My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

[pangit Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close pangit]

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

Great photo. Looks like it could have come straight out of a promotional brochure!

[Guest Close David]

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

Today another lesson learned....

I'm happy to say that Helga has been going fine this last week, with no new problems appearing. I'm still running the 20L plastic drums in the boot and have been blending some WVO with bio which she seems happy enough with.

The other day I was looking at the 2 drums of " fuel" I pulled out of the tank originally and after carefully sampling some liquid from the top of the 2 drums, noticed it had cleared up nicely. I tested how far down the fuel was clear and found that I could pump down to the last 1/4 of the drum before any sediment came through. I proceded to draw off about 60% of the contents through a disposable filter and blended 10L of this diesel with an equal amount of wvo and a litre of unleaded for good measure. I mixed this up and drew a sample which I let sit for a day and checked for any precipitation of which I found none.

Knowing I had a good day of running round today, I put this full drum in Helga last night so I wouldn't have to worry about running out of fuel in my travels during the day. This afternoon while coming home along the usual route from picking up the spawns of satin from School, I noticed the ol girl had less power than usual and wouldn't kick back in the gears in the places I am learning she usually does.

I had changed the disposeable filter earlier in the week that had some of the original fuel run through it and was wondering if the main spin on filter was becoming blocked by picking up some particles in the wvo that the disposable filters had not been catching. When I got home I opened the bonnet to check if the small bottle I have been using for the water injection needed topping up and had a look at the disposable filter ( as one does) while I was there.

I was amazed to see it was clagged up with the greasy, rubbery substance that had coated the pickup strainer in the fuel tank and was the cause of it blocking originally. Removing and draining the filter showed it was coated in this thick snot and was obviously being blocked and reducing Helga's go juice to a trickle. As I have put a couple of drums of fuel through helga now and knew the drums themselves to be spotlessly clean, I realised that this stuff was coming out of the recycled diesel.

The surprising thing was this diesel was blended from the same 60L of WVO I have been using previously with the bio blend and I had only used about 8L in total from the drum. In other words, only 4L of this original fuel had blocked the filter even though it had been filtered before I blended it.

I have read up on diesel and wvo settling out waxes etc and the possibility that these deposits come from existing buildup in the tank but this was an impossibility in this case and the tanks were indisputably clean. I also don't think that this would be a normal scenario given what I knew the fuel to be previously and was obviously saturated with whatever compounds that have settled on the filter. What is surprising is that the diesel was filtered before use with a filter of exactly the same type at about the same temp ( I did it quite late at night so the fuel was cool) And passed through the filter with no problems but then congealed on the filter in the car when the fuel would have been far warmer than when it was filtered before.

I realse a number of things could have caused this but the bottom line is this fuel despite looking good and filtering fine is crook and fit for nothing more than fuel in my WVO burner or as weed killer. I originally thought I would not try to use it again but then I was reading some things abbout settling and fuel clarity and thought it would have been OK being left to settle out and the rubbish avoided. Certainly there was a LOT of sediment in the drums it had been sitting in for over a week so I mistakenly thought that the fuel was now fine, especially as a 50% blend.

Lesson Learnt, Luckily an easy way with no further dramas or problems.

I'm now trying a blend of 80% WVO and 20% unleaded that I have been reading on the infopop site about that many people seem to be having good success with. If it does work well enough, I might even have to think about bothering to make bio in the first place. Just adding 20% petrol to WVO would be a lot easier,less time and energy consumeing than making bio and probably even cheaper till petrol hits $1.50/ L anyway.
See how she goes.

I would like to put an injector cleaner through her to make sure everything is OK after all this crappy fuel. Can anyone reccommend an effective brand that is obtainable here in OZ?

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

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

Water injection?

Tilly

[Guest Close David]

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

Hey Tilly,

I'm running some water into the intake throat to make use of the purported steam cleaning effect on the injectors, head and piston rings water injection gives. With so much being talked about with deposits and coking, I thought this would be a worthwhile modification especially as I am playing around with blended fuels. My hope is anything that could cause any coking or fouling of the engine internals will be removed by the water and no buildup will occour.

If it dosen't help, it won't hurt but I do have faith that water injection does work for keeping the cylinders clean, stopping detonation and increasing engine performance. I do not believe it will increase fuel economy on its own because of what I have read that explains what takes place inside the combustion chambers. I have also read numerous times that the often touted advantage of lowering EGT's is innaccurate and water injection makes no tangible difference in this area.

