Trailer Repair

I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of a cheap utility trailer. It cost me $50 and a mason jar of white lightning. It was an interesting time in my life. 

In its first build it had a 3 foot by 8 foot box with 2 foot sides. It hauled a lot of firewood. One time I filled it with 4.5 gallon jugs of waste veggie oil. It was pulled my old Mercedes diesel converted to run on waste veggie. That load of oil got me 3000 miles without having to stop for more fuel. 

Eventually the wooden box had gotten pretty battered. Then it was rebuilt to haul my homemade 4 X 12 foot boat. That got hauled all over the country. Once the hitch pin fell out of the van releasing the hitch and letting the trailer got off on its own. Much to my surprise it stayed upright and was found hundreds of feet off the road. The boat was undamaged. 

However, the trailer had a rough time. A cross member had to be replaced to get home. A couple of springs had broken and it sorta listed to one side for the next 2000 miles. Still, it make it home. That ain’t nothing. 

So it got new springs a couple years ago. Last year the wheel bearings were replaced. Yesterday I finally installed new tires. The beauty of cheap trailers is that they can always be rebuilt. There’s a lot of junk that needs to be hauled to the transfer station so it’s good have it road worthy. 

-Sixbears

Bio-diesel Days

My lovely wife and I spent a couple days over in Vermont. It was a busy time. 

One of the things we did was to drop off about 100 gallons of waste vegetable oil at a bio-diesel facility. 

For quite a few years we ran diesel vehicles on straight waste vegetable oil. In theory the process is pretty simple. I used a two fuel tank system, one for diesel and one for straight vegetable oil. The vehicle would start on diesel. As the antifreeze heated up it would circulate through a copper coil installed in the veggie tank. Heating up the veggie reduced its viscosity. When it came to temperature I’d switch to the tank with the hot veggie. I’d run veggie until we were done traveling for the day. A couple minutes before getting to my destination I’d switch back to diesel to flush the veggie out of the system. What you didn’t want to have happen is the the engine to cool off full of solidified grease. 

Of course there was a whole system of filters and systems to keep the fuel lines insulated. My first installation was done with a kit out of Canada. After I understood the principles the next conversions were done with parts sourced from the hardware store. I could convert a vehicle for around $200, which was pretty darn low. 

Over the years I converted 4 of my own vehicles and helped a few other people do conversions. The easiest conversions were a couple of Mercedes diesels from the 80s. Those engines were simple and bullet proof. I also converted a Ford F-250 with the old regular 7.3 engine. That was a pretty straight forward install. My last vehicle was a decommissioned ambulance based on a F-350 van. It had the 7.3 power stroke and that was pretty much at the technological limit for cheap conversions. In fact, there were issues with the lift pump that needed to be solved as the original was a bit weak when it came to pushing veggie oil. 

Over the years I had established a network of restaurants that would let me take their waste oil. Sometimes they would put it back in the 4.5 gallon jugs it originally came in. Those were easy. Others I had to pump out of bins with a 12 volt pump into storage tanks. 

The veggie oil I dropped off in Vermont was some of the last I had in storage. I finally admitted to myself that there aren’t going to be any more conversion vehicles. The newer vehicles are too finicky. Also, my sources of free veggie dried up. There were some companies that would actually pay a little money for it so I can’t blame the restaurant owner for switching to them.  A couple other restaurants have since gone out of business. 

Then there’s the consideration that it was a lot of work. We also don’t drive the kind of miles we used to. It was common to put over 50,000/year on the old Mercedes. One car had 100,000 miles when we bought it and we put an additional 400,000 miles, burning veggie about 95% of the time. We saved a lot of money running veggie. 

So it’s kinda bitter sweet that I’m getting rid of the last vestiges of my veggie diesels. Life moves on.

-Sixbears

Gas prices change plans

Oh well. The best laid plans of mice and men and all that. My lovely wife and I had planned on trailering the sailboat all over the place this summer. Thanks to the price of gas our trailering distances have been greatly shortened. The best mpg the Blazer gets is about 18 mpg. Towing the boat it’s more like 12 to 14 mpg. That adds up. I can’t imagine what it costs to fill up larger tow vehicles. 

Our niece is staying with us again. We told her she can use the Blazer as much as she wants -as long as she pays for gas. It rarely moves. 

