Passat 2005 Running On Used Soy Oil And B100

Over 5,000 miles with Delvac 1

2008-04-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

Delvac 1 is proving its worth and it's not even an approved oil for this engine.

Another Good Oil Report With Delvac 1

2008-03-06T20:59:00.000-08:00

The people at Blackstone think it's pretty amazing how good the engine is wearing. Let's all thank the true synthetic Delvac 1 and frequent oil changes. I'm slowly pushing up the mileage between oil changes so I'll probably go 1,800 or 2,000.

Oil Report Looking Good With Delvac 1

2008-01-30T21:03:00.001-08:00

Here is the oil report from Blackstone Laboratories. Lead was a little high but all the other metals are good. I also left in the old reports right before the motor oil pump died. Take a look at the old numbers for Iron, Aluminum, Copper and viscosity. Compare against the Universal Averages column. I'm going to do another oil change at 1,500.

Flipping The Switch Again

2007-12-18T14:09:00.003-08:00

After the oil change, I flipped the switch on my dash sending veggie oil into my new engine. Yes, I was fearful that my new engine could succumb to the same fate as my last one but my fear quickly melted away from the joy of knowing that my gas money is not ending up in the pockets of the greediest companies on the planet.

EZ Lube

2007-12-18T14:09:00.001-08:00

At 500 miles I went to EZ lube for my oil change. For diesels, they use Mobil Delvac 1. The best synthetic motor oil for diesels. The exact same stuff as Mobil 1 Turbo Diesel Truck that I had tested that got an amazing result. I also found a $10 off coupon for the oil change when you use an American express card.

First 500 Miles

2007-12-18T14:08:00.007-08:00

John and everyone else agreed that for the first 500 miles I should break the engine in with Delo Motor oil. So that’s what I did. I also only drove only on diesel.

Starting Fresh

2007-12-18T14:08:00.005-08:00

It’s a good feeling starting fresh with a basically a new engine. Gives me the chance to start over and try to do this right from the start so I can avoid some of the problems that I had. For example, not using the Castrol “pretend” Synthetic and trying to go 4 to 5 thousand miles on it messing up my engine up. And not using B99 as my start up fuel.

EGR Delete

2007-12-18T14:08:00.003-08:00

John and the guy who cleaned the head all agreed that deleting the egr would make a tremendous difference in my carbon build up. Lowering my chances of having a glow plug tip fusing to the carbon and breaking off.

Some Might Say I Should Have My Head Examined

2007-12-18T14:08:00.001-08:00

So I did. It turned out that it was fine. Pressure tested and cleaned.
Injectors Ok.
Values Ok.
Barings Bad.
It also had to sit in the boiling heat tank for 3 days to get off all the carbon build up.

What Lurks Inside The Engine Pan

2007-12-18T14:07:00.001-08:00

John took off the bottom of the engine pan. He told me he wasn’t expecting to find anything. But he was wrong. He found the oil pump tensioner, chain, and some other gear pieces that used to make the engine motor oil pump work. The fix: Buying a new short block.

Stop Engine: Low Oil Pressure

2007-12-18T14:06:00.000-08:00

Occasionally, when I’m low on motor oil and I hit a hard turn I get this message. As soon as I get this message, I pull over and dump in another quart of motor oil and drive off a happy camper. (Remember, I’m burning motor oil because two glow plug tips broke off into my cylinders a couple years ago and bounced around and caused damage.)
Well, I guess I let this happen to many times, running low on motor oil, because this time when it happened the message didn’t go away. Not only didn’t the message go away but the car wouldn’t get out of limp mode. But it gets more exciting. As I was limping off the freeway, I heard metallic chain like sounds and air pressure popping noises. Definitely not good. So I had the car towed to Diesel Performance Shop so John could take a look at it.

