Sunday, September 09, 2007
Woo Hoo! 30,000 Miles
So I’ve traveled 30,000 miles using a 2005 TDI PD engine on soy Waste Veggi Oil (WVO) and still going...
But here are some of my mistakes that you should avoid if you try this at home.
1) You must change your motor oil every 1,000 to 2,000 miles. This is soooooooo important. All of my engine wear and tear (damage) has been caused because I was lazy and or pushed it too hard to see what would happen if I went 3k -4k miles on the same motor oil.
The excessive wear and tear on the engine happens because of Polymerization. Picture super hard plastic micro pellets being formed in your engine. They form because of the super hot heat in the engine mixing with the hydrocarbons from the motor oil and the veggi oil (soy being the most susceptible to this chemical reaction) And since Castrol Fully Synthetic oil, the oil that VW and the dealers tell you you must use, is not “fully synthetic,” which means it contains traces of hydrocarbons, you get this problem. By the way, in case you were wondering, super hard plastic micro pellets in your engine is not good for the turbo or the cylinders. Take a look at my turbo picture below (a couple posts back) Now all of this damage I believe can be avoided. But you must change your oil and use a real synthetic like Mobil 1 Turbo Diesel and Truck, which so far tests the best with veggi oil or you can use Canola oil which has a lower change of polymerizing. I’m currently testing Amsoil.
2) Your install should use two 3 port switches and a relay timer so the veggi oil doesn’t get into the start up diesel tank. My install doesn’t have this and so in the beginning, during the winter, I had some rough starts when I let the 5 gallon tank run low. Now I keep it full. Also, I should note, that my roughest starts were when I was running B99 as the start up fuel. The combo of veggi oil and B99 is no good for a morning start. To solve this, I have to use Diesel as my start up fuel.
3) Electric pump filter systems are a pain. Just use two 55 gallon drums to filter your oil with hand crank pumps. The first drum has a 10-20 micron filter bag. Then hand crack the filtered oil into the second drum which has a “5 micron” bag. But make sure your install has an on board filter/water separator.
4) Don’t run B99 in a car like mine. Your rear engine seal will become soft and you will start to leak oil and you will have to replace it. I used to use B99 as my primary fuel before the conversion and as my start up fuel after the conversion and this happened to me.
But here are some of my mistakes that you should avoid if you try this at home.
1) You must change your motor oil every 1,000 to 2,000 miles. This is soooooooo important. All of my engine wear and tear (damage) has been caused because I was lazy and or pushed it too hard to see what would happen if I went 3k -4k miles on the same motor oil.
The excessive wear and tear on the engine happens because of Polymerization. Picture super hard plastic micro pellets being formed in your engine. They form because of the super hot heat in the engine mixing with the hydrocarbons from the motor oil and the veggi oil (soy being the most susceptible to this chemical reaction) And since Castrol Fully Synthetic oil, the oil that VW and the dealers tell you you must use, is not “fully synthetic,” which means it contains traces of hydrocarbons, you get this problem. By the way, in case you were wondering, super hard plastic micro pellets in your engine is not good for the turbo or the cylinders. Take a look at my turbo picture below (a couple posts back) Now all of this damage I believe can be avoided. But you must change your oil and use a real synthetic like Mobil 1 Turbo Diesel and Truck, which so far tests the best with veggi oil or you can use Canola oil which has a lower change of polymerizing. I’m currently testing Amsoil.
2) Your install should use two 3 port switches and a relay timer so the veggi oil doesn’t get into the start up diesel tank. My install doesn’t have this and so in the beginning, during the winter, I had some rough starts when I let the 5 gallon tank run low. Now I keep it full. Also, I should note, that my roughest starts were when I was running B99 as the start up fuel. The combo of veggi oil and B99 is no good for a morning start. To solve this, I have to use Diesel as my start up fuel.
3) Electric pump filter systems are a pain. Just use two 55 gallon drums to filter your oil with hand crank pumps. The first drum has a 10-20 micron filter bag. Then hand crack the filtered oil into the second drum which has a “5 micron” bag. But make sure your install has an on board filter/water separator.
4) Don’t run B99 in a car like mine. Your rear engine seal will become soft and you will start to leak oil and you will have to replace it. I used to use B99 as my primary fuel before the conversion and as my start up fuel after the conversion and this happened to me.
