Bio Diesel

Bios quality has always been the big hurdle. Every back yard producer has different standards or lack therof. I believe that there's an industry standard somewhere but the average producer might not have the instrumentation or inclination.
Just by the by, a guy I know has made his own for yonks. When he started he went into the hills in winter and had his bio solidify so that he couldnt start his vehicle for a while. He didn't blend it. He tells me that the replacement of fuel filters only happens 2 or 3 times and after that the system is clean.
There is no doubt that its the way to go for me. But I wont be using it until I can be assured of some sort of standard. There are too many "ifs" at the moment.

Yeh, what Footie said x 2 in my case!!!!

JohnR, McColls do most of our bulk transport and they are having a hell of a time with bio-diesel... Both subbies and company trucks fuel up using McColls stock which is purchased from a commercial distributor... The subbies are at the point where they will soon refuse to use bio as it is costing them a fortune in fuel filters and since switching to bio, they are experiencing injector blockages which is costing them time and money also. For some it seems to be everything you'd expect but for others it just seems a plain nightmare. 20 months before I get my newy and it will be a diesel, I hope quality control improves before then.

I've been using B100 since the start of the year and havn't changed the filter AT ALL yet.

CHOP BONES !!!!!
RAOFLMAO!!!
All I can see is this bloke looking into his tank and seeing all these animal parts down there, heheheheheh.

BTW, do feel sorry for him but sh$t that's funny.
Matt

Just a question, I'm not exactly an expert cook, but who the hell deep fries chop bones?!?! How would you get chop bones into bulk vegi oil that's being turned into BD?

Crumbed Lamb Cutlets ?????????????? Yummmmm !

Guys, some people think that rubbish goes to the same drum. Probably get buts in it too if you really looked. I know others who have used cooking oil for other purposes and found all sorts of rubbish in it. Best if you got it from industry rather than the fish and chip retailer, greaso food supplier.

It shouldn't matter if it's got chop bones or cow eyes in it, it should be filtered and processed so that there is no trace of it by the time you put it in your tank. Someone's probally pulling the micky I reckon.

Yep, I've been using a locally made BD in 100% form in the surf with only benifits to economy and power.

You can say that Andrew but it doesn't alther the fact that the guy in BH I mention above got his Bio fuel from the supplier you mention. He won't put it through his Macks again.

Yeah but the Government would want to tax us.

Glen.

"These samples were taken from trucks that had engine and fuel pump failures as a result of this fuel,every sample was of different colour and consistancy."

Obviously these guys know little about Biodiesel.

The colour and consistency of Biodiesel is largely a nature of the feedstocks. This does not affect it's compliance with the Biodiesel Fuel Standard.

THERE IS A NATIONAL STANDARD FOR ALL COMMERCIAL BIODIESEL ALREADY and consumers can have confidence in the product which requires testing.

Sure - there may be some oil industry parties who don't like the idea entirely, but you will find Shell and other oil companies made sensible submissions to the standard development process.

Now - if these alleged fuel samples came from all over the country they could be Biodiesel sourced from anywhere, and could be from well before the Minister's regulation of the Biodiesel standard, so history is history, but the commercial industry has been delivering a quality product that is tested - and has to be in order for them to get the rebate incentive.

Ciao for now
Andrew.

It sounds like these guys using it as a cop out. Just like "speed related" crashes. Yep were deffinatally doing a speed, must have been the problem. These are going to be labeled "Bio fuel related failures".

It'll go somthing like this...

Yep you're wheel fell off - you were using Biodiesel... Oh oh, bloody fuels to blame!

Andrew,
"THERE IS A NATIONAL STANDARD FOR ALL COMMERCIAL BIODIESEL ALREADY and consumers can have confidence in the product which requires testing. "

Someone may want to talk to the McColls drivers about this... I don't know who their supplier is but the Melbourne samples seem to fare the worst and several samples have now been taken and tested by independent labs, the most recent of which came back about a week ago... 2,500ppm(parts per million) water, with Cat recommending, if memory serves me correctly, a maximum of around 200ppm... If there is a national standard, some suppliers are having a great deal of difficulty adhereing to it.

BD absorbs a lot of water, that is why storage is important. They also recommend keeping your tank as full as possible and draining your water trap weekly if you do not do a lot of driving. Excessive water may be more a storage and operator problem. Large machines, I would imagine would have large tanks. They may also be stored for periods without use (possibly). I know on my vehicle I had a drum of BD that made my water trap light come on almost weekly on the stuff that came out of the bottom of the drum (last tankful), but it was only one batch that did it. If that was a problem on any diesel engine, the water trap light should come on to at least give you a warning that there is high levels of water in your fuel. If this has not happened, then you should be under a pretty good assumption that your BD is ok. BD is just like diesel, the water will settle to the bottom, hence the trap in the fuel filter at the bottom.

hmmmm .... water .... so because I picked up a load of water in a full tank of diesel from Independent Fuels tuckstop in Central Queensland, should I also blame all of Australia's Biodiesel distributors?

