Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

[WVOdrvr Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close WVOdrvr]

Does anyone blend in their diesel? I run WVO, but want to get better lubrication in my diesel tank. I have seen 70% WVO 20% Kero 10% RUG. I used this last summer and my lift pump went out on my Cummins. But it does have 100,000 on that pump. But my engine is much louder on diesel than on WVO.

What do you blend and for how long???

[Combustor Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Combustor]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

Your blending ratio will depend on the lowest temperature you encounter when starting. Here where it's warm all year I use WVO with 30% jet fuel and could probably use less. Opinion seems to be that any blend with more than a few percent of VO will have enough lubricant property.
My 1HZ Landcruiser (precombustion motor) likes the kero/veg blends but I find I can easily use too much RUG and cause detonation and rough running. If kero/jet fuel is not available, look at heating oils, and if they are as thin as Kero they may be a good blending choice. A few percent of RUG can aid starting at lower temps. Keep thinning until your cold startups are about as quick and clean as they are on diesel and you could be OK. Regards, Combustor.

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

SNIP
I run WVO, but want to get better lubrication in my diesel tank.
SNIP

How much better lubrication do you want?
Adding less than 5% WVO to your diesel will improve the lubricity of the fuel way above ULSD and above LSD also.

It sounds like someone has been sprouting the IP manufacturer bulletins to you.


Regards,
Tony

[froggo Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close froggo]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

Hi WVOdrvr,

I run a two tank system. In the wvo tank I use 95% WVO and 5% Rug blend.
In the diesel tank I blend in summer 50% WVO, 40%Diesel, 10% Rug. In winter 20% WVO, 70% diesel, 10-15% Rug.

I have stopped the blends now in my start up diesel tank and only add 2-5% wvo to improve the lubrication.

I noticed on the blend when starting from cold carbon deposits were forming on the injectors and glowplugs. There was often a puff of white smoke out of the exhaust which signals unburnt wvo.

I have seen 70% WVO 20% Kero 10% RUG. I used this last summer and my lift pump went out on my Cummins.

I don't know what type of ip you have, but on a blend when you start the engine cold it may add extra strain on the ip if the blend is thicker than normal diesel.

God bless, froggo.

[WVOdrvr Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close WVOdrvr]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

Hi WVOdrvr,

I run a two tank system. In the wvo tank I use 95% WVO and 5% Rug blend.

Do you get vapor lock or anything with the blend? I run 2 FPHE that brings my temp up to 160 to 180 degrees before my lift pump. Will this create pre detonation or vapor lock if I mix RUG??

[froggo Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close froggo]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

Hi WVOdrvr,

I run 2x30fphe's and have never had any issues with max 10% Rug during summer.

There is a limit to the amount of Rug you can use so you may need to experiment a bit to find what suits your vehicle.

God bless, froggo.

[Jeffrey S. Brooks Banned Find all posts View Profile Close Jeffrey S. Brooks]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

I have been running various blends of WVO and unleaded gasoline (RUG/Petrol) since Feb, 2007 on a 1983 Chevy 6.2L diesel with a Stanadyne Rotary DB2 IP. I have started the engine with no difficulty on an 80/20 (WVO/gas (petrol)) mix down to 3F (-16c). I have found that by blending as little as 5% gasoline (petrol) in the summer, and as much as 30% in the winter, the engine starts and runs as if it was running on diesel fuel.

[tbird650 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tbird650]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

Wth RUG blends I find that cold starts are Ok but restarting when hot can be difficult. The motor will run like a hairy goat for maybe a minute. I believe the RUG is vapourizing in the injector lines etc and doesn't inject nicely till temps normalize downward.
I wonder if the engine compartment being VERY cramped in the Hiace has anything to do with this heat soak issue?

[Jeffrey S. Brooks Banned Find all posts View Profile Close Jeffrey S. Brooks]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

My engine is almost 30 years old, so it runs a little rough at first on whatever fuel I run on, even 100% diesel fuel. But, I do not have the runs rough hot problem you are reporting.

I doubt seriously if the petrol in your blend is vaporizing in the injector lines, because volitilization is a product of pressure, and the fuel in the injector lines is going to be under high pressure. If you are having a vapor lock problem then it is mostly likely going to occur in the low pressure portion of your fuel supply, which is before the lift pump. And, if that portion is not heated, then you should not be having a vapor lock problem.

Maybe your glow plug temperature sensor is bad, so it is not detecting the the glow plugs need to be powered at hot start.

[tbird650 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tbird650]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

Jeffrey, you might be onto something here with the point about GP's. I made mine manual switched when all the problems with burning them out was frustrating me. Am planning to re-instate the stock set up there. Thanks.
As a test today, I doubled the RUG amount in the tank and it wasnt any worse.
I'm happy to say I've not had any IP failure and this van has had lots of vege put through it in 5 years come May.

