Hi everyone,

I've discovered by accident a new way to introduce water injection into your veg mobile.

The other week I was driving along when I noticed the engines coolent temp head north, but well within safe temp range.

Stopped on the side of the road and the old girl was blowing her coolent out the radiator cap.

Let her cool down a bit and drove the 5 min home.

Next day went to start her and clunk, compression lock. Turned key again and away she went.

I noticed she was blowing a lot of crap out the exhaust so stopped and had a look. Hmmmm water coming out exhaust that's not good.

Checked oil and water no mixing going on but lots of pressure in radiator.

I tested for a cracked head, combustion gases into coolent and coolent into combustion chamber was the result.

Now my troopy has her own version of water injection, cool and it never cost a cent!

After 30 years and 700,000kms it rebuild time.

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HJ45 Landcruiser Troopy
Home made 2 tank system
Blending in main diesel tank
SVO/WVO Converted 18/01/08

Only 700,000 km surely not a full rebuild. Good old Cast Iron heads can have cracks repaired or if it is too badly cracked just a second hand one. i would expect it would be worthwhile doing the valves too, at 700k but that should be all she needs. The 2H may not be a sparkling performer but sure is tough.
I remember the outcry when Toyota went OHC and alloy head. The 1HZ has proved pretty reliable but an alloy head and belt driven OHC could never match the good old iron head pushrod 2H.

Hi Nuddy,

I thought about doing the head only but a new set of pots will only add around a grand to the job.

The full rebuild is going to cost less than what I've saved in my first year running wvo.

I would rather this rebuild did not happen but I'm not about to do a patch up job either.

I agree 700,000 is a bit low for these engines, I was trying for the million like some that I've seen.

It was not to be, so it's time to suck it up and get on with it.

I will be doing a lot more traveling so I want the engine to be as reliable as it has been. It's much cheaper and easier to rebuild the engine here at home than in a two horse town at the back of ?

God bless, froggo

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HJ45 Landcruiser Troopy
Home made 2 tank system
Blending in main diesel tank
SVO/WVO Converted 18/01/08

Hi Dave,

A water injection system like your design will be on my new engine before it starts to run on wvo again.

I cannot see why you would not use WI when running wvo. The benefits seem to far outway any negatives.

I do intend to do alot more km's so I want to have the reliability of a full rebuild, I believe it's the best solution for my purpose.

Thirty years is a long time and in another 30 the troopy and myself may well both be a pile of dust.

So I better get cracking if I want to do a million on the new engine, how many litres of wvo do I need to collect.

Think I need a bigger shed.

God bless, Froggo.

__________________
HJ45 Landcruiser Troopy
Home made 2 tank system
Blending in main diesel tank
SVO/WVO Converted 18/01/08

I thought that WVO in IP for extended periods was a no-no - corrosive conditions, etc.?

No, it's Bio that is corrosive (according to all the IP manufacturers) and with WVO it is the 'gumming' which can make the IP output valves sticky.

I was under the impression that veg oil can become corrosive when left to sit, especially if it contains water and is exposed to temp changes and/or air. The stuff in my steel containers shows me that.

Then there's the poly/gumming.

I would be confident that doing this with fats/oils that have a low iodine value would be fairly safe as they don't react the way that the ones with higher values do. Unsaturated fats/oils are generally far less stable and more prone to oxidation, rancidity and all the other stuff. That's why they've been killing us with degenerative diseases and stuff since we were all of a sudden told a few decades ago by men in white coats and slick adverts to switch traditional fats and oils (which we'd been consuming for 1000's of years or more and surviving just fine) for them. Many of the oils we now are told are healthy were simply not even around until a few decades ago. But that's another story...

Example: in the tropics, coconut oil is often used straight for all types of machinery and it has a very low iodine value - it's made up of over 90% saturated fat. From what I gather, most users there don't bother purging - in many places petro-diesel is very hard/expensive, if not impossible, to come by. I guess the warm ambient temps keep it liquid any way. But the point is that it doesn't seem to cause as much damage as unsaturated oils. And that's even with the high levels of humidity.

But it seems most people here are using oils with high iodine values (usually unsaturated oils) because that's what's easier to filter and what most kitchens use anyway, and more to the point that's whats pushed and advertised and marketed as that's where the food processors can make mega profits. Oils such as cottonseed, canola, rice bran, etc.

Ah, sounds like I must be believing too many myths these days.