Right now the water injection (Sounds hitech for a hose going into the airbox) it is working on the not so slight vaccum effect right at the mouth of the intake in the airbox but I am going to try to work out a way of switching a pump to increase the amount of water delivered. I would like to activate this at around 50-75% throttle and plan of setting up at around 200Ml a minute. The throttle linkage is rather substantial so I will probably have to work on some sort of spring arrangement as there are no proper vaccum signals or emmissions devices that can be tapped into.

I know diesels have no vaccum to speak of but I am surprised at the very strong draw that occours at the inlet throat. I notice at the front of the manifold there is a hole blocked off with a welsh plug. As most standard petrol cars were under carburettored for best performance from the rest of the engine setup, I'm wondering if any performance increase could be gained by opening up this plug on the manifold and ramping up the fuel delivery to take advantage of the increased airflow.

Today I noticed a a screw behind the IP which stops the travel of the throttle lever. I'm wondering if this screw ajusts the total amount of fuel that can be delivered to the engine? I wouldn't mind fueling it up a bit for an extra bit of pep out of the corners and a bit brisker pickup when lane changing etc and could rely on the water to take care of any possible buildup a bit of overfueling may cause.

The water injection may add a very small amount of performance but in this application, I don't think it would be anything significant.

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

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

Detonation in a diesel?

While it is true that water injection can provide benefits to the power side of things in a Petrol engine, the only benefit of water injection in a diesel I have ever been able to find on reliable internet sites is that water injection can reduce NOX emissions.
If not done properly, water injection can also contaminate your oil and speed engine wear.
"If it ain't broke don't try to break it"

Tilly

[Guest Close David]

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

Hi Tilly,
I see your point about detonation in a diesel and of course this property of water injection wouldn't apply here. I still believe water injection would help keep the combustion chambers and associated parts free from deposits and build up. I have read many really large diesels in ships and the like use water injection to remove deposits from the bunker oil they are fuelled with. Some of their fuel injectors are designed like a dual injector to supply fuel and water directly to the combustion chamber from the same injector.

I think the main mistake that could be made with water injection is to over do it which would have the undesirable effects you mention and also possibly cause hydrolock wich would destroy the engine. With this in mind, I am going for a low end water rate to be on the safe side. In this case, too little won't do anything where too much could be terminal.

We are all doing some kind of experiments here and this is something I am interested in and would like to explore the potential benifits of as there dosen't seem to be many people in the bio fuels arena that are using it.

[Guest Close David]

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

Hi daved,

As yet, I haven't put the tank back in Helga. She is still running round very happily on the 20L white drums! I have been doing some fuel blending and having the ability to change the fuel supply has been very convienient.
I had the intention of just using the drums till I sorted out the fuel supply issues with the tank but they work well. I have one drum in use and the other on the other side of the boot as a spare. Because my longest trips are only abut 25Km and I open the boot a lot, I can easily check the fuel level and change the drums over when needed. I have the drums secured with a tight Ocky strap hooked over the top of the shock at the back and the tank mountaing bracket at the front. They never seem to move around.

On tuesday she had a stutter for the first time and actually stopped as I tried to exit a carpark. I figured it may be the petrol in the 80% oil, 20% petrol blend I have been running getting too hot boiling out the petrol so I was able to swap her straight onto a tank of bio which seemed to cure the problem although she later ran fine again on the blend

For cleaning your tank, I would realy reccomend pulling the tank. It isn't hard to get out. Remove the cover at the back of the boot ( screws in the boot floor and into the parcel shelf at the top) remove the vac reserve tank) couple of screws) drain tank and disconnect return and supply lines, remove the fuel pickup on bottom of tank which is above the Diff and the vent line which is on the passengers side underneath the boot. There will be a little fuel that spills so have a rag or 2 handy and at the ready.
There are 4 obvious bolts that hold the tank to the body in the boot to undo and then just slide it away from the filler hole and out. As they say in the manuals, Installation is the reverse of removal.

I think you would be able to do a much better job of cleaning the tank with it out. I have been amazed at the amount of crap that has just come out of the fuel lines that ends up on the bottom of the drums I clean meticously and I can only imagine how many filters I would have went through if I had just let the bio flush the junk out of the entire tank. I would suggest this may be OK for newer vehicles but older ones with decades of build up are best done properly IMHO. My experience has led me to believe that getting the tank as clean as possible is a worthwhile effort.

