Sunday, April 1, 2007

How the bus runs on "VEGGIE OIL"

Or if you prefer, "USED FRENCH FRY GREASE". 1st of all some people think I go to McDonald's to get it, but not true. Oil is easier to get & cleaner from individual Chinese restaurants.
The 1st picture shows the 150 gallon tank on top of the bus. It is painted black so the oil inside warms up & thins making it easier to filter the oil. There are several hoses connected to it. I use a gear pump to pump the oil into the top, a clear looking hose. Looking closely at the picture, at the back of the tank is a hose that is dark. It is oil coming out & has 2 valves to bring oil down to the filter. On the bottom of the tank is another hose that I can drain water or bad oil from the tank. On the right back is a small tube that is a sight tube to see how full the tank is.
About 2-3' below the tank is the funnel with (side boards? :) ) to hold the filter to let the oil run into. Oil can be filtered as I drive down the road. I was given 4 "cubies" of oil Friday. Each of them hold 4 & 1/2 gallons when full. I was able to get about 11 gallons filtered yesterday after driving 80-90 miles.


This is the 1 micron bag filter inside the funnel. The fuller the oil is to the top & hotter, the faster it filters as there is more area filtering oil & thinner. The more oil it filters, the more it plugs up & actually filters to finer than 1 micron.
Out of the funnel into a 55 gallon barrel is clean oil. Excuse me, but 'THE BLOG" isn't allowing me to put the text next to the picture. On the left side of the picture, you see a small tube that is clear, except dark in the lower half. That is the fuel gauge for the clean oil. In the lower right hand corner of the barrel, you see a round shiny item with several hoses into it. It is an Artic Fox heater. The 2 black hoses are heater hoses that come from the engine back. It is stainless steel. The oil & water swirl in separate tubes heating the oil to thin it so it will go through the diesel injectors.
Last picture: These heater hoses, out & return go to the front of the bus, black as you can see. Also there is a red electric wire which goes to the pusher pump 3/4ths of the way back. Also see metal tube, which is 3/8" brake line, which has clear braided hose attached to that. All of those hoses are inside the gray electrical conduit pipe to keep the heat inside so the heat transfers to the veggie oil. Then the oil goes to a switch. The bus is started on diesel fuel & shut down on diesel also, so driving down the road, when the engine gets warm, I flip a switch to go on veggie. In warm weather, 2 miles is enough on diesel. So with a plentiful supply of veggie oil & drivers, I could drive from Florida to California for $1 of diesel fuel :), plus less than $3 for filter bags that are good for 100-200 gallons, depending on how clean the oil is you collect.

Hope I didn't bore you with details, but several people have been asking me for details & one person said I should put this on my blog. I am actually sitting in the bus watching TV. The bus is parked close enough to the club house that I am picking up the wireless Internet.

There is also another blog posting that most of you didn't see with a picture of me in the clubhouse at the campground at Orlando. It is close enough to be able to hear the fireworks at night from Disney World, or you can go down to the lake & see them over the tops of the trees. Maybe some night I'll try my camera out on fireworks.

83 degrees here now & mostly sunny. Ron

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