A UP resident, eh? I could have waved to you from the Mackinac bridge as I drove over it last week, on my way from BC to Ontario in 77 300D on straight (heated) veg oil.
Results: Left BC with 80 litres of microfiltered used veg oil in main tank and 25 litres of diesel in aux. tank (in trunk)...and eight 16 litre jugs in the back seat. Note that normal is diesel in main tank and veg oil in trunk. I just did it the other way around for the extra range needed on this trip. Drove to Calgary on veg oil. No problems. Filled with cheapest diesel in Canada in the land of oil. Drove to Saskatchewan. Plugged final filter. Installed spare. Drove on into Ontario, eventually partially plugged second filter by Dryden, so switched to diesel as I could not locate another filter at stores. Ended up using 128 litres (about 32 gallons) used veg oil, so around 1000 miles of the 2500 miles was on that fuel, and the rest on diesel. Left 5 jugs with new owner. Installed new final filter. Also added a heated intermediate stage (50-70 micron range) filter on arrival in Ontario (between the screen prefilter and the final already on the 300D) to prevent future $20 each final filter plugging. Note that others do not report plugging filters this often on that car on veg oil even though the final filter is quite small, so something unusual was going on. We investigated and found that the oil I left with was not, in fact, filtered properly due to a leaking filter seal in our filtration machine (since repaired). Also I had been running biodiesel prior to this trip and although I had changed the filter after a month of this, that may have contributed as well with perhaps some old deposits still being loosened in tank and lines by the biodiesel use. Also note that some of the places I bought diesel fuel were pretty crummy operations and there is always the possibility I got some dirty diesel fuel. No pusher pump used on this installation, but could be done. I have one on my Jetta since it has no mechanical pump. Have spoken with guys in Germany on the 300D and the consensus seems to be the 300D is very tolerant of straight veg oil, esp. if heated and start.stop on diesel or biodiesel. Many using in 300D. Note: car works fine on biodiesel as well, although I did note that biodiesel spilled on the older type rubber fuel line quickly attacked it. If you run biodiesel in the older models, I recommend changing. Not sure if there was more modern type rubber used by the mid-80's models. Next trip: 5000 miles on SVO with Ford diesel truck and 5th wheel. Partner and family leaving Saturday. Ed B. www.biofuels.ca ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <biofuel@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 8:19 AM Subject: Re: [biofuel] Mercedes 300D & Mili Truck was Re: Grannies and $5.00..... Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