For cleaning the tank I think I will soak the thing in glyc for a few days and then drain it. I may also try boiling up a couple of drums of water and pouring that in which may be effective in melting a lot of the gunk out. throwing in some gravel and sand ( after removing the fuel gauge sender) and just sloshing it all around in different directions to literally scour the stuff out may be effective as well. If you have access to a high pressure water blaster, I imagine that could be good too.
I have heard radiator places can clean the tanks as well but have no idea of cost. I am sure there may be other and better ways and others can give you some probably better suggestions.

While the tank is out, you can just do as I have and drill some snug holes in the lid of a cubee and run some clear plastic line to the metal fuel lines through the holes in the boot. This will keep you on the road and give you all the time you want to soak and clean (and dry) your fuel tank.
I found the clear plastic line had a tendancy to curl even after being pulled taught and hot water put through it to straighten it. This meant I couldn't rely on it staying on the bottom of the tank and it could have curled half way back up.

I could have weighted it perhaps but what I did was get a bit of coat hanger wire cut to length and bent a couple of loops top and bottom to hold the hose and measured it so it went to the bottom of the tank. I have let it go to the last 2 litres in the drums and it seems to work fine. Bear in mind, the last 2 literes in a cubee are in the sides below the highpoint in the middle of the bottom of the drum.

If you haven't done it already, I would also suggest replacing all the soft fuel line as it too may be the cause of junk in the lines through deterioation not to mention may be perished and leaking air or fuel. You want 5/16 fuel line and I, like several other people, have found Clark Rubber the best place to buy the proper fuel line. I would also suggest buying a box of good quality hose clamps as you may find some have been changed and others not. Apart from knowing all connections are tight, you can use a nut driver and it will fit all the clamps instead of some being flat drive and some Phillips head etc.

Have fun!

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

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

David,
You are most likely driving the car in an unroadworthy condition in the eyes of the law. Please minimise the time you have the tank out, so that you are not likely to be subject to unroadworthy vehicle checks (If they do them over there)

You should be careful of coathangers as they tend to be made from galvanised wire. Galvanising is zinc metal, which will cause the oil to react, forming zinc soaps from the oil. In my first Fatmobile, a 1990 Mazda Capella, I had a fuel tank made from galvanised iron, it clogged fuel filters regularly, until I acid washed the tank to remove the zinc.

Regards,
Tony

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

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

Hi David , thanks for the info, Yeah tank out is the best way for good results, thought it looked pretty easy. Don't even have to get under! But what's the best stuff for dissolving the gunk? What is glyc..?( Scuse ignrance)

[Guest Close David]

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

For anyone still interested, I thought I'd post an update of the Life and times of Helga.

Helga has fitted into family life very well with a number of un expected side effects. For some unknown reason the kids don’t fight to sit in the front seat of Helga like they did my other car. They now fight to sit in the back! My son says it is like riding in a limousine and I think he feels quite important sitting in the back like Lord muck being chauffeured around.

Helga has become quite well known around the kids school as well. Lots of kids have come up asking me if our car really runs on fish and chip oil and I have had a number of parents approach me about it as well.
One mother followed me from school and rang me to say how she couldn’t believe how it smelt of chips or Krispy Kremes. When I take the kids to the fish and chip shop for an after school snack, My son says we are getting fuel for us and for Helga as well.

Progress with her mechanically has been slow but significant.

Once I got the time to put her up on the jack and have a good look round, I was happy to discover all her major problems were either small ones or fixable ones without too much expense or trouble.

The water leak turned out to be a rather large hole in the firewall behind the battery into the passengers footwell. Just above a drain, a large rust hole was letting the water in compounded by the drain itself being filled by leaves and composted material. I would say the blocked drain and no doubt some acidic material from the battery made for a very corrosive combination. A clean of the drain and the liberal application of some plastic putty and no more leaks. I can look at putting some carpet it her now!

The oil leak is, as I came to suspect, coming from the sump plug itself. It looks like someone has hit the sump and possibly damaged where the plug screws in. I am led to believe there is also a crush washer under the bolt which has every likelihood of being squeezed to death rather than just crushed. The Oil leak has been of sufficient flow to keep the engine oil changed at all times through top ups so I have yet to tackle this problem now that I am content that the block doesn’t have some sort of a crack in it!

The other big problem of the steering has been investigated and diagnosed as a very simple repair as well. After a very through and exhaustive investigation of all the steering and suspension components, I discovered all that is needed to get the car handling like brand new again is simply to replace each and every component in the entire front end!

