bio diesel

i`ve seen a lot on here about saving money by using bio diesel.i`ve only seen a couple places that sell it around here and it`s the same price a reg. diesel.
what is the savings?
does it produce better mileage or what?
can someone educate me on this?

You can actually make your own bio-diesel. If you go to ebay & search "Bio diesel processor" or just google biodiesel, you'll get lots of technical help & explaination.
The short answer is, unlike ethenol you don't need a flex-fuel engine to burn it. Any diesel car, truck or tractor can burn bio-diesel. You simply need a processor & a source of vegetable/animal oil/fat. This can be obtained from any number of the hundreds of stripmall chinese restaraunts around. Usually, by talking to the owner, you can get it for free if you come & get it & haul it off. They aren't allowed to just throw it away, so many places have to pay to have it hauled off - therefore a win-win for both parties.
Once you have the waste-veggie-oil (WVO) you filter it to get rid of the kung-pow-chicken, etc; process it in something like this by adding lye & methoxide; then you have ready to burn fuel.
In the summer time, you can burn it straight. In cold weather you would need to cut it 10-15% with regular diesel fuel or kerosene, as it can coagulate.
I figured a first year investment would equal around $1500. Refining around 40gal a month would put you right at $3.50/gal. After that you just need to factor the cost of the lye & methoxide. Bought in bulk, comes out to around 50 cents a gallon. Plus your time & effort to go collect the WVO a few hours on a saturday every month.
Worth it? depends on how much trouble you are willing to go to to save around 3-4k a year. Most folks would rather complain IMO.

how long do you think it will be before these restarants owners catch on and start charging for waste oil to the point that there is no savings?
another problem is that i burn about 40 gallons a day between my truck and tractor and i`m sure that is going to be hard to get that amount of waste oil to supply that.

Pop already ran into that- he was good friends with a rest. owner, and tried to eat there every chance he got- he got permission to place a 55gal drum beside their oil hold, and they would call when it got near to full- pop would just drive over and drain it-

Went there one day, and his barrells gone- replaced with a shiney new one with a mans name on it- when he confronted the owner of the place, he stated the other guy offered him $50 a barrell-

cant say as I blame him for taking the deal, he ust went about it bad an never informed pop- but its also getting pretty tight around "waste oil" places up here- most spots are taken, and home brew bio guys are paying money to get it-- our "free lunch" of used oil is gone.

Pop never did go "chemical"- he`d just strain it a few times, boil the water out and mix it 1 to 4 with either diesel or some such- long as the temp stayed above 10 degrees, it stores fine. Summer time, he`d use it straight.

That's a good question on how long it'll take. I'm sure it'll be easier in larger areas like atlanta to get oil, as opposed to smaller places. That being said, this method will never be economical in the sense that everyday kinda folks will want to do it, & I don't know that it'll any kind of small business could make a profit paying for it. I think it'll stay small time, maybe jsut enough to get you by a few years of $5+/gal diesel & gas. even if you were paying $50/55gal drum, add the refining & that makes less than $1.50/gal. Not too shabby!

Down home people burn left over peanut oil straight. It also my understanding that you have to make the bio-disel yourself. If you sell it you have to pay a road tax. This is my understanding.

We run it in our 1996 7.3 powerstroke and our 1999 7.3 and today we are going to put it in our s250 bobcat . It's running great in our trucks and have had no problems.It will save us about $1500 per month. I was very sceptical at first but some times you have to do what you have to do to survive. But you must change out your fuel filters at first because it will clean out all the old petro diesel. I've only changed out one filter on my 1996 but I was told the more mileage you have you may need to change the filter more. But do your research. I've done mine. Good luck.

daisy102998 said:

Down home people burn left over peanut oil straight. It also my understanding that you have to make the bio-disel yourself. If you sell it you have to pay a road tax. This is my understanding.

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can you tell me more info ? just pour it right in ? do you have to refine it ? where do you get peanut oil ?
i just parked my 99 f-350 & bought a chevy 1500 to drive to work & only use my f-350 when needed "sucks" i love my big truck ! dam high priced fuel has even stopped me from racing my car.
please help me out

thanks
jon anderson
229 896 6140
229 456 0647

jon c anderson said:

can you tell me more info ? just pour it right in ? do you have to refine it ? where do you get peanut oil ?
i just parked my 99 f-350 & bought a chevy 1500 to drive to work & only use my f-350 when needed "sucks" i love my big truck ! dam high priced fuel has even stopped me from racing my car.
please help me out

thanks
jon anderson
229 896 6140
229 456 0647

Click to expand...

google SVO and you will find a world of info. The key to SVO is to filter it several times to get all particles bigger than your truck's fuel filter out of the oil. Most use a 2 tank system to use petro diesel to crank on and warmed SVO to run on.

jon c anderson said:

can you tell me more info ? just pour it right in ? do you have to refine it ? where do you get peanut oil ?
i just parked my 99 f-350 & bought a chevy 1500 to drive to work & only use my f-350 when needed "sucks" i love my big truck ! dam high priced fuel has even stopped me from racing my car.
please help me out

thanks
jon anderson
229 896 6140
229 456 0647

Click to expand...

Jon also google bio diesel and you will find an even better alternative than SVO. With bio diesel you need to change nothing on you diesel truck,car or lawn mower if it's a diesel it will run bio diesel. That is what we are running now.

FPP, take a look at this, lots of good info http://www.goldenfuelsystems.com/products.php

When I looked into making bio diesel a few years ago I was scared the neighbors would think I had a meth lab going. I didn't like the idea of cooking the stuff either. I don't want to burn everything down or get blown up trying to save a dollar.

There is or was a place below Macon that sold it but like you guy's said it no cheaper than regular diesel. Like the first guy said "Why Buy it?".

I haven't called one of those grease trucks to see what they're selling the used oil for, does anyone know? They might even have a filter on those trucks, that would save a step in the process.

I'd appreciate a pm if anyone knows where I could buy some of this stuff already filtered. I just want to pour it in and go. I don't want to cook it or filter it. Willing to pay cash

They are suppose to or were to build a bio diesel plant in Greensboro. Man was from Madison. Have not heard any more news about it but it was in county paper a while back. BB

Back when I sold to restaurants they all had someone that came by once a month and got their used oil. They did not pay to have it hauled off nor did they charge for it. I am not sure what that guy or company did with it - I think processed it back into usable food oil again.

But Like one above me said, it is not going to take long for restaurant owners - if there is a high demand - to start charging for it which will take any savings out of it. So I would not put any great money into equipments and kits to make it into something usable in vehicles.