Vegetable oil heating in a diesel vanagon

[ragulka]

Last summer I converted my van to run on WVO (Waste vegetable oil), but after the engine swap (see: http://vwdiesel.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=18077) the cooling system and coolant flow is a bit different, so the vegetable oil doesn't get warmed up anymore. My question: where should I install my vwo-heating stuff? I have an oil filter/heat exhchanger, a Hose-in-hose (HIH) that goes from the engine compartment to under the car where I have the oil tank, then the copper line goes inside the tank, from there it goes to a secondary heat exchanger that is just before the oil filters that separate particles from vegetable oil (I have 2 oil tanks: dirty and clean). From there it goes back to the engine compartment.

Since I'm planning to redo the whole vegetable oil conversion I'm open to all ideas.

My goals are:
1) to make vegetable oil hot as quickly as possible after staring the van ( so that I can start driving on veggie oil as quickly as possible)
2) keep the coolant lines as short as possible (to minimize heat loss)
3) to make sure that the heat exhanger in the cabin goes hot, too (there's a lot of cold in the winter here )
4) make sure that the coolant is actually flowing...

1. Where is the best place to install my oil-heating systems?

I thought maybe I should install my oil-heating systems right after the engine and before the cabin heater, like in this picture (red is for hot coolant from engine, blue is for colder coolant going back to the engine):


2. Is there a way to heat my oil filters?

Since it does get quite cold here during wintertime I was thinking about heating the oil filters (which are just regular water filter right now, but might be replaced by oil filters/heat-exchangers soon). And I mean, heating the filters themselves, not the oil lines going in/coming out from the filters... Or do you think a regular heat-exchanger attached to a oil filter will do?

[the caveman]

The best place to get the fastest heat would be where you marked it. The output to your heat exchangers comes from the hose at the side [where the the diagram has the red line] , because that is the first place that warm coolant comes out. Just place the return where it comes back for the return from the truck heater[blue arrow near coolant overflow]. That how mine is  and i get hot coolant very quickly. As for a heated fuel filter you go go 2 routes, either buy a proper one like the one Plantdrive sells- the veg max. or go the cheap route and make one like the one at greasecar. Get some copper tubing and wrap it around the filter cartridge. Send some hot coolant through the copper wrap. cheap and easy heat. make sure you use a filter that has a water block and or seperator in or or save your money for when the injection pump bites the dust from the excess water and acids in you wvo. The other thing  see wrong with your setup is that you MUST NOT USE COPPER if it will be in contact with coolant and VO like as a heat exchanger in a tank. The copper WILL corrode. The problem is that it will seem fine for a long time but at a certain point it will hit critical mass and corrode in a matter of weeks or even days and then you will have coolant being sucked into your pump and injectors and again,time for a new[probably wwon't even be able to be rebuilt] injection pump.
The othe thing to get the VO up to proper temp sooner is to use a Vegetherm like Plantdrive sell. Very cheap, easy to install, no moving parts. gets up to 160 o F in 20 seconds. Just install it just before the pump.

[ragulka]

Hey, do You think a fule filter with a water separator will do? I googled about this and some found that some people say that You can't rely on those seprators, but You have to prefilter the VWO before use and boild the water out...
My Idea with this car was that I wouldn't have to filter anything outside the car - that I just pour in whatever I get from a restaraunt and that my filtering/etc system will clean up the fuel. Convinient.

What's Your experience?

[jtanguay]

Hey, do You think a fule filter with a water separator will do? I googled about this and some found that some people say that You can't rely on those seprators, but You have to prefilter the VWO before use and boild the water out...
My Idea with this car was that I wouldn't have to filter anything outside the car - that I just pour in whatever I get from a restaraunt and that my filtering/etc system will clean up the fuel. Convinient.

What's Your experience?

then you might want a portable centrifuge filter.  that is an excellent method of getting rid of water, and any contaminant larger than a micron.

you could just put the straight veg in the tank, but you'll be clogging up filters very quickly.  even just straining the large bits out would help...

[the caveman]

You definitely have to prefilter it, by whatever means you have .The cleaner you can get it before you dump into the car will let you have much less problems on the road. At home i filter it down to  30 microns then 2 microns and both filters have water seperators with water block cartridges. On the road i have a large 30 micron with seperator,then a 15 micron with seperator, then a 1 micron. I get around the water issue by not using any waste oil that is suspect. I won't even bother if it looks crappy. Basically any, that even if it's dark, as long as it's clear. Water will make it go opaque. To get all of it by boiling would need a pressure boiler to clear out oil that is bad.  We had a real eye opening experience with boiling. Centrifuges work, but seem to take some fiddling to work properly. I have a couple of customers who went that route, but with limited success

[ragulka]

You definitely have to prefilter it, by whatever means you have .The cleaner you can get it before you dump into the car will let you have much less problems on the road. At home i filter it down to  30 microns then 2 microns and both filters have water seperators with water block cartridges. On the road i have a large 30 micron with seperator,then a 15 micron with seperator, then a 1 micron. I get around the water issue by not using any waste oil that is suspect. I won't even bother if it looks crappy. Basically any, that even if it's dark, as long as it's clear. Water will make it go opaque. To get all of it by boiling would need a pressure boiler to clear out oil that is bad.  We had a real eye opening experience with boiling. Centrifuges work, but seem to take some fiddling to work properly. I have a couple of customers who went that route, but with limited success

Well, with my current setup I have covered almost 10 000 km with no problems at the engine, pump or injection. Doesn't mean that they won't occur eventually :lol: I have a 3-tank system: dirty oil, clean oil, and diesel. There are 2 filters between dirty and clean oil: 20 and 5 micron. I used a sifter (?) to remove big particles before I dumped the oil into my dirty tank. The thing is, when I am on a long trip around europe, I cannot spend a whole day prefiltering the oil, so I kinda have to do it on-board...

