SMS wrote:
Al Bundy wrote:

Every little bit helps I guess. Your suggestion of not wasting a trip
is a good one. I think the biodiesel option is more hype than success
though. It needs to be processed quite a bit and mixed with regular
diesel to protect the engines and run properly. The final price is
higher than normal also.

I have a friend with a bio-diesel Mercedes that he converted. It costs
him about $1.50 per gallon to make fuel, using free oil from
restaurants. Japanese-run Japanese restaurants are the best, as they
change the oil often for tempura, so it's clean oil.

If you have to buy the bio-diesel fuel it's more expensive, but if you
make it yourself it's cheaper. He does it in his garage. Probably
violates his homeowners insurance policy!


It shouldn't cost that much to make using free waste vegetable oil (or
yellow grease.) And it should run in any diesel engine *without*
conversion. Conversion and/or blending with normal diesel fuel is when
you want to burn straight vegetable oil.

It has gotten hard to find caustic soda in small quantities, and that's
one of the raw materials (that and methanol) used to crack the
triglycerides. I wanted to try making just a quart or two of biodiesel
as an experiment, but Red Devil has stopped making lye, and I can't find
the Roebic heavy duty drain cleaner that is also pure lye. (I think
maybe it has been discontinued also.)

I think E85 gasoline can be used in place of the methanol, but then you
have to use potassium hydroxide for the catalyst.

Bob