Our Nissan Versa gets over twice the gas mileage as the Blazer. It’s a manual transmission and our niece doesn’t drive a stick. Her loss. We use the little car a lot more these days. 

Now that the weather is halfway decent I’m running a lot of errands on the scooter. That 80 – 100 mpg is hard to beat. 

I miss my diesel vehicles that ran on waste veggie oil. Unfortunately that ship has sailed. My sources for free waste veggie have dried up. My main sources were a couple of local restaurants that both closed. With the price of diesel the way it is waste veggie for biodiesel will be in demand once more. That makes it a valuable commodity so it won’t be given away. 

Electric cars have always interested me, but the numbers just don’t work for me. The price of electric cars is a big issue. Being on a fixed income with crappy credit doesn’t help either. Our fast charging options are very limited. On top of everything else electric vehicles don’t do that well in cold weather. 

Living out in the woods is great, but the only thing within easy walking distance are trees. 

-Sixbears

Extremely Cheap Cars

I once bought an old Dodge wagon with the 318 engine for fifty dollars because the junk yard only offered the previous owner thirty five. It had a blown torque converter and the engine had lifter noise. A cheap can of additive solved the hydraulic lifter issue. A buddy at work found a torque converter in a vehicle abandoned in a farmer’s field. I did the work in my dad’s backyard. The car, after repairs, still cost less than one hundred dollars.

Unfortunately the gas gauge never worked. One cold night it left me stranded a long walk from home. That was it, time to trade the car in. We had driven it for two years by then anyway.

My lovely wife and I bought the first new car of our marriage. It wasn’t much of a car, a Dodge Omni with the four speed manual transmission and the gutless 1.6 liter Peuguet engine. The car was cheaply made; it didn’t even have a radio. We drove that thing for 10 years and it was falling apart: rust, broken door handles, and a host of niggling mechanical issues. One day my lovely wife got into an accident with a tractor trailer fuel hauler. She totaled the truck, so you can imagine what the car looked like. She was lucky to survive with minor injuries.

Over the years we’ve owned way too many junk cars. At least we aren’t buying Dodges anymore. Probably the best car we ever owned was an old Mercedes 240 D. It was very old when we bought it with 100,000 miles on the odometer. I converted it to run on waste vegetable oil and we put an additional 400,000 miles on it.

All I ever wanted from a car was transportation. It’s not about ego. I don’t have to have a big fancy lifted 4X4 to compensate for my short comings. Cars just don’t excite me, especially new cars. They cost too much money and are poorly made. While the best car I ever owned was that Mercedes, I would not buy a newer one. They are now over engineered with too many computers and too much cheap plastic.

While I had fun running four different diesel vehicles on waste veggie oil, that’s come to an end too. Newer diesels are too complicated and don’t convert well. Then there’s the issue that waste veggie is no longer free and harder to get.

So what’s in my future? With my budget, maybe walking. My lovely wife is currently driving a very cheap Nissan Versa Note with a manual transmission. I’ve got that 2004 Chevy Blazer for the main purpose of towing my boat. When those are gone, I’m just not sure. Maybe we’ll spend half the year living on a sailboat and not needing a car. For the other half? It’s anyone’s guess. Maybe there will be cheap reliable used electric cars on the market? Maybe the whole car thing will be over and we’ll be back to horses.

-Sixbears

Return of the bear

The dog woke me at 4 a. m. again, all excited. This time I figured it was probably a bear so I grabbed one of my larger handguns on the way out the door.

My little 30 pound beagle mix once again successfully chased the bruin off.

The bear had been busy. Some years back I used to store waste vegetable oil in 60 gallon plastic barrels. The waste veggie would be left a while to let some of the crud settle out. Then I'd pump the veggie from the top of the tank to use in my diesel engines. In more recent years my oil supply started to put the waste veggie back in the 4.5 gallon containers they came in. It made for a lot less handling and the barrel system was discarded.

The drums were pumped out and the residue cleaned up with a biodegradable degrease r. Apparently not all the grease got cleaned out of one of the barrels. Over the years some rain water collected in it through the little 3 inch bunghole.

The bear dragged the barrel down the hill and dumped out out the grease, water, and degreaser slurry. Believe me, it's foul. If the bear ate any of it, he's not going to be feeling well. If he does get sick he'll avoid my place, so maybe it'll work out.