Woo Hoo! 30,000 Miles

2007-09-09T19:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Slapped by Adam Smith's Invisible Hand

2007-07-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

I went to my Thai restaurant today to pick up my free 10 gallons of oil like I've been doing for the last year and the restaurant owner tells me that there is now a company that will pay him 60 cents a gallon for his used oil. I wasn't very surprise at the news. I knew this day was coming - I just was hoping for it to be another couple years away. So I remind him that I'm not making any profit off it like the Bio Diesel guys and I get him down to 50 cents a gallon. I still get some free oil from the local sushi restaurant too but only 5 gallons every other week. And there's still the mammoth 100 gallon tank at the Chinese restaurant which will give it to me for free but I have to pump that stuff out and it's a hassle. Plus, it's much dirtier and a bigger pain to filter.

My hero John Hamlin

2007-06-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

My car started having loss of power problems and throwing tons of black smoke. I thought I was done for. My mechanic Dan didn’t know how to fix it and I dreaded going to the dealership. But then the universe blessed me with a diesel genius at Diesel Performance Shops. I dropped the car off and a day later he knew exactly the problem. Here’s what he found.

The vacuum pump nipple was bad.
Apparently these things are not designed well and they will crack and start spinning around and around making the vacuum pump loose pressure. This caused my turbo to only have 2psi.

My N75 switch/value thing was broken.
These things go out but usually not at 40k. Over time, having low vacuum pressure, maybe it could cause them to go bad early.

My EGR and Intake
John said it was “the worst carbon build up” he'd ever seen. "Carbon build up that you only see with 150k plus miles on them." More interestingly, the carbon build up he saw was of a SUBSTANCE he had NEVER SEEN. He called it “gummy carbon” Normally, carbon is super hard. But this stuff was like “sticky liquid paste.” John cleaned all of it. Most definitely from the veggi oil.

Number 4 Glow plug and why I’m burning oil.
John said that my #4 glow plug was bad. So I asked him to replace it. When he pulled it out the tip didn’t come out. It was fused to a bunch of carbon. John thinks some of the one inch tip broke off inside the cylinder and bounced around scrapping up the cylinder so the guides don’t seal right and oil now leaks in. I asked him why he doesn’t drill or tap it out. He said he’s never seen anyone successfully do it without getting stuff into the cylinder which causes damage and blow by. Well guess what? Dan replaced another glow plug a while back and had to tap and vacuum it out. And that’s probably about the same time I started really noticing the burning oil problem. But I didn’t get the connection at the time.

So now the car is running better then when I got it.

Something made something better

2007-03-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

I got 30.8 mpg this morning on my morning drive today. I usually get 27 mpg.

DieselPurge & Mobil 1 TDT

2007-03-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

Ran two cans of DieselPurge through the engine to see if I could stop the burning of oil. (see last post) Then had Dan do an oil changed and started using Mobil 1 Trubo Diesel Truck motor oil which I bought from Autobarn. I'll start testing the oil again every 3,000 miles so I can compare it with Castrol Synthetic. Yes, it's true, Mobil 1 Turbo Diesel Truck does not have a 505.1 rating. But what it does have are three really important words: Turbo, Diesel and Truck. Plus, it's not going to be any worse than the Castrol but we'll have to wait and see the oil reports.

Piston Rings Probably Just Not Doing Their Job

2007-03-14T18:17:00.000-07:00

This is an email I received from Craig Reece that he passed along to a mechanic.
The mechanic responses are in blue.

CRAIG: The most probably reason for your car's using oil - with such low miles on the engine (well under 100K I assume) is that the incompletely combusted fuel (as indicated by the "white mist" problem you had prior to getting the MAF contacts working, and perhaps due to the faulty MAF, and/or perhaps due to the fact that the PD engine is not a good candidate for WVO) ran down the cylinder walls and caused coking and/or gumming of the ring lands - the grooves in which the piston rings fit.

MECHANIC: Which means they won't rock in the lands and scrape down/compress up

CRAIG: If the ring lands are gummed up or coked up, then the rings can't expand and contract as they're designed to, and they don't seal properly. The function of the top rings is to maintain good compression, and since diesels, lacking spark plugs, ignite the fuel due to the high temperatures created when you compress the air in the cylinder and the combustion chamber, good compression is vital for complete combustion. So, it's obviously a vicious circle.

