Trucks TV show makes Biodiesel
 

I know alot of you folks watch the Trucks tv show with Stacey on the Spyke channel.
Today he made up a batch of biodiesel with a "still" called the fuelmeister.

Pretty mainstream now and i'm surprised to see it frankly(and pleased).

At the end he drained the regular diesel out of a Dodge and pumped in his fuel.
The burnouts were impressive
Anyone who saw the older show where he installed the Banks Big Hoss Bundle may recall his love for big,honking burnouts.

He was quoted as saying in cost him .70 a gallon to make the BD !!

Anyway, kinda cool so check for a rerun if you can.

I had it on DVR and watched it today. I agree thats pretty neat. I was behind a old Benz that was running bio, it really did smell like french fries. I went to that website and the "still" was like $3,000. Im sure there is a cheaper way to do the same thing though

can you send me the web site?

I just watched a TV show last night called California Gold where a host named Huel Howser drives around and video tapes anything interesting for a documentary.
He followed a waste oil biodiesel maker from restaurant to restaurant gathering waste oil, then filtering it through socks and then running it in his Dodge truck, Mercedes sedan and tractors.

I also saw this...he mentioned the company who made the fuelmeister as freedom fuel america.

Do a search on biodiesel on ebay and you'll come up with a number of hits for fittings, supplies and insrtuctions.

The Web site for the fuelmeister is

http://homebiodiesel.com

I made a set-up for producing biodiesel a few years ago, there's a lot more involved than what is presented on this show. The WVO stinks and when spilled is a real pain to clean up. I used a pump to transfer the WVO and just the oil left in the hoses makes a mess. My stepdaughter managed a fast food place and a friend owned a bar and grill so I always had a supply but it was always a mess.

Trying to get WVO from other sources was a pain since they all had a small dumpster like container that belonged to a waste oil company. Sucking WVO out of these containers could get you charged with trespassing and petty theft. Even if the manager says you can do it. Some (actually all) of the WVO has additives that makes it almost unsuitable and needs excessive amounts of catalyst to get any results. That cuts into the savings too.

I made a mixer out of a blender and a 4 gallon square bucket to prepare the methanol/lye catalyst. The 33 gallon main reaction tank had a mixing motor and heating element.

All this cost me next to nothing and I made a couple of batches but when I got to looking at all the work, mess, stink, and time involved it was easier to pay the price to stick a nozzle in the filler and drive.

This Fuelmeister system is kinda neat but I think that they are misleading in statements about the whole proccess. You will probably never break even with the savings of fuel cost since you have to fork out over $3,000 just for the equipment.

Also when you start to use bio you need to change the fuel filters a couple of times since the bio cleans the tank and lines and will plug the filters so that's an extra expense. If you've bought filters for a 6.0L then you know what they cost.

If diesel gets to $3/gal then I might crank up the bio again but until then no, it's not worth it.

Btw, Freedom Fuel America is a dealer for Fuelmeister.

Then I take issue with the statements on the show about bio having the same power output as diesel...not true, it has less and it's not very good in cold climates.

@ $.70/gal it wouldn't take too long for that $3000 fuel maker to pay for itself. Maybe two years for me. What does the 6.0 think about the biodiesel? What about the minimum 46 cetane reading that Ford recommends.

You see that's just what Im' talking about...$.70/gallon is only for the cost of the methanol and Red Devil Lye. It cost more than that when you factor in the trip to get the WVO, the fuel filters, extra materials for tritration, paper towels/rags and all the other hidden costs including your time.

Bottom line is that it's a real pain in the butt no mattter how they try to make it simple and fool proof.

And speaking of fool proof, wait till something goes wrong and you end up with 40 gallons of glycerine goo to try to get rid of.

You can put it down all you want but the more we rely on rag heads for our fuel the worse it will get. Its not just the money end of it and I know of alot of people that will pay more for fuel if its not from the rag heads.The fact is there is a cheeper fuel out there for our diesels and can be made at home.So it takes a little work so what. If more and more people was useing bio diesel the price would come down and the rag heads can try to sell their oil to the camel farms. I've been useing soy diesel in my truck and the cetane is higher than pump fuel.Truck runs better on it and gets better mileage.
Sounds like your system didn't work right or you were doing something wrong. :-X02

i dont own a diesel, wish i did, but i thought the show was neat, wish they would have used a stock truck though, when you use something thats already hopped up, how you goning to tell if youve really gained perfpormance? i think they should have used before/after dyno tests. i also wonder about that stuff when it gets cold out. the concept is great and it could pay for itself eventully, but once a market is created for something useless (used cooking oil) it becomes valuable and you know it wouldnt be free anymore. and if you did screw something up, it would be quite a pain to get the fuel system all straightend out again. even if all you needed was new filters, im sure they are pricey. wish ford would give us a 200 cid inline 4 diesel for the ranger chassis!

how about a 1.7 liter 4 cyl. cummins with a turbo and intercooler that pumps out 120 hp. in the ranger. the one in my boat drinks about 3 gals a hour at full bore

Firesoutmatt,
I have the feeling that you're using B-20 instead of B-100 as was suggested on the show. There is a difference. What method do you use to make it?

The intent of my posts were not to slam bio... I have a problem with the super simple view of making bio that was presented. They kinda left out a few things that makes it more of a hassle, but then I've been there, done that.

One more thing, my son is a county cop and warned me about buying and having large amounts of the ingredients in my garage for making bio...could be mistaken as running a meth lab. The way that they're busting meth labs around here lately I'm glad that I gave it up.

Also let me clear up the filter statements that I made, this is for the first few times that you try B-100, it will clean the fuel system. After that the filters last as long as diesel.

There was nothing wrong with my equipment or system, in fact the only thing I would change is a recovery system for the methanol. A bad batch of WVO made me decide that it was more trouble than it was worth. It's something that can happen fairly easily.

One last note on this subject, my wife helped me make bio, she went with me to get the WVO, she helped with the tritration, the mixing of the catalyst, in fact she helped with every aspect.
She also watched the show and before I could say anything she laughed and said that the Fuelmeister was like what I built. She also said that they left out some of the hardest parts. When I looked up the price of the Fuelmeister and told her she flipped.

I agree with you. It is always a lot harder than what is presented on these shows. As soon as they film a segment I am sure there are 10 people standing by to get it ready for the next step. He did make it seem very easy and very clean. I am sure you are right that it takes a lot more to it than what is shown.