He also flipped over a log bench and tore it apart. The bench's been sitting long enough that the base logs have a little rot in them. The bear destroyed the bottom of the logs looking for bugs and worms. Can't blame him for that as that's what bears do in the wild.

Years ago I had a sock type grease filter that I had soaking in a 5 gallon bucket of degreaser and water. In the night a bear came by and drank half the bucket. That bear stayed away and I wasn't bothered by bears for years.

A friend recommended pouring some ammonia in a garbage can. When the bear digs in the can he'll get annoyed and move on. I'm going to try that next. Also going to reinforce my basement door.

There's a guy from Rhode Island down the road from me who's feeding the beast. I've yet to get it into his head that he's not doing the bear any favors. Nuisance bears get destroyed. I really do not want that to happen this bear. At this point I'm mostly concerned with keeping him away from my place.

-Sixbears

38 mile journey

Tuesday we never made to the campground. 38 miles down the road the fuel pump failed . . . again. I had been fine since July so I thought that problem was in the past.

We pulled off to the side of the highway. Fortunately, we were towing a boat and qualified for assistance from Boat US. I've always had great service from them. This time was no exception. The tow truck loaded up the van and hitched up the boat trailer. I had them bring us back to my dad's place.

Once back at my dad's I had the tow truck drop the van where there were fewer fire ants. I spread a tarp, crawled under the van and removed the fuel pump.

Wednesday morning I called a local Ford garage. They said they could have a replacement pump by 1:30 but it was going to be over $600. My garage back home confirmed that the pump was still on warranty and faxed the info to the Ford garage in FL. That worked out really well and I was able replace the pump before dark.

My lovely wife and I are heading down south once more. We couldn't get all our campground fees refunded, but my wife got a good chunk of it back. Even better, we are actually going camping again.

Something will have to be done about the van always blowing fuel pumps. I lay awake in bed thinking over our vehicle options. It ran for many many miles without destroying fuel pumps. The only thing that's different is that my main veggie supplier switched to a heavier hydrogenated oil. Maybe that's causing just enough stress to drastically reduce the life of the pumps.

Maybe it's time to drop my supplier and limit the van to vacation and tow vehicle duty instead of being a daily driver. My lovely wife's car died and that gives us the opportunity to replace it with something else -or maybe just get a bigger boat and spend our winters on that.

-Sixbears

Burning Dinosaurs

It's a good thing the price of diesel is down. Conditions were too cold to run waste veggie in the van. In fact, it was almost too cold to burn diesel. Winter diesel used to be a blend of diesel and kerosene. They don't cut it with K1 anymore so it gels when it gets too cold. In case that happened while on the road I filled the veggie tank with diesel. With subzero temps and high winds, the diesel did cause problems. When the engine started to choke I'd switch to warmed diesel from the veggie tank for a while. It did the trick until temps got a bit warmer.

The veggie jugs were frozen solid when loaded into the van. They didn't thaw out enough to use until we got down to South Carolina. It cost me a few dollars on diesel up front, but now I've plenty of veggie for driving around Florida.

During out travels in Florida I noticed a local restaurant with an overflowing waste veggie tank. Their waste tank was full and there were about a dozen 4.5 gallon jugs piled up around the tank. Now that diesel has dropped so low there might not be as strong a market for biodiesel. Perhaps I'll be able to cut a deal with the restaurant. There were closed when I drove by, but I'll check them out later.

Is it worth it to handle WVO now that diesel is cheaper? I got into it when diesel got around $1/gallon. It was worth it for me back then. It's worth it for me now.

-Sixbears

Process of elimination

I'm still tweaking the veggie van. It ran pretty well for a while, even if it did take a bit longer than it used to before it could be switched from diesel to veggie fuel. Once it did switch over it ran well, so I went on to more pressing problems.

There was an awful lot of work done on the fuel system. I suspected a new addition by my mechanic may have been part of the problem for the slow switch over times. He installed a clear plastic filter so that he could see if there was any air in the system. It worked pretty well for that. However, I began to suspect that it was causing too much resistance in the fuel line.

Just to confuse the issue, I've been using a thicker oil. Nights have been cool so the slow switch over times might have been caused by that. However, recently we've had a warm spell and the fuel still gave me some problems. That pointed my attention away from the oil and back to the new filter.