MECHANIC: Top rings do the scraping by rocking to a different position on the down vs. up

CRAIG: The bottom ring or rings are the oil control rings, and their job is to scrape the oil from the oil pan, which by design is splashed up onto the cylinder walls, and prevents that oil from getting into the area above the top of the piston.

MECHANIC: Oil control ring holds oil to lube cylinder walls.

CRAIG: So, it's unlikely that your piston rings are badly worn, and much more likely that the rings are not doing their job in preventing the oil in the crankcase from making it's way into the combustion chamber and being burned. Burning oil shows up as bluish smoke in the exhaust, and of course low compression will show up via a compression test, which is why I've suggested you get one. The other possible cause of using so much oil could be that it's leaking, but you'd see that on your driveway. A final reason could be worn valve guides, and the traditional way to isolate this from rings as a cause is to first take a compression test, then, if it's low, squirt some oil into the cylinder, and if the compression numbers increase, it's a sign of worn rings, not bad valve guides, since the oil has sealed the rings and improved the compression.

MECHANIC: Worn guides usually show a lot of blue smoke on start and then go away or greatly reduce after start because the cylinders fill up at night. Unlikely he has bad valves guides or seals. Squirting oil in the cylinders is not recommended for diesel engines because of the fact that if you put fuel (oil) in the combustion chamber it might fire. Compression test should be done on hot dry cylinders.

CRAIG: DieselPurge *can* free up stuck rings or rings that aren't expanding and contracting as they should be burning away the carbon and/or gumming. And there are probably other strong solvents that could be used. Tom and Ray, the Car Guys, recommend Rizlone for this, and you might try that too.

MECHANIC: Just pull the glow plugs and dump that purge stuff in. Just pull the oil plug while you do it and then do and oil change after. Marvel Mystery, WD-40 sometimes also work for this.

CRAIG: And if you do in fact have stuck rings, and your oil consumption is due to your car's burning crankcase oil, you should remember that soy is not what you want to be running, since it has a polymerizing effect on the motor oil, and it's even possible that the fact that you used it as your main fuel source, and had (probably) incomplete combustion for a long time, did in fact thicken the oil and thus reduced it's lubrication of the cylinders, and even that some polymerized motor oil got into the ring lands of the oil control rings - and once again we have a vicious circle/downward spiral. Did oil analysis indicate thicker oil?

MECHANIC: Just change the oil more.

CRAIG: And it's because of the polymerizing effect of soy, and the fact that we can assume that some is still getting into the crankcase, that I wouldn't use it, and I'd also change your engine oil a twice the recommended intervals. And I'd use Delvac I or Mobil 1 "Turbo Diesel Truck Oil" (which is just rebadged Delvac 1 and which replaces "Truck and SUV Oil." (And I've gone half-blind reading many of the many threads at the Tdi Club Forum on which oil to use in the PD engine, and my vote is still with Delvac/Mobil 1.)

So, once again, here's what I would do, in approx. order of importance (and cost) - that is, most important and (more or less) least costly first:

1. Buy the DieselGiant VW Tdi DieselPurge kit with DVD and watch the DVD with your mechanic, then pay him to use DieselPurge. Buy enough to do it twice or more. I'd get 4 of the 500ML cans.

2. Try some Rizlone (most auto parts stores should have it.

3. Drive it hard 1x a week - WOT (wide open throttle up a long grade.) Aka an Italian Tuneup.

4. Change your oil if you haven't in the last 3000 miles, and do so every 3000 miles. Send a sample, every time, for analysis, and tell them you're most interested in viscosity. (Who do you use?) Use Delvac or Mobil I - and I know it's a drag to dump a quart of $5.99 oil into your car every 1000 miles, but that's only .006 cents a mile, and you're still getting over 30 mpg even if you're running diesel.6. Run diesel or pure Canola, not soy WVO or soy biodiesel (sorry.)

5. Get a compression test done. Have him squirt some of cheap non- snyth. oil down each cylinder, per the above.Let us know what happens.

And, once again, if it turns out (and the jury is still out) that the PD engine is not a good candidate forWVO: I'm sorry! (And even if it is a good candidate, I'm sorry you're going through this!)