I know I've taken the thread a bit off-topic, but I thought that we should be in no hurry to reduce our purge times? Now I'm reading that there's no reason why we should purge at all and instead maybe look at starting up on straight oil all the time

The water injection may help prevent coking and gumming in the engine, but it won't help the IP. Plus by wouldn't there be a higher chance of more WVO getting past the rings and into the engine oil due to the engine not being at operating temp?

Just curious about these issues...

I would modify that to say only if it contains water. The IP manufacturers in their bulletin only talk of corrosion and stripping of zinc or cadmium plating inside the IP resulting from biodiesel being left to sit overnight in the IP.
They discuss the use of "unmodified vegetable oil" and make no mention of corrosion and stripping of zinc or cadmium plating inside the IP resulting from use of this fuel. They do however mention gumming and resultant delivery valve stickiness from leaving it in the IP overnight.
My thoughts are that if the WVO is thoroughly dried - as DJ does - then there should be no corrosion worries. If the WVO is not dried at all - like mine - then there would certainly be a corrosion risk.
However the reason my current regime involves thorough purging at the end of the day is not the corrosion risk but rather the gumming risk and the importance of easy starting next day. My regime does involve early switch over after starting as I believe that once the engine has started, if it is running properly, there will not be liquid fuel deposited in the cylinder to cause coking and gimming - particularly with an IDI diesel. I believe the problem with liquid fuel being deposited in the cylinder and causing coking and gumming occurs if the engine does not start 'first kick'. Cranking the engine over for a long time before it starts delivers liquid fuel to the cylinders, much more than can be properly burnt when the engine does start. This can happen whatever fuel is used but generally when using Dino or Bio they start first kick.
My current regime involves a 2.5 km purge on Dino at the end of the day and for short trips I don't switch to WVO at all. For longer trips (many of mine are 30km+ and probably half of all my trips are 100km+) I switch over to WVO before starting as I use a pusher pump on the WVO circuit so I get pressure to the IP for the start and it takes about 1 km before the IP is fully charged with WVO.
Even if I could start first kick on 100% WVO and my WVO was thoroughly dried i would still purge thoroughly at the end of the day because of the IP gumming risk.

Fair enough.

I must admit that I haven't had as much experience and done as many km's as others on the forum - since first mucking around a year and a bit ago I've only been playing with it on and off because of various reasons.

Dry oil, okay, but I guess I was thinking of the possibility of it picking up moisture from the tank. Proper handling, maintenance and vigilance should fix that I guess.

As for the lack of air in the IP, lines, etc.:

I was more thinking of air that's introduced via the tank and pumped through with the fuel to those components. So not so much the idea of bad stuff forming in the IP and lines, which I agree in a healthy system are sealed and protected from air, but forming in the tank and then getting pumped thru the system, eventually resting in the IP at shutdown. Particularly within systems that have a return to tank, I would think that a nice mix of fuel, air and possibly moisture (esp. if the fuel is heated) would take place. If these conditions are enough to start the process of polymerisation and/or fuel bugs or whatever, I'm sure they're also a prime place for the acid conditions to start due to the process of degeneration caused by microbes - I imagine (among other things maybe) that it would be the byproducts of their feeding frenzy that creates the acidity?

Thus the argument for the benefits of a looped system.

I also don't know whether gumming and poly are the same thing but I imagine they're both a result of oxidation so probably closely related. Cooking oil won't readily gum up or go thick unless the container's left open to air. It does go rancid though, regardless of oxygen being present or not.

Since you told me about the story of the blown head that you saw at a workshop and coupled it with the idea of water injection mainly as a cleaning regime, I've been checking out the condition of engines whenever I happen to come across a stripped one that's had a blown head gasket or cracked head, and yeah, I can definitely see which cylinders have been affected - they always look like they, and the pistons, have been polished. Since reading about WI, I've never doubted it really - it makes sense to me.

Thanks for the info, Nuddy.

nuddy, WVO can be corrrosive just as bio CAN be. one of the tests a bio maker must do is to check the levels of FFA (free fatty acids) in their oil before they start. These acids can and do corrode steel quite well at times particularly when open to the air . and moisture accellerates this 10 fold. Bio can be corrosive when alkali and methanol residues ae left behind (poor washing techniques) but mostly bio is quite stable too just like dry sealed oil.

hope this helps a bit
Cheers

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Cheers
Nick.

Roidio 2001 Holden Rodeo 4x4 2.8L TD. 2.5" exhaust sytem, H/E shower system. 4" Lift, Airbags, And lots of fruit, B100 for 35,000 .

Elsa 1983 Mercedes-Benz W123 300D. Still The Fastest Merc in Oz, Self built and Female proofed.