Finally I got a chance to remove and inspect the new filter. It was slowly plugging up and even without a plugged screen, the feed holes were fairly small.

I've removed the filter to better increase the fuel flow. Once in a while I'm going to reinstall it to check for air leakage, then remove it for normal running.

Is it any wonder that I carry a couple of tool boxes and a bunch of parts in the van?

-Sixbears

Burning gravy

Do petroleum companies still advertise the quality of their fuel products? I don't watch TV so I don't know if they do or not. Those old commercials occurred to me as I was fueling up the veggie van. The grease it's been burning lately is the consistency of cold gravy. The fuel jugs have to sit in the sun for a while before the grease can be poured into the fuel tank. Sometimes the plastic jugs have to be squeezed to get the waste veggie to flow out fast enough.

The van starts on diesel. The engine coolant runs though a copper coil in the veggie tank. There's a second coil wrapped around the veggie fuel filter. Before long the grease gets hot and looks like it did when it was in the fryers. At that point a switch is thrown and the van burns grease.

For a few years my waste veggie source, a popular restaurant, had switched to canola oil. While I'm not sure about health claims for the oil, it makes a more convenient fuel. Canola stays liquid at much lower temperatures than the soybean oil the restaurant currently uses. That was great when my veggie vehicle was a pickup truck as the jugs rode in the unheated truck bed. Now that we have a van the veggie rides inside a heated compartment and soybean oil isn't a problem.

Since the van came back from the garage it's been all over the place. Yesterday my lovely wife and I took a ride over to the lumber yard. 12 foot long lumber fits right inside the van -very handy when the weather is nasty. That heavy thick veggie oil burned just fine on our 100 mile round trip and that's what really matters.

-Sixbears

Fuelish Things

One of my waste veggie oil suppliers decided to go with a commercial removal service. It wasn't anything I did. Bears have been coming into town looking for food. They found his neatly piled up oil jugs and made a mess. The commercial service provides a big heavy steel bear resistant container.

There have been no other problems with other suppliers, so I'm in pretty good shape. In fact, I was collecting way more waste vegetable oil than I could use. My storage rack is full, as is my overflow pallet. There are jugs of oil all over my basement.

My van has been driven a lot less than normal due to the repairs it has needed. It should be in pretty good shape a week from now so I'll be driving all over the place. That should take care of some of my fuel abundance problem. Having too much free motor fuel is not all that bad a problem to have.

Someday all my major fuel suppliers could dry up. If that happens, having a big camper van won't make much sense. That's why something like a small VW diesel makes sense to me. I'd convert it to run on veggie, but if that was unavailable, buying diesel wouldn't break the budget. If one shows up at the right price, when I've got a few dollars to spare, it'll come home with me.

-Sixbears

Travel plans

My lovely wife and I have been making our winter travel plans since we got back in the spring. We never do exactly the same thing from year to year. What would be the point? It's like people who travel the world, but stay in the same hotel chain and never wander off the tourist trails.

We do need to make some general plans, or nothing at all will happen. The van needs some more work before we take it cross country. Next month it's going in the garage to get a diesel fuel sending unit replaced. The brake pads are looking a bit thin, but I can replace those myself. I may even try to fix the AC. I'm one of those weird people who don't think AC is a critical system, so it gets fixed last.

Last year it was all about sailing. For our next trip we plan a mix of camping and sailing. For that we'll need the small sailboat -the one I'm still building. There are some interesting rivers and shallow water cruising that the new boat will be good for.

Of course, we'll need a trailer to haul the boat. Right now plan “A” is to reconfigure a utility trailer into a boat hauler. A buddy of mine has some new heavy duty springs he's willing to weld on, so that'll help. The boat won't be all that heavy, but I'm also hoping to haul another 100 gallons of waste vegetable oil for motor fuel. With the 120 or so gallons that the van carries, that's a fair bit of range.

Plan “B” is to put the Oday 19 on jacks and use its trailer to haul the smaller boat. That would also need some reconfiguration, but it is an option.

In addition to travel plans, there's the normal day to day stuff that needs doing. The house needs some work before next winter. The door that opens onto the deck needs to be rebuilt or replaced. My lovely wife would prefer that I replace with door built from home grown lumber. Maybe that can be constructed the same time a mast for the boat is built, using the same materials and tools.