Craig
craigreece@plantdrive.com
http://www.plantdrive.com

Can you say procrastination

2007-02-18T12:13:00.000-08:00

Craig and Ed at Plantdrive have been very helpful.

Craig told me about this oil which will lower the changes of polymerization.

http://www.dieselveg.com/plantomot_engine_oil.htm

And I also have in my house 2 3-port switches.

I've had the switches for about a month now sitting in a box on my desk. I sometimes think just having them on my desk and knowing about this special oil will help my car. But then I realize that I actually have to do something like install the switches and order the oil to really make a difference. We'll see how long it takes me.

ps. the car has been running fine. I keep the 5 gallon tank filled as often as possible which lowers the concentration of veggie oil in the doughnut tank. But long term I must do the stuff I was talking about above otherwise the wear and tear will eventually kill the engine.

Piston Ring Comments

2007-01-05T21:43:00.000-08:00

So my problem of deteriorating piston rings could be caused by many more things than just polymerization. Read the comments on the post below from other readers. All very interesting. I do have to say that the contamination of the veggie oil in the 5 gallon diesel tank is by far the one that I notice the most when starting the engine in the morning. As more and more veggie oil gets in the dougnut tank the morning starts are not as smooth as when there is a fresh five gallons of diesel in it. A slight rumbling engine can't be good. And when I was running B100 the starts were even worse. Bottom line: Make sure you have a two, three port switches that times the purge so you don't get any veggie oil mixed in with diesel. I have a one 6 port switch. Also nobody has commented on the follow: Look at the iron in the oil report and look at the universal average. It's supposed to be at around 35 and my last count was almost 10 times that. Iron is what the cylinders are made of according to the report. Exciting.

Good Bye Piston Rings

2006-12-15T15:52:00.000-08:00

The theory is that when motor oil (hydrocarbons) mix with vegi oil (soy in particular) in high temperatures you get polymerization or in other words thickening of the motor oil. Thick motor oil is not good for your engine because you get lots of wear and tear. My car is now a real world example of wear and tear from the above conditions. Over the last couple of months, I’ve had to add a couple of quarts of oil to my engine. I know it’s not leaking so that means it’s burning. And if it’s burning that means my piston rings have worn out. Take a look at the oil analysis report and you’ll see how much Aluminum it takes to wear through piston rings. I can’t say I’m happy about this but when I started this journey I fully understood that bad things could happen to my engine. There are ways to prevent this. I could have changed my oil every 1000 miles. I could install one of those toilet roll oil filter devices. I could use only canola oil (apparently doesn’t polymerize) Since it’s a pretty penny to replace piston rings, I’m forced to keep driving and adding motor oil.

2006-12-15T15:51:00.001-08:00

element meanings

2006-12-15T15:51:00.000-08:00

oil analysis

17,000 miles

2006-10-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

Things have been good in the veggi car world. No real issues. One important thing to note: I have started using diesel as my start and stop fuel to figure out if the B100 softened the rear engine seal I was talking about in my last posts. So far no oil leak but won't know anything for at least another 10,000 miles. My Mass Air Flow sensor seems to be bad again although this time there are no problems that I'm seeing with the car except that the engine light comes on. Other than that I'm in a nice groove. I collect waste oil once a month (35 gallons) and pour it into my 55 gallon drum. Pump from the drum through a 10 and then 5 micron filter directly into the car every two weeks. I haven't had to change any of the filters on the car since I started pre filtering to 5 microns.

Fixed My Oil Leak

2006-07-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

Dan found my oil leak problem. He said it was really bad. And it was coming from my rear engine seal. He said the seal itself was soft. We speculated that the bio diesel or the veggie oil made it soft and the high pressure in the engine was pushing out the seal and leaking oil. He replaced it with another type of seal that he thought would last longer.

Uncle Andy Is Mad

2006-07-28T15:29:00.000-07:00

So remember that oil leak I had. Well, it came back. I leaked oil on my uncle’s drive way. Seven small spots to be exact. I offered to clean it up but he already had.