[tbird650 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tbird650]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

No sooner said, then today power drops away after an hours running around town. I pull over and see streams and streams and streams of bubbles in the return line. I've had this before with mixes that have high % of RUG.
Am wondering if there's anything different with the set up that would cause this. Certainly the cramped Hiace engine bay wouldn't help. Another thing could be the plastic fuel tank, being housed inside the van doesnt get any cooling benefit from passing breeze.
Ambient temps now are approx between 25C and 30C.

[Jeffrey S. Brooks Banned Find all posts View Profile Close Jeffrey S. Brooks]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

I live in southern Arizona, USA, for more than 50 years. Here temperatures commonly rise above 110F (43c), and most drivers drive motor vehicles that run on petrol but never experience vapor lock. This suggests that ambient temperatures and fuel temperatures of 110F (43c) will not cause bubbles in the fuel line of a diesel engine running an 80/20 blend of VO and petrol.

Now, if your auto mobile is vaporizing the petrol in your fuel blend, then you may have a fuel line heater, which is taking the fuel temperature over 110F (43c). However, I suspect that the bubbles that you are observing in your return line are more likely due to an air leak in your fuel line that has to be on the negative pressure side of your lift pump.

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

I doubt that the problem is vapour lock, unless your blend is going thru a heat exchanger.


Air leaks are often first noticed when using veggie oil as it is much more viscous (even at 80°C) than diesel or biodiesel.

Check your hoses for kinks or for degradation and your hose clamps and threaded fittings for tightness.
Check the fuel filter as some filters with inbuilt primer pumps can have air leaks.
Check the filter is on tight.

In a 300D, I have had one of the newer style primer pumps leak air on the suction side of the lift pump which was a real bitch to find, but easy to fix.

Regards,
Tony

[tbird650 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tbird650]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

Thanks for the ideas.
Clearly vehicles with modern efi are significantly different than diesel injection systems. One notable difference is the returned fuel set up. This would allow fuel to the injector to remain below vaporizing point. When it's returning fuel to the tank, it can then be cooled by the tank itself being exposed to the passing breeze. The fuel injectors in these set ups are in a manner of speaking: fuel cooled.
Most of what gets returned from my Toyota diesel set up is from the IP itself, with a smaller amount from the injectors return rail. This would mean that any excess heat at the injector couldn't effectively be syphoned off by returned fuel.

There's no heat exchangers in my set up.

This phenomena only appears with blends involving RUG, more often with higher ratio and most often when ambient temps are high. A typical scenario will be the bubbles will appear if stuck in heavy traffic during a hot day. Also what can make the issue worse is shutting down the engine for 30 minutes when heat-soak raises fuel temp in the IP, injectors and lines to the prevailing engine temp.

If I were to consider that the fuel was vaporizing in the IP itself then that could easily explain the power loss, after all the IP wouldnt be happy pumping air bubbles. If I were to consider that it was vaporizing in the injector feed lines it could still explain the bubbles because they could be returned via the return rail on the injectors themselves. I reason that the injectors are the hottest part of the system so bubbles are likely to occur there first.

I'm able to observe all this because I have clear nylon return line in view from the drivers' seat. Also when this happens the return temps we are talking is well in excess of 43'C, possibly closer to 50 or 60. Uncomfortably hot to touch.

I'm considering that having the fuel tank inside the van, somewhat of a design flaw because it can't benefit from the normal air cooling of a standard unit. One thought was to put a cooling heat exhanger on the return line to reduce the tanks temp and allow blends to work better.

Being aware of it means I can drive around the problem or use less/no RUG when I know there's heavy hauling to do etc. I'm going to try and remember to log the fuel tank temp before and after a run. It might be a good bit of info and a key piece of the puzzle.
Thanks.

[Alga Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alga]

Re: Blending WVO w/ RUG and Kero??

I've been using WVO since the late 1970's and along with an engineer mate have done many experiments with blends and believe using rug will in the end cost you a lot of money.

Using rug was designed for stopping gelling in diesel for short period and our Aus antarctic division used it for years, but always had IP failures in the generators which ran 24/7 and seasonally they had to rebuild the IPs of every thing because of the damage done by evaporating rug and subsequent build up of additives within it, which are not designed for diesel systems.. Now they do it differently but I don't know what they do as the bloke I knew involved, has retired. On our boat we use an additive which drops water out and conditions the dino and never get gelling, they may use a version of that.

The best blends are bd or dino at 10%, which I use in winter and have never had an trouble and my hj60 has done well over 500000 and the engine as never been touched.

If you purge your IP and injectors with ATF every time you do a service, you'll have no problems for many years at it takes everything out of the system. If you keep things simple, you'll have years of good motoring with few problems.

I'm a bit worried about my cruiser at the moment, I haven't changed a a throw away filter for more than 3000 klms. In the past it's been between 600-1000. I think after so long, the tank is probably fully coated with VO and so nothing grows and super heating my oil before filtering, seems to remove the brown and white stuff that tends to built up in filters.

Not long and the 12ht cruiser will be on the road, rebuilding the entire thing as we weren't sure how long the engine had done and the cooling system was clogged in places.