That's a lot of work to fit in between play times. Our final plans might look a little or even a lot different. One has to start somewhere.

-Sixbears

Transport

Some days I think it's too bad horses and I don't get along. Lately vehicles and I haven't gotten along too well either.

The van has more parts on order. It's a never ending story of vehicle repair. There's a significant air leak on the diesel side of things. My mechanic thinks it's the unit that fits in the fuel tank. The only way to get to it is to drop the fuel tank. Joy.

Just to confuse the issue, there was also an air leak in the fuel filter housing for the waste veggie fuel. That was discovered by bypassing the filter with a cheap in-line. Once the problem was found, I removed the filter housing and was able to tighten the fittings. That took care of 98% of the air leak. There may be a spare filter housing somewhere in my random parts pile, so I'll replace it if I get a chance.

Normally, the van starts on diesel and once the engine heats up, it switches over to the waste veggie tank. I can't shut down over night on waste veggie because the engine won't start on cold solidified veggie fuel.

I did not want to leave the van at the garage while waiting for parts. After driving it home on veggie, I pumped most of the veggie out of the tank. Then I pumped fuel from the diesel tank to the veggie tank. The veggie tank was used as a diesel tank in the past so I know it works. However, I'll have to burn expensive diesel instead of free veggie until the diesel fuel system is repaired. Travel will be limited.

My lovely wife and I had planned on doing a lot of traveling this coming winter. If the van continues to have problems, our plans will have to be modified. These constant repairs have been discouraging and hard on the budget.

If nothing else, it has gotten the old brain cells thinking about unconventional transportation ideas. Who knows what kinds of weird and wonderful things will come out of that?

-Sixbears

Pesky bears

I thought I wasn't going to be bothered by bears this year. There had been no sign of them all spring.

They tend to come around my house because I use waste vegetable oil as a fuel for my van. Since they hadn't been around I've been leaving some jugs outside. The sun warms the oil and speeds up the settling process. Most of the waste food bits settle to the bottom of the jugs. Then I pour off the clean fuel.

Last night while I was sleeping a bear got into my jugs. Only three were damaged. Two weren't too bad off.

This is a photo of the worse one.



The bear dragged it into the middle of the lawn, bit holes in the jug, and lapped up a couple gallons of veggie.

All my jugs are now locked away in the basement. I'm going to have to make sure nothing is left out. Once a bear finds food somewhere it keeps coming back to check on the spot. I'll have to make sure he doesn't find anything.

-Sixbears

Fuel to burn

I returned home to find a message on my answering machine. A cousin let me know of another place looking to get rid of waste vegetable oil. Even though my storage is already near to overflowing, I can't say no. Finding WVO to burn in my diesel can be a feast or famine situation. It's the summer tourist season and restaurants are busy. Americans eat a lot of fried food.

Free motor fuel changes the math on a lot of things. For example, sometimes it's cheaper to drive home for lunch rather than eating in town. If we were paying for fuel, eating at a restaurant would be cheaper. Shopping further away is worth while. It makes sense to haul my own firewood rather than have it delivered. It makes living out in the woods way more affordable.

As the price of regular fuel has gone up, the number of visitors to our house has gone down. Most other people are in the petroleum economy. Hard numbers on motor fuel usage is hard to get. In my opinion, the government statistics are pretty squishy. Anecdotally, looking at the people around me, they are driving a lot less. Our home out in the woods is further away than it used to be -measured in miles per dollars.

We are driving around in a one ton van while paying the fuel bill of a moped. I keep expecting this loop hole to get closed sooner or later. While it has gotten a lot harder to score free or cheap WVO on the road, I still have good sources at home.

At least WVO stores a lot safer than gasoline or even diesel. It's not explosive and is biodegradable. Storing hundreds of gallons of diesel would require special handling. Don't even think about storing large volumes of gasoline. Really, as a former firefighter, please don't do it. Veggie is stored in the same 4.5 gallon jugs the restaurants got the fresh oil in. All I do is pile it on shelves or pallets. Once it settles a while, I just pour it right in the fuel tank. On board filters take the French fries and chicken bits out.

There are other grease burners in my area, so I've sent them some of my surplus. Between that and all the traveling planned for the summer, I should be able to just barely find storage for all my free fuel. When the cool weather returns, those stocks will be drawn down, so I'm stocking up while I can.

