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Kibagari wrote:It's the way the engine is set up. Diesels before '95 were a tad different and thus you need to convert the vehicle in order to run bio-diesel (as I hear, it's not that bad of a conversion) Agricultural and industrials can run bio-diesel too. I know a fair number of men who run their vehicles, heat their house, and run their farms with the stuff.


And if it's a '95 or later, no conversion needed. Just pop in the bio-diesel and go. Although expect to change a few fuel filters (cause the stuff will give your engine the cleaning of its life).

Could you be more specific than "the way the engine's setup"?

Straight from the wikipedia article for Bio-diesel itself:

Pure, non-blended biodiesel can be poured straight into the tank of any diesel vehicle. As with normal diesel, low-temperature biodiesel is sold during winter months to prevent viscosity problems. Some older diesel engines still have natural rubber parts which will be affected by biodiesel, but in practice these rubber parts should have been replaced long ago.

There you go. It's the natural rubber parts.

Kibagari wrote:Straight from the wikipedia article for Bio-diesel itself:

Pure, non-blended biodiesel can be poured straight into the tank of any diesel vehicle. As with normal diesel, low-temperature biodiesel is sold during winter months to prevent viscosity problems. Some older diesel engines still have natural rubber parts which will be affected by biodiesel, but in practice these rubber parts should have been replaced long ago.

There you go. It's the natural rubber parts.

So you actually don't know first hand about running bio-diesel, do you?

I do, I just have no experience with older diesel engines, since I've never run biodiesel in anything older than a 2001. All the salesman told me was "don't run it in anything older than '95 unless you've converted the engine to be able to run it". I just took his word for it.

Anything else you'd like to grill me on?

Kibagari wrote:I do, I just have no experience with older diesel engines, since I've never run biodiesel in anything older than a 2001. All the salesman told me was "don't run it in anything older than '95 unless you've converted the engine to be able to run it". I just took his word for it.

Anything else you'd like to grill me on?

Not really, since biodiesel was the topic at hand. I'll stick to my diesel trucks forums for my diesel truck needs.

Depending on what brand diesel engine you run, you can run it straight through the tank in '95+ models. What diesel do you run?

And don't trust what salesman tell you. I'm embarassed as to why I know.

I'm running a 2005 GMC Sierra 3500. It was on regular diesel for a little, and when we switched it to biodiesel it coughed and sputtered a bit from time to time, but now it's back to purring like a kitten.

And yeah, definitely should have read more as to what I was getting into.

Kibagari wrote:I'm running a 2005 GMC Sierra 3500. It was on regular diesel for a little, and when we switched it to biodiesel it coughed and sputtered a bit from time to time, but now it's back to purring like a kitten.

And yeah, definitely should have read more as to what I was getting into.

Ok, running a Duramax. Do you have any temp problems or gelling of the fuel during cold spells?

No temperature problems or gelling yet. Although, when it gets cold we usually go down to a mixture of regular diesel and biodiesel, I believe around 70/30 (petro/bio). Although come spring/summer, we go back to 100% bio.

Insofar, the only issues we've had is when we first started running 100% was that the fuel filter would get all clogged up because of all the junk the biodiesel was cleaning out. After we fine-tuned the mixture a bit and started washing the biodiesel (since we manufacture it ourselves), as well as once the truck got used to it, there haven't been any problems.

Shorts wrote:Bio-diesel. Add the plumbing to the vehicle, add the extra tank, add the filter system to the garage, add the need for oil supply. I'm not totally sold on it yet. But many have added the conversion.
There's a lot of jobs Americans do which cannot be done with chincy vehicles. It isn't always about not caring.

ahem. Actually the diesel engine was orignally designed to run on peanut oil... This whole petro-chem thing is a later idea...

A couple of years ago Top Gear took an ancient (1980's) Mercedes Diesel Saloon and drove it across the country on vegtable oil - with absolutely no modifications. The car had no problems.

LPG conversion is a lot of additional plumbing and a pain in the back side to fit by yourself but my man Danny says it doubles his Landrovers mpg and actually makes it possible to use as a Daily driver.