Virtually every tie rod end and ball joint is shot, every rubber bushing is either chopped out or severely deteriorated, the pitman arm is sloppy as a strand of spaghetti in a shirt sleeve, the sway bar rattles around in its long since ineffective mountings and if the front shocks were to fall out unbeknownst to me, I’m sure I’d never notice the difference.
I did win a new set of shocks on Ebay for a very favorable price and looking forward to their arrival and fitting them. I have been looking on Ebay at some suspension kits and am also harassing some of the local parts suppliers for their prices on the necessary wheelbarrow load of parts needed to get the old girl pointing where I want her to go rather than being a typical woman and having a mind of her own.

A few weeks ago while out with a client, I had a curious and rather off putting incident with the brakes where the pedal went almost all the way to the floor with virtually no feel. She did still manage to pull up and I got her home without incident. The problem seemed to correct itself somewhat but was still far from perfect. A bleeding of the brakes did little other than to indicate just how many decades ago the fluid may have been last changed. As the pads were wearing thin, I took the time to familiarize myself with a pad change. After developing a strategy with the first side, the second side went far smoother and quicker especially with the use of the tool I made up especially for the process of squeezing the pistons back with the old pads.
The disks have a rather prominent lip on them so I have ordered a new set of rotors and will fit some new wheel bearings while I have the hubs off.

Shortly before Christmas, Helga got an early Present of a new master Cylinder which seemed to fix things for a few days. There was a minor upset on Christmas morning when the tribe found out my intention of taking the Commodore wagon to the relatives place in the outer suburbs as here were a couple of things I hadn’t put back together on Helga.
The Mrs. has always been pretty strict on what I was allowed to do as far as work or mucking around in the shed on Christmas Day but I was quickly given my orders to get out there and finish off whatever had to be done so she was fit for a journey to the country in time for Christmas Lunch.
I figured this was a godsend in disguise as it was the perfect excuse to be able to leave late and get there even later therefore minimizing an afternoon with the rels that is always so boring that ones mind wanders to the preferable pastime of having ones teeth pulled.

Throwing caution to the wind and the threat of Double Demerit points, Helga did herself proud by reaching the unfathomable speed ( on a slight downhill run) of a whopping 125 Km/h! I figured if I did get caught by the cops, the ticket would be worth it as later irrefutable proof to some friends that she was actually capable of reaching that sort of speed!

Another of Helga’s unexpected side effects was the fact she was able to coax some intelligent and ongoing conversation out of the in-laws. Despite my predictions some years back that they had actually passed on and no one had noticed and their occasional body movements being an ongoing effect of Riguer mortise, they actually put on a very life like display of speech, personality and interest.

Even one of the well heeled snob relo’s who has proved beyond all doubt that money can’t buy a cure for personality constipation, was amazingly excited about the car that ran on veg oil and was rather keen on the idea of giving the old girl a full concurs level restoration. It was commented on by other family members how he spent more time with Helga than showing off his latest new $90K, 4 wheel antidote for mid life Crisis .

Up the highway and back Helga managed a rather pleasing fuel consumption of around 11.5 L per 100KM and made the trip with no problems at all. Perhaps she would have made better fuel economy still If I hadn’t packed 100Kg of tools and parts in the boot “ just in case”


On Boxing day the braking took a sudden turn for the worst again with the problem being found to be a blow rubber brake hose. The very obliging parts place was open the next day so pair of caliper kits, a new brake hose and a new steering damper were acquired and fitted. Braking was markedly improved although the calipers were not at all in bad condition when pulled apart before being rebuilt. Braking is still not as I would hope but I am planning to drive one of Helga’s sisters to see if my expectations are realistic or over ambitious by being spoiled driving cars way less than 1/3rd the old girls age.

The other day I removed the whole air cleaner assembly and noticed that the housing fitted inside the spigot on the manifold and the opening was quite a bit smaller. This causes a significant restriction to the airflow into the engine. I have been testing the performance without the air cleaner and have observed significant improvement. I am now looking for an aftermarket type filter that can be fitted to the outside of the manifold spigot to give the engine maximum airflow.

Today I finally got round to properly setting up the water injection I have been planning with an electric pump for forced water spraying. My idea behind this was to use the steam cleaning properties of the water to prevent any coking or build up in the combustion chambers.