-Sixbears

Motor fuel usage

Trash day is when I take stock on how much motor fuel the van used during the week. Why trash day? That's when I crush up all the 4.5 gallon jugs that contained waste vegetable oil. Most folks think of fuel usage by the amount of money they spend. When your vehicle runs on free waste vegetable oil it is measured in empty jugs.

Part of me hates to throw out all that plastic. On the other hand, they can't be recycled as they contained oil and they are too weak to reuse very often. Most of the time vegetable oil jugs are used once then thrown away. At least these are used twice. The restaurants that give me the oil pour their used veggie back in the original containers.

On trash day it's clear how many of those jugs were poured into the van. This week I threw away 10 empty jugs. That's 45 gallons of veggie fuel usage, plus a couple gallons of diesel. The van's 7.3 turbo diesel is a hungry beast. I would never have that monster if most of my fuel wasn't free and if I didn't use the full capabilities of a one ton van.

It's a good camping vehicle. Most of the camping stuff -the bed, and tables, the 12 volt cooler, water, and other camping things are easily removed. Then it's a big box useful for hauling things. This week it's made a number of trips to move furniture out of a storage unit. Firewood, generators, plumbing, construction materials, were also hauled around. It does the work that my old truck used to do.

True, some of my weekly travel could have been done more efficiently with a small car. The van has to warm up before It can be switched from diesel to veggie. Short trips hardly make the switch over practical. My lovely wife has an old small four cylinder car, but I've been unable to get it running since coming back home. I've finally admitted it's beyond my skills and home tools so the car will be towed to the garage. The car is most efficient for trips around 5 miles, like to the village center.

So let's see. That's 10 jugs of veggie at 4.5 gallons or 45 gallons of veggie fuel. Diesel is running about $4.25 a gallon here. Had I used diesel my fuel bill would have been $191.25. People who have big vehicles that work for a living are not surprised by $200/week fuel bills.

One of the big problems with rural life is the long distances most of us drive. Another is that we tend to haul around a lot of heavy stuff requiring a something more hefty than a Prius. By running vehicles on waste veggie, I've solved my rural transport problem. Over the years tens of thousands of dollars have been saved, helping me live a middle class life on a lower class income.

I keep expecting the free ride to come to an end. The fact that I can still get free WVO in my area is unusual. In most places that's no longer the case. As conventional fuel sources dry up, WVO is in demand for biodiesel. Eventually I'll have to make other arrangements, but I'm not sure what they'll be. Most likely it won't be something that directly replaces my big vehicle with another big vehicle that runs a different free fuel. How often does that happen? (that doesn't mean I'm not looking)

Most likely it'll be a mix of conservation, relocalization, bike travel, and just plain doing without. Of course, I could just move on a sailboat full time and not worry at all about land transportation.

-Sixbears

Veggie oil connections

I drive a vehicle powered by waste vegetable oil, so I don't just eat at a new restaurant. I have to talk to the owner to see what they do with their waste veggie. Turns out they have a company that's supposed to haul it away. They haven't yet and the barrels are filling up. The owner wasn't too happy with them from the get go as they didn't set up the collection barrels where she wanted them. If the company doesn't provide the service they promised, she now knows I'm willing to do the job.

My lovely wife and I spent the day running errands. As soon as we got home the phone rang. It was another new restaurant that wanted their waste oil hauled away. They'd called me last week, and already the had more waste oil than they knew what to do with. Their place was was hard to find. They don't even have a sign yet. It's a tiny place with just a few tables. They have a huge bank of fryers and were doing a brisk take out business.

After loading up their oil jugs I went home only to get a call with another veggie oil lead. A restaurant added fries to their menu and the waste veggie is piling up. This one I passed on to a friend of mine who also burns veggie. He lives much closer to the place than I do so he's in a better position to pick it up.

I'm happy to pass on this one as I've got enough. Besides, the guy salvaged a propane regulator I needed and is going to help me move a stove.

I love the underground economy.

-Sixbears

Veggie Vehicle Questions

Lately people have been asking me some questions about my waste vegetable oil van. There are some pretty sophisticated waste veggie burning systems out there. Mine isn't one of them.

