise i go before i grab the next barrel?

I pull my veg oil from the very top, my pump moves ALOT of oil so even at half way down it will start to lift the heavy crap off the bottom and mix it in. I use a clear hose on the suction side so I can see what is going in, hard to do with WMO but I suggest the very top and just work your way down as the fluid level drops.

Diesel Rod

good to know. i'm still using a harbor-freight hand pump, so i like to set the tubes in place and forget them as i stroke the handle. i'll raise the tube to being only about 5 gallons below the line before my next pull.
also, my standard method of operation is to pull off the barrel into the filter, which goes into a 5 gallon container, where it sits until i pour off the top of it into my tank, never reaching the bottom of the container. hopefully this serves as a secondary settling point for any water or whatever may have gotten past my filter

and tonight i opened the third barrel i have laying around, just to see what was on the bottom. i pulled about 2 gallons of what sounded like water, but looked dirty like oil or something, and burned much like the stuff in my last post when i tested it by tossing a little on a fire. whatever it is, it won't be going in my engine.
would i be safe pulling each barrel until its down to 1/4 or how far do y'all think??

Jeffery Brooks makes some really wild claims and has been banned from many forums.

I have a WVO Designs 'fuge. I made my own heater element.

It all working really well. I have $2200 into my setup. This includes 6 IBC totes, pallet racking, the 'fuge, and 20+ 55 gallon barrels that I buy from a local oil distributer.

I settle in the totes for a few weeks, occasionally draining off the water, then it goes through my heater and into the 'fuge.

I'm even selling my excess to a previous employer for his dump trucks (10% wmo mix).

I using 75%wmo/25% K1 in my '92 IDI.

I did have to upgrade to a larger fuel filter assembly. I felt that the engine was stalling in colder temperatures due to the flow limitations of the factory filter. I'm going to install a reefer tank in the bed and relocate my filter near it with a e-pump.

thought i'd give a quick update on how my fuel is working out for me...
i got tired of playing with that rotten HFT hand pump, so i assembled a 1/4hp 120v motor and a power steering pump from a 91 toyota pickup, and got myself into a pretty good transfer pump for pushing between barrels or from barrel to my filter bag, etc. its a simple belt-driven setup mounted to a thick piece of plywood, and it works great. right now the suction hose is a 6 foot piece of garden hose, and the outlet is a piece of 3/8 trans cooler hose, as those were what i had handy that matched the pump.

as for my oil supply, the new pump gave me the motivation to pull a little more off my other 2 barrels (see post 19 above), and found that the first of these barrels has a gasoline odor even when i just open the cap, and its viscosity is quite thin. i pulled several gallons from it and added them to the barrel thats inside (which i always pull from), then opened my third barrel, which lacks the gasoline smell and has a viscosity i would estimate around 30wt. i then moved a few gallons from here into the barrel i have inside, as i didn't want too much of that gasoline mix going into my tank.
any concerns about mixing these 2 barrels and running it at my usual 10% mix, or does that gasoline odor raise any serious red flags i need to stay away from??

Depends on if the smell is actualy gas or just a build up of vapors from alot of gasline engine oil.

I wouldn't worry to much about blending it off, you can run alot of crap through these engines if you slowly blend it with some good fuel.

Diesel Rod

the viscosity of that barrel tells me it has a lot more gas in there than i realized. but looking at your post there, it sounds like if i stick my my conservative mix with diesel, i'm pretty safe - and even more so if i mix barrels
thats what i was hoping. i think i'll pull several gallons from each barrel, add both to my primary (inside) barrel, and pull from there into the filter, from which it goes in the truck.

as an update, my use has evolved to about 20% WMO, and i'm having a lot more issues with the high-power/low-power games normally associated with air intrusion while running. however, i've found no sign of leakage in my lines, and find the issue to be equal on both tanks, and not dependent on the quantity of fuel in the tanks, implying the problem is forward of the tank selector valve. at one time, my water seperator leaked from its drain, as they're prone to doing, but my redneck patch appears to be holding, and with the amount of time spent on "super high power" mode (such that i can do 80MPH on about 1/4" of pedal), it appears that i either have an IP problem or an air leak.
also, when in this high power mode, the "diesel rattle" is MUCH more pronounced. its like someone took off the doghouse and gave my a ton more noise.

Josh, do you have a hand held vacuum pump ? Couldnt you hook up the vacuum pump at the lift pump and see if it holds a vacuum from the lift pump line to the tank or vice versa and from the lift pump to the fuel filter to the injectors and return line to see where your leak is if you have one ? I hope that makes sense. It does in my head LOL just seems that if you dont hold the vacuum then you can narrow down where your leak would be..

that sounds like a pretty smart trick, thanks for the idea
i'll give that a shot this weekend

let me know what ya find out

well i have yet to get around to testing it, but i realized something tonight that caught my attention. last night i filled both tanks till the pump's first cut-off and no further. after driving a good bit on the rear tank today, i decided to run about 10 miles on the front tank so i would have room to mix a little WMO in there too. having switched back to the rear, i drove the next 30 miles home. having gotten home, i stuck a funnel in the rear tank and poured a couple gallons, then moved the funnel to the front tank, and had only poured about half a gallon before it overflowed.
this is pointing me toward a problem in the tank selector valve, as there should have been about a gallon of space when i left the gas station, and i opened up another 2/3 of a gallon by driving 10 miles on that tank.

