Veggie Oil Conversion Update

Howdy, Moss here with another veggie oil bus update. This truly has been a learning experience and always a work in progress.


That said there were a few problems that plauged our original system..


First problem is that because of the multitude of brass fittings ( used to make the different send and return lines fit together with the manual shut-of valves) we had many more instances to let in air. Air is the bain of diesel engines. To much air can stall the bus dead.


Second issue ( this should have been a no brainer in the first place ..) was that when we wanted to switch over to veggie oil from diesel or vice a verse, we had to pull over, get out of the bus, open the hood and swich over the four shut off valves. That was kinda a pain in the boody. Needless to say, this was one of the first things to change.


So what did we do to rectify these situations?


Really simple.I replaced all the manual shut-off valves with a Pollack six port silinoid valve. All the lines go in to the little black gizmo and can then be switched from the diesel/biodiesel tank to the veggie oil tank with one convenient switch, located with all the other switches near the driver area.We also replaced some broken copper pipe going to the veggie filter with flexible rubber hose.


We have had hardly any trouble with air since we have modified the system.The only time we do is when I change filters. Because of the switch,however, I can now purge the veggie line of air by swiching back and forth between the two tanks and letting little bits of air in at a time. This allows the diesel side to take care of the small air pockets I let in.


The next major changes we will be making is replaceing our 55 gallon veggie tank/barrel with a flat, stainless steel 85 gallon metal tank with a heater inside.


Besides that the only other thing to do will be to replace our Goldenrod filter with a heated Raycor jet filter.


After that our veggie conversion will be complete.In the meantime, everything is working very well, with few if any problems.These little extras will just help us in cold weather and with clearance issues for the tank.


Thats all for now...we'll be shure to post an update when our pannels come in. ~Moss