It is surely most likely that the water came from the tanks from which the McColl's drivers dispensed their fuel and not from the Biodiesel manufacturer who, in order to claim the dollars from the Gov't needs to have the test done to .05% vol which is as I guess it ... 500 ppm - which is, I believe, exactly the same as the spec for diesel fuel.

The standard is here:

Site Link

I don't know what you are refering to by Cat - nor the basis or relevance of their recommendation.

McColl's drivers can investigate their supply chain for the source, and then correct it.

But a high water content - that can happen to any diesel fuel, right?

Well at least I know what I'm putting in my tank by using BD. I put a little in a jar and let it settle overnight and I can see if there is any water in it. I pump with a rotary pump out of the drum, so I am picking up the bottom of the tank first (which is where the highest cocentration of water will be).

I was doing some security installations at an "unammed" (I don't want to get sued here) servo once. They had some flooding in the carpark after heavy rain. Their fuel (all of it, ULP, PULP, Diesel) was completley contaminated as the water was leaking into the filler caps on the surface (that are SUPPOSED to be water tight, but they were obviously knackered and not). They new the problem, they had people comming out to drain the bottom of the tanks and add some chemicals in it to try and salvage the massive amounts of fuel. Meanwhile, they were still happily floggin off the fuel to all of the unsuspecting public!

Jeff the viechle in question is mine i dont use BD all the time only every now and again i might put a tank full in, probably on a estimate ive used about 8-10 tanks of BD in two and a half years that ive owned it. i dont know what form....i just use it. i dont know what part of the injector pump failed cos i forgot to ask (pretty dumb hey that should've been question #1) but its costing me $1000 on its own. he also said BD drys out seals and stuffs up the injectors as two of mine were not working #1&2. Im also wondering that cos my 4by has 344000ks with service history if thats just wear and tear as nothing lasts for ever, but i will say since ive owned it its never missed a beat doesnt matter what oil company i buy my diesel from or oil i use until now (not knocking anyone here just telling the truth)

cheers Luke

OK if he said it "drys out the seals", if that was his exact words, then:

1. We now know for a fact that this mechanic has got absolutally NFI what he's talkinag about when it comes to BD

and

2. It was probally wear and tear.

BD will destroy rubber seals in older type injector pumps and fuel lines, it won't dry them out, in fact quite the opposite, it will kinda melt them in a way. Eat through them. Of course almost any diesel you buy from the bowser will have similar effects on older rubber seals and components, so you stuffed either way weather your using commcercial petro diesel or biodiesel now days if you have an older vehicle with rubber components.

Sorry to hear about the bill, injector pumps are not cheap items to get rebuilt/calibrated.

If you were uising straight WVO, (Waste vegi oil), without the proccess of turning it into a metho ester, you could potentially clog injectors, especially in colder weather. If you are running BD, it's more than likley that you will actually clean you're injectors, not clog them. I would be blaming 344000k's of using petro diesel on cloged injectors, not a few tanks of BD over 2 years. Since running the surf on B100 for 6months straight (not a drop of Petro diesel been in there), she is almost not smoking at all once warm, even under major load. The power has increased and when warm, she starts heaps easier than before. I, personally, would put this down to a cleaner fuel system (BD is a solvent and a lubricant in 1, it cleans all of the carbon residue left behind by running petro diesel).

I reckon after 344000k's without having to put a spanner to it, go toyota!

i did wonder if it was the BD cos i know a few ppl that use it as do half the 4by owners on here use it. But for the sake of 2-3 cents a litre savings and this warranty i will be gettig with this injector pump i dont think i will be useing it for a while. i supose the only good thing to come out of all this is i get a whole new recon fuel system as he is cleaning out fuel tank, lines and a new filter,recon injectors and recon pump and when i put the turbo on i will not know myself but its come at a price though so i will be keeping the patrol for a few years to come.

344000ks without putting a spanner on it i recon thats pretty good if you ask me IMHO so go the patrol 4.2 lol

Oh crap, I've been replying to the uni filter one to and got confused, thought you were running the 80 series!! HA HA HA HAHA, oh well... GO NISSAN! :-)

You only saving a few c a litire? is it B100 or B20? I save 30c a litire!

Germans might have some traits that mean they don't get along with Australians all the time, but for sure, they know that Biodiesel is a good thing! Most of Europe is using it ... damn the aussie rumour mongers and die hards.