that being said, it appears i have the air intrusion on both tanks, including when they're dead full.
and i remember having a 3-port valve go bad in a gasser such that it just sucked air one day and wouldn't get fuel to the carb. i'm wondering if my valve is starting to go that way, but obviously hasn't gotten that severe yet. so far, its symptoms are minor, both in fuel transfer and suspected air leakage - but that makes this the ideal time to correct the problem while i'm still getting on down the road!

i've seen differing opinions about the valve offered at oreillys, any thoughts on it?

well, i'm finally getting a better understanding of whats going on here, and its not air intrusion.
in my other thread on the IDI side here, the point came up that the cold start timing advance solenoid may be included in the problem. i diagnosed that its recieving power when its not supposed to, and intermittently, and caused my whole deal whenever it is energized. for the last 2 days i've had it unplugged where its wire connects at the IP, and it hasn't gone into "super" mode once in that time, except when i plugged that wire back in for a couple miles to further prove my diagnosis, at which time it was in "super" mode the entire time until i unplugged it again.

i bought but have yet to install the replacement tank selector valve. with its wire connector it cost 150, compared to an exact fit from the stealership for 350. it'll require that i change all my connections there to simple hose clamp connections, as the valve isn't compatible with the connectors on the original lines

well, i'm finally getting a better understanding of whats going on here, and its not air intrusion.
in my other thread on the IDI side here, the point came up that the cold start timing advance solenoid may be included in the problem. i diagnosed that its recieving power when its not supposed to, and intermittently, and caused my whole deal whenever it is energized. for the last 2 days i've had it unplugged where its wire connects at the IP, and it hasn't gone into "super" mode once in that time, except when i plugged that wire back in for a couple miles to further prove my diagnosis, at which time it was in "super" mode the entire time until i unplugged it again.

i bought but have yet to install the replacement tank selector valve. with its wire connector it cost 150, compared to an exact fit from the stealership for 350. it'll require that i change all my connections there to simple hose clamp connections, as the valve isn't compatible with the connectors on the original lines

well boys, i've been out of the WMO game for awhile cause my blue-jean filters all clogged up, and my oil transfer pump made from a PS pump went bad on me.
tonight i went out and assembled an engine oil pump with some fittings and a 6.9 filter head with used filter from the junkyard onto a piece of plywood, and got back into the game. i realize this filter isn't quite as fine as we would find ideal, but i'm not too worried about it. IMO, my IP is on its way out, and i plan to replace it and the injectors as soon as my budget allows. for months now, my timing has randomly jumped between advanced and retarded, and repeated searching for leaks has found nothing. so it has been decided that the advance mechanism in the IP is failing, so i may as well burn free fuel until i get the new IP, even if i don't have a filter quite as fine as would be ideal.
when i do go for a new IP, i'll be sending one of my two spares that i pulled from the junkyard in to a rebuilder, and have it rebuilt. my plan is to consume all the waste oil i currently have in stock before i swap the IP, and run on straight #2 for quite some time after that

thought i'd give y'all an update here
i'd been playing with pretty strong WMO mixes lately trying to consume what i have left, and i got to a concentration that didn't want to flow through too well in this weather, around 75% WMO, so i had that in the rear tank and clean #2 in the front tank, switching back and forth trying to burn the oil without starving my pump out. when running on the front tank i was getting some fairly loud clatter on and off, such as when sucking some air in the fuel line.

well yesterday i was on the freeway and smelled a little bit of coolant. temp gage was right on 195, exhaust was clear, so i blamed the car i saw on the shoulder in the distance. another mile later, i suddenly start pumping a lot of white smoke out of the exhaust, and the temp is at 200. i pull into a parking lot off the next exit, now at 220, and shut it down. i dumped in 2 gallons of coolant i had on hand, and drove to my appointment a mile away, still blowing tons of smoke.

well long story short, blown head gasket AND blown radiator. i'm not sure which caused which, but i can't help but wonder if the fuel caused the timing games and caused the head gasket to fail... thats a lot of speculation, and i don't honestly know if thats how things happened, but i figured i'd post here and let you guys consider. another equally valid possibility is that the radiator failed first, which goes with the fact that i smelled coolant first, and that caused the head gasket to go.

just wanted to give fair info for anyone else considering burning too strong of a mix - it might have caused the problem

in any case, my thread on the repair is here just lost a head gasket - Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums

WMO doesn't cause head gasket failure :-roll

i agree that it won't cause it by itself, but i was exploring the question that maybe it was causing my weird timing games, and i have heard of gas engines losing head gaskets for too much timing advance.
hopefully not, but i thought i'd throw it around to try to explore the options of what might have caused my failure. you say it can't. great. i hadn't heard of it either.
as i said, approaching that conclusion was a lot of speculation, and a chain of events: thick fuel ==> pump starves, sucks air ==>super-advanced timing at times ==> bad things happen

I too agree, WMO can't cause a blown head gasket.....but it can ruin an ip with thick mixtures like you found out. I said it before and ill say it again.......DONT GET GREEDY with WMO.

Diesel Rod

Some guys are hell bent to use 100% wmo. I feel much better thinning down with 20% K1. Unless someone wants to make a compatible pump :-X0A6

i think i'll pump most of whats in that tank back into the oil barrel, and go back to adding it a gallon at a time. i had no problem back then, but i guess greed got the better of me

Always premix your fuel.