After a test run round the block a few times I was satisfied the system was working properly. As I was putting some tools away I noticed the drum of Methanol in the garage and thought of the performance gains I had read of in using a 50/50 water methanol mix. This is usually attributed to the cooling effect on the intake charge but I thought I would give it a go. After the addition of the mix to the injection bottle I set off on another trip round the block. The system must have taken a while to purge because at first I could tell no difference then the old girl seemed to spring to life.

On my test hill I was amazed to actually feel some acceleration forces from the back of my seat and from a standing start around one corner, I was actually able to hear the rear wheel breaking traction on the dry road. Hardly earth shattering stuff but certainly a huge performance increase than before. I’ll do some tests the weekend and see what the improvement is in acceleration.

Now that I have the old girl running (and stopping) adequately and my feet stay dry in the rain, I’ll next turn my attention to polishing off all the accumulated greasy fingerprints from every panel on the car and fitting the CD player that has been sitting round earmarked for it’s new home. Despite having a bunch of good speakers in reserve, I have noticed all the original locations in Helga are rather on the small side so I’m now debating whether to try to find something in a 4” that sounds reasonable or to start cutting some holes to accommodate the 6” units I already have.

By the time rego comes around in 5 Months, I should have her all sorted out!

[moonan Member Find all posts View Profile Close moonan]

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

For anyone still interested!

Of course we're still interested...

Thanks for the ongoing commentary, and the social comment on your in-laws (I once shared that set of in-laws with you, I'm sure, but it's one of the beneficial side-effects of a divorce, you can dispose of the in-laws...).

Keep up the story, and how about maybe a few pics from time to time?

cheers

[Guest Close David]

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

Anything you would particularly like to see Pics of Neil?

[Captain Echidna Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Captain Echidna]

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

My interesting part of the relies and christmas was finding the uncle (who once bought a mercedes new, and decided not to trade it in on a SLK because it may look like he was having a mid life crisis) had snuck out to go sit in my 300D. A reasonable look of "I like this a lot" was on his face. Unfortunately he bought his merc too late, when they had started to cut corners and their quality was "pretty good" not the "stellar" of before. (his merc had an intermittent fault with the imobiliser that meant as the light went green it would often stall, requiring the keys to be removed, car locked, unlocked and restarted. All while the lights were green....)
Quite amusing someone who admires what I have, even though his personal wealth is about 100 or 1000 times my own. Unfortunately for many practical reasons I dont think he could own one now.
300Ds still a desirable car.......

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

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

The update is a great read, thanks.
George

[Guest Close David]

Re: My new girlfriend, Helga the 300D

My interesting part of the relies and christmas was finding the uncle (who once bought a mercedes new, and decided not to trade it in on a SLK because it may look like he was having a mid life crisis) had snuck out to go sit in my 300D. A reasonable look of "I like this a lot" was on his face.
300Ds still a desirable car.......

One of the biggest surprises in this car Chris has been how popular the thing is and how it seems to appeal to people. About 12 years ago my wife bought me a new Harley. It has always amazed me how Popular the thing is to everyone from little kids to little old ladies, literally. Actually the little old ladies are usually the first in line for a ride.
Helga seems to have a similar universal attraction.

When I first got her, several of the people I wait with of an afternoon to pick my kids up from school all got new cars within about a week of each other. Despite the fact these cars were all worth loads more than my $900, 28 yo **** box, Helga got far and away more attention than any of them and from the proud new car owners as well which really surprised me.
Many people have expressed surprise at the age of the car with everyone thinking it is usually a good 20 years younger than it is. I could understand the attention the thing gets if it were some classic or rare or exceptional car but the fact is it is just an unremarkable everyday old car that has little monetary value other than the worth of the rego and tyres.

Another surprise has been the reaction from some friends who are very into their latest model V8 performance cars. My thoughts of buying an old diesel to run on cooking oil were laughed at with comments of what the hell would I want to drive something like that for and how much trouble such cars would be.
After seeing Helga, their Jibes have all turned to enthuasiam in the potential of fixing her up and keen offers of help to do so. One friend who helped me with the brakes has rung several times to check how she is going and what I have been doing with her and even got in touch with some contacts in the automotive world to haggle good prices out of them for various parts and work without my even asking or knowing he was going to do this.

Somehow these old Mercs seem to have a charisma, appeal and way of endearing themselves to people far beyond their actual value or importance.

Normally owning a cheap old car has a certain social stigma attached to it. With these old mercs, the stigma is replaced with sense of endearment to all who look at them.