Biodiesel

[Neil VR6 0]

Morning all,

 

I've just bought myself a Pug 205 TD for my daily commute of 50 miles and was wondering if I could use bio-diesel to run it as it seems to be 20% cheaper than pump derv? Anybody tried this or use anything else? I heard you can also use second hand fat from chippies (sieved of course ;) )? I suspect that I could run my Pug on ditch water so I doubt it needs to be all that refined.

[craigowl 0]

I have had 205 non-turbo diesel for 15 years.

Was there really a turbodiesel version? - I should know this really.

[Deluk 0]

i might do this on a golf tdi for work??? work out cheeper?i do 60 miles a day for 4 days

[billinjah 0]

205 tdi is a hell of a little car gti suspension on those! we had one for years. its very easy to mix two thirds veg oil and one third diesel to make your own bio oil in hot wether you can run 100% veg oil if you want. if you send all of your recepts to the customs and excise dept they will charge the relavent tax so your legal.

[Deluk 0]

if you send all of your recepts to the customs and excise dept they will charge the relavent tax so your legal.

[Henny 0]

normally to run on Biodiesel you need to upgrade the fuel heater as it's slightly thicker than normal diesel unless it's had a chemical (basically white spirit) added to it to thin it down a bit.

 

My sister and her husband are looking into this at the moment as in France (where they now live) it's quite popular and their Pug 30somthing estate diesel will work rather well on it...

[Deluk 0]

yeah pugs, will hate em tho

[16vradge 0]

There was a programme on BBC 2 called 'its not easy being green' and the guy made his own bio-diesel distillery from an old water boiler. He ran a landrover on it, but it was more complicated than just bunging veg oil down the filler neck as the glycerin content makes it too thick. You have to distill the chip fat/veg oil to seperate the glycerin, leaving crude bio-diesel. Methanol and something else go in with the chip fat then its heated up and stirred causing the chemical reaction. That programme was 8), the guy doing it is that bloke with the big 'tash who was always on scrapheap challenge - another 8) programme.

[Deluk 0]

what kriton? lol the guy form red dwarf :)

[Ryan S 0]

A guy from my old work runs his Renault wagon (Scenic I think) on Veggie oil - only through the summer - he was looking at getting the pre-heater for winter use.

 

There is a specific forum for all this malarchy - he was on it quite alot researching various things. Useful that he did, because when I mentioned that I might try it in the Bora he said that would be a VERY bad idea - the modern (PD in this case) engines don't react too well to a tank full of veggie oil apparently!!!

[16vradge 0]

No not him, here's a link to the website, the guys doing courses to show you how to build your own distillery/reactor. £165 aint too bad considering what you'd save - on the programme the guy struck a deal with the local chippy to take the oil for free, as the chippy had to pay business rates to get rid of it anyway.

[TomB 0]

I run my Golf on it (see sig :-)) and have previously used it in a Passat & an Audi for a total of about 4 years with no problems.

There are however a lot pf different fuels under the moniker of biodiesel....

 

Most of these are a 5% blend of vegetable oil & 95% normal diesel which can run in any car with no problems (IIRC it's the standard mix in France).

 

The stuff I use is available commercially at 80p a litre from a supplier in York, and is a mixture of 80-85% recycled vegetable oil (takeaway waste), 15-20% ethanol, and 0.5-1.3% Catalyst (sodium hydroxide I think), which again can run most cars (even Common Rail and PD) with no problems at any time of year.

 

You can run older IDI engines on almost pure vegetable oil, but as has been said, you may need a heater system, second fuel tank etc. so your Pug will be fine if you want to mix it up with normal diesel (or make your own vegetable oil/ethanol blend).

 

PD & Common rails are a different matter however, and use of straight vegetable oil will destroy the injectors & fuel pumps, although a slight blend is fine.

 

If you'd got the time & space, I'd recommend making your own, there are plenty of guides on t'interweb, but here are some links that might be useful if you want to buy some:

 

http://www.rixbiodiesel.co.uk/locations.htm

http://www.biofuels.fsnet.co.uk/biobiz.htm

http://www.veggies.org.uk/biodies.htm

http://www.biodieselfillingstations.co.uk/

 

Cheers,

Tom

[Neil VR6 0]

Interesting stuff. So to summarise, it seems that the easiest thing is s mix of veg oil and normal diesel if you can't be faffed with turning your house into a mini distillery :lol:

 

Diesel's a quid a litre and the Tesco website will do 3 litres of veg oil for £1.62 which is 54p a litre. With this in mind would it be wise to fill up the tank with half diesel and half veg oil and see what happens?

 

Presumably you'd need to alter the ratio in the winter more in favour of diesel to retain the correct viscosity.

[Neil VR6 0]

One of those websites wasnt £43 for 25 litres just so I can feel better about my carbon footprint and save a few trees!

 

I think they should pay more attention to the amount of carbon China's pumping out as its coal-fired economy grows at something like 10% a year!

[billinjah 0]

in my audi i put 25% diesel and 75% veg oil just bung it all in thats in the summer. in the winter up up the disel to 50% never had a problem all ive ever noticed is it smells of popcorn and it performs much better and gives MUCH better mpg.

[veedub 0]

I used to run my 306 dturbo on cooking oil and it loved it!! I seem to remember the performance was better on the veggie oit aswell!

[Neil VR6 0]

OOooo! This is sounding very promising. Any preferred brands? ;)

 

When you put the oil in the tank does it mix OK with the diesel already in there?

 

Thanks again for all your help!

[TomB 0]

I've found the performance on Veggie diesel MUCH better than on conventional (not tested, RR'd etc. but it feels a hell of a lot more responsive).

Sorry, I can't help you with the blending question I'm afraid, but let me know how you get on!

Cheers,

Tom

[BigTartanJudge 0]

Just use 70-75 % cooking oil (ideally the "used" stuff that chinese etc rest's throw out on huge cans at the back area's, they will be happy to get rid of it !), sieve / filter it to remove particulates and add 20-25% paraffin / white spirit, hey presto bio-diesel !

[veedub 0]

I just used to use 50% diesel and 50% tesco value veggie oil! Never had any problems with it mixing!!

Ooh and the exhaust fumes smell like chips!! Now there is a reason to do it!!

[Neil VR6 0]

Gonna give this a go soon :)

[Supercharged 2]

Mates been running his R reg Escort on 100% Asda rape seed oil i think for 2 years now - no probs at all and smells like a cinema.

[veedub 0]

smells like a cinema.

 

There is a reason for doing it if i ever heard one!!! MMM popcorn!!! :lol: