Building a WVO Fuel Station at Home

[psychadelica]

Hey guys!

I bought a L300 with WVO conversion last year and am finally getting around to assembling my fuel station at home. As a backgrounder, my van has a 130L tank in the trunk with a heater as well.

Veggie oil tank

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I'm thinking of building the same setup that the previous owner had as that's what I know and can source the parts for. Just wanted to post some pictures and get your thoughts/feedback.

The orginal setup was like this with two holding tanks containing the pre-strained and settling WVO.

Previous owners holding tanks and pump

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It's them pumped out with an electric pump like this

Electric pump sucking WVO from settled tank and sending to filter setup before heading to the van.

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Then it runs through two filters before going into the vehicle. They were either both 10 micron or one 10 and one 5.

Filters for WVO. Either both 10 micron or one 10 and one 5.

Veggie_Oil_Setup-1.jpg (359.72 KiB) Viewed 7420 times

Right now I have one 1000L tote and good sources for oil. As far as parts, I can see princess auto sells this 115V AC pump with hose and nozzle: http://www.princessauto.com/all-seasons ... nsfer-pump as well as the filters pictured above: http://www.princessauto.com/all-seasons ... r-assembly

Is this a good system to move forward with? I'm hoping to run on this by summer!

Thanks!

[after oil]

are there bears where you live? they'll chew on those 1000l totes like.. well, a bear chews on delicious oily plastic. but wvo oxidates in steel. solution: plastic totes indoors

pumps wear out when pumping cold oil, and the filter will make it worse. i also dont see any dewatering equipment. dont trust diesel filters to dewater wvo. now some would argue that if it is settled long enough, then almost all the water and particulate matter will settle out. with the PA filters you must be sure youre not pumping too hard through them.

get the most robust pump you can find. the one at princess auto is good, like the one i use, but i got it free. for that price i would consider something like http://www.wvodesigns.com/blog/monster-gear-pump-v2/
http://www.wvodesigns.com/wvo-collection.html

[psychadelica]

Generally no bears here. We had are rare one pass through last fall and tear apart the garbage but walked right past the full veggie totes and cubes so I'm not worried about that.

As for the dewatering, the thought he had was that you take the oil from the middle of the settled tank (never drawing from the very top or bottom) and also the two filters it goes through have a water absorbing filter: http://www.princessauto.com/all-seasons ... r-assembly Not sure if that is good enough. How does the water get in? while sitting in the tote or from sloppy cooking? Also, what's a "PA" filter. not sure on the abreviation.

Would the pump you link to be OK to send the oil through the filters or is that too much force? It also seems that you would have to buy the dispenser hose and nozzle seperate.

[after oil]

Generally no bears here. We had are rare one pass through last fall and tear apart the garbage but walked right past the full veggie totes and cubes so I'm not worried about that.

As for the dewatering, the thought he had was that you take the oil from the middle of the settled tank (never drawing from the very top or bottom) and also the two filters it goes through have a water absorbing filter: http://www.princessauto.com/all-seasons ... r-assembly Not sure if that is good enough. How does the water get in? while sitting in the tote or from sloppy cooking? Also, what's a "PA" filter. not sure on the abreviation.

Would the pump you link to be OK to send the oil through the filters or is that too much force? It also seems that you would have to buy the dispenser hose and nozzle seperate.

the next bear might not be retarded.
im not sure what i mean by PA either lol! i cant remember. but the point is, that its argued that water absorbing filters wont work w/ WVO because of suspended water particles. the same goes for drawing from the middle of the tank. do some pan testing to check if you have water. water gets in when cooking, when settling, when storing, when in your tank... you could slowly gravity feed through your filters, rather than pump. so you have a settling tank, pump up to a gravity barrel or tank, feed through the filters to the final barrel or tank...

[EnviroImports.com]

nice amount of oil, a great start, I personally would never have a wvo tank in a vehicle, I've seen 2 Delicas and one surf with interiors that are destroyed from the venting wvo into the vehicle, hopefully yours is vented with a hose to the outside of the van. also give some thought to what would happen if you are ever rear ended , do you have any kids riding in the back?
that oil gets pretty hot.

WVO is a great choice and as long as you keep on top of your de watering and your filters and such you should have lots of extra money left from not buying the pump fuel.

[jessef]

250 lbs of hot oil is quite the feat inside an L300.

[psychadelica]

Still debating on what type of filtering station to set up. I feel like I am stuck and it's no fun because I really want to start running on veggie and saving money!! It's why I bought the van!!

With gravity feed setups, how do you eventually pump it into your vehicle? Do you still need the electronic pump? The setup pictured above seemed to work perfectly for the last owner and he continues to use it with the his new L400 on veggie. Are there any serious reasons to not go that way?

Hoping to get this station going SOON!!!!

[after oil]

i use a fil rite pump to fill up

[Jordan]

I settle for a few weeks and run it through a simple centrifuge. I filter into cubes so I can take them with me.

http://circuitskates.com/wvo.html

[delicat]

Nice compact set up for a large volume filtering station!

If you can`t afford the centrifuge you could do cold upflow which filters and de-waters very well. But as After Oil said, just test your oil to be safe.

Depending how you build your set up you will either need a pump to fill your van (could be electrical or a hand pump) or you could also simply use gravity if your clean storage tank is higher than your tank... Just like they do on some farms.

Once I have my new system properly set up I`ll post some pictures but not just ready yet...

Glad to see you getting on board!

Cheers,
Mr. D

[BCDelica]

Entrenched water in WVO is an important thing to test, requiring a little WVO, pan, a stove, and a thermometer. Over the years of using WVO from several different restaurants, found the water amounts could vary tremendously. The black sludge of well used oil from a nearby Chinese restaurant contained the most water, but on the up side smelt good during a water crackle test. I didn't continue to use this oil because it took a lot of electricity before the water stopped boiling out of it. On the other side: with good low water oil you could drive several hundred thousand kilometers with no issues beside the normal wear stuff.

The water contained in WVO is there for many reason; attached to fine food particles, emulsion, covalent bonded to some of the molecules in the WVO. But the point being there is plenty of testing out there of all kinds of organic compounds we use as fuel, and problems with water that's just not willing to settle out. Endless reading is available about diesel and water, that'll really change your mind on the whole 'oil and water don't mix' idea. That's the reason for water trapping media, which works but can only handle just so much water and at a point will just function as a particulate filter only after the itty bit of water. Phone support at racor filters explained in detail about water capacity and filter capacity once, and the simple fact is they can't handle large amounts of water. After a little bit water will just pass through the filter. But it's well recommended for polishing your WVO before filling.

Problem is hot combusting organic compounds with water can form nasty destructive gases and really eat away at what ever gets in the way; head gaskets, valves, exhausts, turbos, etc. Yes only in high water cases will this happen to a WVO vehicle in it's life span, and there certainly is enough examples of damaged WVO bits on the web. It's late and the full chemistry of the water/WVO seems to daunting to think about but water should be removed. The only two methods, that I can think of right now, are heating close to 100c (vapor pressure) and centrifuging.

[BCDelica]

Nice clean setup Jordan.

Oh boy I wanna try Snowskating, looks FUN!

[Jordan]

With gravity feed setups, how do you eventually pump it into your vehicle? Do you still need the electronic pump?

I fill my van with cubes and a funnel but I fill the cubes with a clearwater pump from Northern Tool through a waterblock filter as a final insurance, if I want to bypass the filter I can gravity fill the cubes. I also use another clearwater pump to get the oil into the top barrel before gravity feeding through the centrifuge. Chunks will stop/kill the pump so the oil is screened before it goes through, probably not the best to use in the winter pulling cold oil through a filter either.

For a 12v pump the Fil Rite 1604 (7gpm) is less susceptible to damage from WVO than the Fil Rite pumps with a higher flow capacity (10gpm).

Nice clean setup Jordan.

Oh boy I wanna try Snowskating, looks FUN!

Thank you, if/when you're back in the country and if/when you come to the Kootenays you should give me a shout and give it a go.

[almac]

If you can`t afford the centrifuge you could do cold upflow which filters and de-waters very well. But as After Oil said, just test your oil to be safe.

hey mr. D,
can you please explain more about the cold upflow system?? photos or a drawing on how it works, would be much appreciated.
al

[delicat]

G'day Al,

Cold Upflow hey? Just search our site or google and you'll find all the info you're after... Here's some cut and paste for you anyway.

This is how I do it and not necessarely the best way but a pretty good one anyway! I settle my cubies for a min. of 2 weeks, it`s the first filtration stage. I can let them rest for months as well depending how much I need to go through. Longer=better.

I don`t put them in the sun, not so much a concern about the plastic breaking down but simply because heat will create a movement of the oil in the cubies and to some degree mix your oil with the contaminants from the bottom of your cubie. Not sure how much of an effect it has but it`s simply not required.

I pump from the cubies starting at the top but leaving the last 2" at the bottom untouch. I usually pump enough cubies to fill a large drum or in my case a tote where I leave it resting again (can`t hurt and I have enough to rotate my drums or totes). The remaining left overs from each cubies are then used to fill a few cubies which will again sit for weeks.

I use cold upflow system. Search google, plenty of good explanations out there. Simply put it`s a 40L drum with the top opened sitting on top of a sealed 200L drum connected via a 2" pipe going down the large drum all the way down but stopping about 8" before touching the bottom. At the top of the large drum there`s a 3/4" pipe coming out and going to a 10u filter then to a catching drum (that`s your filtered oil). Add a valve before the filter to regulate your flow when you fill the upper drum with dirty wvo ie. dirty oil in the upper drum forces it`s way down via gravity and pushes the clean oil from the top of the 200L drum out via the 3/4" pipe and filter...



And here`s is one of After Oil`s link which sums it up really good.
http://www.delica.ca/forum/dewatering-a ... old+upflow


Cheers