Fellow Greasers

I was looking around online and ran across some fellow greasers. Some folks are so dedicated, they’ve made entire sites sharing their knowledge. They sound pretty darn smart to me, but then again I am not good with the mechanical/technical side of this stuff! Check out some fellow “greasers” and bio-fuel bio-neers!

Vegd VW: Learn how Dave converted his cars to run on Waste Vegetable Oil.

The Fry Guys show you how they converted their cars and have plenty of useful tips.

Dreamer Propulsion: learn how one greaser converted a Mercedes300D.

Veggie Caravan is a non-profit group who tours in veggie-fueled buses promoting alternative energy and sustainability.

David Henri tells the story of converting his 1981 VW Rabbit in this article.

I could go on listing quite a few groups and individuals who have converted their vehicles, and the internet is a main source of information for the bio-fuel community. Since WVO conversions are still rather “underground” and definitely a DIY-project, the free-speech zone of the Internet is a great place for individual greasers to share their stories and find information. Feel free to comment with other conversion stories or the sites of fellow greasers!

 

She’s Officially a Greasecar!

Well, we have a greasecar! Seneca finished up the greasecar kit installation on Friday. Here is the converted engine… the main additions are 2 valves and a fuel filter for the grease, and of course the hoses carrying grease from the tank. The wiring is a bit shoddy at this point because the wire that came with the kit was too short, so we gotta call greasecar to get a longer wire and re-do the wiring. I’m sure it’ll look much better since the wire we got is a single insulated wire, and it will be hidden under everything up to the front of the bus.

Before running on grease, we had to warm up the engine and time how long it took to purge veggie oil from the tank. When we stop the car, we’ll have to purge it first, so it’s good to know how long before we turn off the car we need to flip the grease switch off. We have a buzzer that warns us if we shut down without purging the lines, as well, but we still need to install it once we get the longer wire. Our purge time is pretty quick at about 40 seconds. In the picture, Seneca watches the veggie oil tank and waits for diesel fuel to start flowing back in, indicating the purge is complete.

We took our first test drive in the greasecar at last! We ran it on pure veggie oil instead of waste veggie oil for the first run, and just did a quick trip out to the park. She drove perfectly, and Sen says the engine sounds a bit quieter on grease. We even stopped to smell the exhaust to make sure it was truly on grease. The exhaust on grease smelled very mild and almost like nothing, it’s a bit more of a french-fry smell with used oil, but it sure beats diesel exhaust!

We’re quite excited about finally being up and running on grease! It was much easier than we thought to convert the bus, and hopefully we’ll have many veggie-fueled travels from now on. We’re not quite ready for a road trip yet, we need to get the wiring for the kit done properly, mount the gages a bit better, and get new tires and wheels put on the bus. Then, let the grease collection commence!

 

Making Progress!

We’re making progress on the Greasecar kit installation! (OK, I guess I should say Seneca is making progress while I work and check on him periodically to take pictures!) The filter & valves are installed, the veggie oil fuel tank is in place, and now Sen is working on getting the coolant lines and fuel lines all hooked up. It’s all a bit above my head, but Sen’s been reading the instructions religiously (see the picture at left for proof). The kits are actually pretty straightforward and easy to install, according to him. They’re just a bit time-consuming.

Seneca (with the help of his brother) spent most of yesterday late into the night getting things mounted and holes drilled. He says if all goes well we could have our first veggie-fueled test drive by tonight! I’m pretty excited but I don’t wanna rush them of course. We were hoping to get it done by this weekend but it looks like we may not be able to take a trip until later because we have new wheels and tires to install first, and the tires are on the way.

Here is the veggie oil tank that fits just perfectly under the rear seat. This will hold filtered veggie oil. We have a filtering system and a few gallons of filtered oil already. You can see the two holes on the right for the hoses, one goes to the engine & one is for a return hose. When we use the veggie oil we’ll have to flush it from the engine (hence the return hose) and run on diesel or bio-diesel for a bit to be sure that no veggie oil is left in the engine or lines to solidify. Luckily the kit comes with an alarm in case we try to shut down without flushing the system.

Juneau chews on his stick and “supervises” Seneca while he’s working under the bus. Here he is running hoses for coolant which will help heat up the veggie oil so it’s viscous enough to use. There’s a heating element in the tank and one on the fuel filter, and all the hoses are insulated to keep it warm. After the components are all installed, we have some gages to mount on the dash and then I think she’ll be good to go! Now we’re going to start collecting grease a lot more seriously & consistently, we’ve got a couple local restaurants that have been giving us grease but we need as many sources as possible since there are 2 greasecars in the family.

Well, that’s what we’ve been up to for the last couple of days. We ordered new tires and already got some new wheels so that’s the next step in the restoration. Once those are installed we’ll definitely be ready for a road trip! Now, if only we could get those concert tickets we’ve been wanting…

 

The dream: sustainable road-trippin’

Welcome to my new blog, all about the adventures of myself and my boyfriend and our 1982 VW diesel Vanagon. I hope to share stories, pictures, insights, and lessons learned as we convert our bus to run on Waste Vegetable Oil using a GreaseCar conversion kit. We’re also getting the bus bio-diesel ready (she’ll need a diesel and a grease tank) and restoring her as best we can. Of course we’ll be learning a lot about sustainable transportation (and VWs) along the way.

Stay tuned, this blog (like the bus) is a work in progress!