Our Volksvegan Adventure

We made our first veggie-oil fueled trip this weekend to the Santa Barter Fair. It’s about 60 miles North, not a very long trip but a perfect one for trying out the grease system. It ran great on the way there on veg oil, but on the way back we lost power as we were going up a hill. We had to switch to diesel and it ran fine the rest of the way home as long as we stayed on the diesel. When we got home we discovered the veggie oil fuel tank was almost empty and that’s why we lost power. It’s pretty crazy cuz Sen filled it up with about 10 gallons before we left!

We have discovered the culprit though. At the shop last week the mechanic said that our injector pump is leaking and needs rebuilt. Ugh. So that’s what’s leaking, apparently it leaks more on veggie oil than diesel. We haven’t replaced our hoses & gaskets with non-rubber ones yet and we’re pretty sure that’s the problem. We did use some bio-diesel blends like B20 and it’s best to replace all the rubber if you’re using any bio-diesel because it will erode. So we kinda figured we’d have to do it sometime. Now Seneca is trying to decide whether we should fix the injector pump, replace it and all the rubber hoses/gaskets, or just get a new turbo engine. All options are going to be a bit spendy. I was warned that VW ownership meant one project/problem after another… I guess we should’ve expected it.

Here’s Seneca driving on the way to Santa. We had a great time at the barter fair. We’ve been going to it for about 4 years now, it’s a small fair but a lot of Moscow people go since it’s so close and so we always know a lot of people. I actually sold and/or traded quite a bit of soap and massage oil, and a couple pieces of jewelry as well! I handed out lots of PETA stickers, too. There was a potluck on Saturday night and a drum circle as always. I have some pictures up on My Flickr Page of the trip. Our next big adventure is planned for the second weekend in October, the Okanogan Family Faire near Tonasket, WA. It’ll be a 5 hour drive, so we may actually be packing extra grease, and we’ll be staying a bit longer. It’s a huge faire, and we’ll have a booth, so I gotta get busy with my crafting! Hopefully we can promote sustainable transportation and maybe even get some grease from the food booths at the faire!

So as promised, here are some grease collection photos of our quickest collection ever. We collect grease at the Breakfast Club every Friday, and they are nice enough to leave out the hot fryer oil in a big bucket so we can come get it before it solidifies. Seneca has to prime the pump (by sucking on the end of the hose, ewwww!) to get the grease flowing. Sometimes we hook up the pump to 3 filters so the grease can go right into the tank, but this time we opted to filter it at home so we just pumped it straight from the bucket into a container.

With a little cooperation, we got the grease in record time. Our friend Crystal works at the Breakfast Club, so she unlocks it and we plug in the pump, then pump it from the bucket into a container. It usually takes 2 people (one at each end of the hose) to collect grease, but on this trip we had 4 just for good measure. I held the hose in the “cubie” container and took the picture at the same time, Crystal unlocked the door and plugged in the pump, Seneca primed the pump and held the hose into the bucket, and Andy helped hook up the electrical cord and generally supervised the edeavor. That’s what I call teamwork.

Seneca filled up the tank for our maiden grease voyage to the Santa Barter Fair (about 60 miles away). But that’s a story for another post…

Well, we didn’t get to take our maiden voyage this weekend. The bus is still in the shop, due to a couple other parts that needed replaced. It should be done tomorrow, so we’ll be taking our maiden voyage this coming weekend to the Santa barter fair (it’s only about an hour away). So sadly my parents didn’t get to check out the grease bus, but Sen & I will get to take our first grease-fueled trip in it together, and we’ll be able to camp in it all weekend. Joy!

I did take some grease-collecting pictures and will try to get those up soon. We’re getting pretty quick at it due to a fancy-pants filtration system that Sen & Andy set up to pump the grease out and through three filters so it’s ready to go in the tank. Now that we have 5 sources of grease, our exhaust will smell like a mix of Mexican food, Chinese food, greasy bar food, and hashbrowns!