Unfortunately our government spends money giving grants to big business to build biodiesel plants the gazillion litre a day production of which gets exported, while we have to pay through every orifice for expensive dino-diesel and more expensive taxes.

phhhht!

Andrew and TPM,

Rather than reposting check my followup a bit further down this thread on proposed changes to taxing BioD which will allow BP to sell BioD with hydrogonated fats and break the BioD standards, limit economic production of BioD to B5!!! and basically kill off this new industry that in every other blo....dy country is being supported.

Let's all use nuclear power - yippee
Bring on the next election, we need a sensible balance of power party that put a stop to all this madness.

Tim

I havn't had any dramas with fuel filter yest (touch wood), however my supplier told me that when it get's cold, small residual bit's of animal fat that have snuck through the filtering process can go hard and clog the filter. He said it's rare, but it can happen.

He reckons, keep a spare filter just in case (which I do) and if it does happen, just soak you're old filter in warm/hot BD and rinse it out, he said it'll be fine again after that, you can re-use it. If cause he recomends only using the filter for it's normal service life, but you don't have to buy and additional filters this way.

Maybe it just doesn't get cold enough here for me to have to worry about it! ;-) Mind you it's 6c at the mo and I'm just about to hope into the surf and fire her up!

Bye!

Dear Jeff,

I'm worried about your supplier ... there should be no residual animal fat at all.

Biodiesel, like diesel for that matter, has a rather high gel-point - ie. it solidifies at quite high temperatures - low single digit celsius.

What ends up in your fuel filter should not be solids from the fuel at all ... if it is, he is not running the process through to completion or not separating/filtering the Biodiesel from the Glycerin (the more likely solid in the fuel).

So - filters - the filters collect the residues that have typically built up over the years from the use of fossil fuels. The biodiesel is a superior solvent and cleans off these residues which end up in ... your fuel filter. And they are usually quite evident when you clean it out.

Replacing your filter is the usual way of doing it, and once replaced the first time, it is unusual for additional residues to get flushed through, unless you strike a marked in crease in temperature later on.

Ciao for now
Andrew who thinks you are perhaps hoping on your supplier, not your surf.

I havn't had a blocked filter at all yet after 800L of BD and temperatures as low as 2.1c overnight. So I'm not worried. He's been selling the stuff for a number of years himself and runs his own vehicles (business and personal) and families vehicles off it and has done since he started manufactuering it (his son actually has a surf just like mine, he delivered my drum once when he was a little snowed under and I had a chat to him about it). I figured if these guys are and have been running it for over 2 years without any dramas other than a rare instance of a blocked filter in cold weather, I'm happy with that. That's not even getting into all of his customers who have also been running it too. He's actually looking at going into WVO mod's now too. He's looking at converting his delivery vehicle (a 75 series yota) to run BD in one tank and WVO in the aux tank with heaters and retro fitted injectors. Will be interesting to see how he goes with that, if the fuel prices keep going up, might be a good excuse to get an aux tank for the surf! LOL I've read good things about SVO convertions othes have done in both Perth and Europe.

I pump it through a clear hose from the drum and as I said earlier I put a sample in a jar each time I get a new drum, havn't seen anything visible to the naked eye.

good for you Jeff - certainly Perth is WVO capital of Australia.

Nice to see that his product quality is ahead of his rhetoric ;-)

I am ashamed to be an Australian....

Looks like I may have to go back on what I said on the Member Message and look further into the WVO in the short term.

I have emailed those links and my opinion on the issue to the sunrise soap box. Fingers crossed they may see how terrible this is for this country and put it on the air.

Tim

" Until the low sulphur diesel starts having an impact - what are you going to blame for your problems then?"

Read my original post ..Properley ..i dont remember saying i blame anyone....
Cheers .....Dave

Dave,

No you didn't, I could have worded my posting a bit better, or let it sit and review it after a while. Case of feeling a bit peeved off, and banging off a posting.

I do need to be fair to the others on the forum that are cautious about BioD. Caution is different from bagging something new. No Dave, you weren't bagging something new, just passing on an observation, and I didn't have you in mind when I wrote 'you' if you know what I mean.

What gets me peeved are people, whether they be mechanics who are saying the BioD dries the seals out, or just because an engine has stopped, or a wheel falling off like Jeff says, it all must be BioD's fault. Plainly ignorant and whats more, very keen to spread their ignorance.

At the same time we have the government bagging the BioD industry; (see my posting with the links regarding the bills in the Senate right now); supporting the big companies to break the industry standard, limit economic production of BioD to B5 AND hold an enquiry into nuclear power.

So with these two things together, I get a bit defensive and easily peeved about BioD and WVO - or any alternative fuels and innovation.

Thanks
Tim