Alternative fuel

[evilfronty]

Ok so this may have been discussed before but what with the ridiculous fuel prices and having a Fronty with a 90 lire tank things are getting expensive.
I remember a feature the did on an old 5th gear show where they ran an old Merc diesel on used cooking oil.
It obviously needs to be well filtered and thinned down with something but would it work in a Fronty? and has anyone done it?.
I would be interested to know although I suspect most people would be worried about damaging the fuel pump and injectors.
Would it be possible to run it into the engine from a separate tank using a separate electric pump to create a switchable duel fuel system like how an LPG system is.
Im going to read up on it and if I find anything usefull will of course post it up but would be interested in everyones opinions on it and if any of the boffins out there know how it could work.
On a personal note though I am worried there could be other hidden costs, as my wife drives the car daily and as you get the smell off the car of whats been cooked in the oil I fear it could cost me a takeaway every time she drives it.

[BoxCleva]

This has been well covered on the forum before. Give the search box a go, running your car on last weeks chip fat is not as straight forward as you'd think.

[jonnyjeep]

check out a sit diesel veg they do a conversion kit to run on straight vegetable oil also another site worth a visit is diesel bob you can get a list of engines that work well on alternative fuel on there

[Jonesie]

any diesel engine will run as normal on bio diesel. It is best not to use straight oil, clean or used, its best to use a ethanol/oil mix and make a reactor using a tea urn (with working thermostat and element with a central heating pump circulating the oil. Its quite a complicated method but its tried and tested with no effect to engine running, pump or filter, it will run EXACTLY the same as diesel. My brother in law makes his own and commutes from oxford to lincoln most weekends running his home brew in a 95 vectra. Its good stuff but you need to know what your doing or it could go horribly wrong. Theres plenty of info on web about making it yourself

[Drift]

Your right, most diesels will run on Bio or veg as they where originally designed to run on peanut oil, BUT a lot of fuel pumps are only designed to run on diesel and that for most people and Fronteras is where the major problem lies, the seals cant cope and deteriorate or the pump seizes.
Injectors often can do with recalibrating too as they are set for dino diesel

[Jonesie]

cant say i've ever heard of that but i wont argue as i dont know enough about it, im just quoting what i do know i have been corrected

[Hound Dog]

Very well put drifty beat me to it
I have had first hand experience of the seals failing on the fuel pump through running bio diesel cost me a lot of money to put right.

[BoxCleva]

Putting it in a >2001 onwards Dti would likely cost in the region of £1500 to put right.

[jimmybhoy]

After much research on tinternet i was within 5 mins of filling my van with Bio.Then i was going to run straight veg oil (svo),but i read of a few people who developed potential pump probs, (like drift said).If you have a HDi or Crd diesel then probs can arise with the pump. i cant remember where i saw it, but if its an old diesel (ie 190 merc) then it will be fine, but a modern diesel ,(fronty incl) then its a no no . Decided just to bite the bullet & pay pump prices!.........

[Drift]

My mate has a Musso, its the merc 5 cyliner jobby 2.9 td he runs it on 100% WVO 100% (home filtered veg oil) filtered down to 1 micron, it has gone through one set of pump seals but we where able to do this as the pump is very simple on that Musso.
It has an inline heater but even so when the temp dropped to -9 and he was on 60/40 the fuel in the pump solidified, what joy we had sorting that one out, hours heating pipes and as fast as we sorted it they gunged up again.
He is suffering a problem with injectors at the moment, this engine and pump is down as running well on WVO but even so they still have problems.

[Popuptoaster]

You can run LPG on a diesel by the way, they run about 30% LPG, using the compression of the diesel to ignite the gas. It basically gives you more power so given that you drive at the same speeds you did before you get more mpg as you use lighter throttle openings.

[evilfronty]

Thats an interesting concept didnt think lpg could be used in any way on a diesel.

[Popuptoaster]

http://www.tinleytech.co.uk/lpgsys.html#lpg

[john (smifffy)]

i seen a few lorry's running on natural gas