[dieselherb1]

You can also use a glowplug heater to get the oil hot quick. I have a friend who has several heating units on his 98 Jetta. The glowplug block is a block of aluminum 2x6x4 drilled for 2 glowplugs and 5/8" oil line. He bought the rig from one of the WVO equipment companies but it can be made at home.

[jtanguay]

You can also use a glowplug heater to get the oil hot quick. I have a friend who has several heating units on his 98 Jetta. The glowplug block is a block of aluminum 2x6x4 drilled for 2 glowplugs and 5/8" oil line. He bought the rig from one of the WVO equipment companies but it can be made at home.

the glow plug will do bad things to the veg oil.  i forget what actually happens, but its not good.. maybe the coolant style glow plugs will be less harsh???

the key to success with a centrifuge, is good RPM's, the right flow, and heat.  the hot veg oil will allow the particles to move out faster, same with water.  a nice small amount of flow will ensure some very clean oil.  some people will run a continuous loop filtering an oil tank, but i'd prefer a nice slow 'trickle' getting the job done once.

if you've seen the kind of crap that comes out of the centrifuge on oil thats been passed through a 5 micron filter, then i believe you will want one.

if you're not going to spend the time to properly pre-filter the oil, then i would suggest carrying a spare pump around just in case.

[arb]

My brother uses a clear whole house water filter with a paper 5 micron filter connected to the out put on the pump he uses to collect his SVO to pump into his dirty pump. He's been doing this for about 2 years w/o problems.

[b1rdjx88]

I've been working on a conversion with an onboard centrifuge for a while now.  There are two tanks, a 56L one for raw wvo, and a 45L one for centrifuge cleaned wvo.  These both fit in the back of my golf and still leave me with some trunk space.  

There is a centrifuge mounted above the raw wvo tank that automatically drains back into the raw tank.  There are two valves at the output of the centrifuge that allow a portion of the flow to be directed either to the clean tank or to a sample collection output.

The centrifuge is run by a gear pump mounted in place of the power steering pump on the engine, and it is engaged by mounting the belt.  In the future I would like to adapt the clutch from an A/C compressor to allow remote switch activation of the pump.  The pressurized oil travels from the pump to the centrifuge in a steel tube inside a coolant hose.  A pressure regulator for an agricultural sprayer is used to limit the pressure to 100 psi regardless of engine rpm.  Oil pressure is monitored at the dash via an electric oil pressure gauge.

To operate this system, a batch of wvo would be run for through the centrifuge for several hours, looping back into the raw oil tank.  A sample of output oil from the centrifuge would then be collected and tested for water and (maybe also) titration.  If the oil looked good, a valve would be switched to direct the centrifuge output to the clean oil tank.  Here is a model I drew up:




I still haven't completed building this system, so I can't tell you yet how well it works. [/img]

[arb]

I've been working on a conversion with an onboard centrifuge for a while now.  

Where did you get your centrifuge ?

[b1rdjx88]

I ordered a Filterfuge unit from Industrial Diesel Products in Mississauga, Ontario.  I got the smallest one they sell - FF25.  They are much cheaper than the other popular centrifuge brand (I forget the name of the competitor)  

http://www.dieselproducts.com/spinclean/spinclean.html

[jtanguay]

whats the pricing on their centrifuge's???  i'd be very interested to know.  i would also like to know how much pressure it takes to spin up to 7k rpm.  thats one thing to think about with using it for the veg oil...  you need an auxiliary pump to supply the right PSI.

i'm currently using the FS-2500 bypass filter to clean my oil.  check out the video's at http://www.fs2500.com

for the road, i would use a filter like that.  it has a large capacity, and even absorbs water!  the onboard centrifuge system seems a bit complicated.  i would be worried about the pump going...



thats a quick and dirty diagram of how you could simply use the readily available vacuum power to suck the veg through the filter (highly recommended for longer filter life).

when the float is down, vacuum is applied.  the vacuum will suck the check valve shut and begin to suck from the bypass filter.  once the level is reached, the vacuum is shut off and then the oil can drain into the main tank via gravity.  the check valve will not be spring loaded, but simply 'flap' on a rubber gasket to ensure a tight seal.

this type of system could be used to run the car.  when your main tank gets low, the vacuum is applied and filters more oil, and then once the high level is reached, the tanks will equalize.  or you could get a looping system going for continuous filtering, but it wouldn't be a good idea to drive around like this... or you might lose braking power at a very inconvenient time!  :lol:

things that would need to be tweaked, would be the level at which vacuum is applied, possibly having the vacuum tank higher than the main tank (for better gravity feed)  and different sizing of the vacuum tank vs main tank.

another application for the vacuum feed would be to have a heater installed in the tank on the left, and use that up front in the engine bay.  that way you don't need coolant hoses going all the way to the back of the car, and you can switch over from diesel much quicker.  at -25C and below, there might require a way of warming the veg oil in the back to allow it to move though... or thinning with diesel fuel.  it is amazing what vacuum force can suck though! a large fuel hose ( 3/8 ) is highly recommended  :wink:

[ragulka]

just a couple of questions, jtanguay:

1) By already available vacuum line do you mean the same vacuum line that is used for brakes?

2) Is the check valve between the two tanks? If so, then I don't understand Your idea at all... or..

3) Is there only the main tank in the picture?

[b1rdjx88]

whats the pricing on their centrifuge's???

You could call and ask.  When I bought my FF25 last year it was $175[/quote]