Some systems switch from diesel to veggie automatically. There are sensors and electromechanical switches and some even have computer chips. All I have is a manual switch. I use the vehicle temperature gage as a guide. When the engine is warmed up, usually the veggie is hot enough to burn. That's when I trip the manual switch.

What happens if I'm too early and the veggie isn't quite up to temperature? Most times, nothing at all. Burning veggie that's a bit of cooler than ideal is no big deal. However, if it's really too cold, the engine will start to sputter. It could even stall out. What do I do if I've switched it too early? Switch it back to diesel for a few more minutes.

The first vehicle I converted to veggie used a 19 gallon marine tank. Since in had a sending unit for the fuel level built in, installing a fuel gage on the dash was no big deal. My current tank didn't come with one, so I do without.

It's really not that hard. I use a salvaged 12 gallon marine tank. It fits nicely in a side compartment. The van averages around 12 miles per gallon in normal mixed driving conditions. I've gotten as high as 18, but I can pretty much count on 12. After the veggie tank is filled up, all I do is set the trip meter to zero. After 100 – 120 miles or so, I stop and top off the tank again. Rinse and repeat. Yes, that's a lot of stopping on a long trip, but considering most of my veggie is free, it's a small price to pay.

Some people pay thousands of dollars for veggie conversions. Mine cost $250 and there's not a lot of things to go wrong. It's bone headed simple.

-Sixbears

17,500 Watt Diesel Generator

My buddy called me up to see if I was interested in helping him move a generator. When I converted an ambulance into a motor home, I made sure the bed and tables could easily be removed. It's a good thing too, as this monster generator barely fit.



We did a 270 mile round trip, running the van on waste veggie all the way. Waste vegetable oil jugs are visible in the left side of the photo.


One good thing about such a big heavy generator is that it's too big to even think of moving it by hand. The dealer loaded it up with a fork lift. My buddy was able to unload it with forks attached to the bucket of his loader.


My friends live off grid and solar provides most of their day to day needs. However, they own a commercial pottery kiln, and it takes more than a couple solar panels to power a kiln. This generator can do the job, and won't take much to convert it to run on waste vegetable oil.

I love it when a plan comes together.

-Sixbears

Made it to Florida

My lovely wife and I made it safely down to Florida -in spite of drivers on cell phones. American highways are weird.

The veggie van ran well. It got me just about to Georgia before I had to switch to diesel. I could have packed more jugs of veggie, but there are diminishing returns. At some point all your veggie is burned up to haul all your veggie. In retrospect, I could have packed another 4 jugs or so. That's about it.

The trip took about a day more than it normally does. Heavy fog from Vermont to the middle of Virgina slowed me down. However, I must admit that having a very comfortable bed in the van changed things. Instead of grabbing a quick nap in a car seat, I crawled into the back and actually got a couple decent night's sleep. It was nice to arrive not totally zombied out.

Tomorrow, in the daylight, I'll take 1700 miles of road grime off the van and boat.

-Sixbears

Trash Day and Oil Jugs

When restaurants get fryer oil, it comes in 4.5 gallon jugs. My local restaurant puts the used oil back in the jugs they came in. At my convince, I collect them from a garage next to the restaurant.

One of my regular duties as a husband is to take the trash out. Someone has to. Most weeks I put out a bag or two of crushed 4.5 gallon vegetable oil jugs. They cannot be recycled because they had oil in them. It messes up the recycling process.

They are not particularly strong jugs. In fact, in recent years they've been getting thinner and lighter. Sometimes I'll use the ones in better condition a few times to collect oil from other sources. Once in a while one will spring a leak. Good thing I'm hauling them around in a converted ambulance. Those vehicles were made to be hosed out. I'm sure mine has had worse things on the floor than waste veggie.

Each jug weights about 35 pounds. Yesterday I picked up 25 of them. That's 875 pounds of fuel. Guess what I do to stay in shape? The money saved by using free veggie adds up. That's over 112 gallons of free fuel. It's replacing about $450 worth of diesel. That certainly makes it worth the handling. I've a rack to stack them on for when I need them. I always use the older ones first as they've had longer for the junk to settle out of them.

When I crush up those jugs for the trash, I think about all the money I'm not spending on motor fuel. Just like the government, I don't have to factor in the price of fuel when figuring the cost of living.

-Sixbears