Another Biodiesel Rant
So I have been getting myself all worked up about the fact that SoDak was still not starting well cold. It would chuggaluggakathunkathunkawaddadatablatatatatatatatatatatatatata and then run just fine. Alot of white smoke came out in the process. Turns out the batch of batch of biodiesel I had was at fault. 1/2 a tank of petro diesel and she's starting perfectly cold. In addition, the VW Jetta TDI was running sluggishly. A couple gallons of pertro diesel and she's MUCH more peppy. I don't know what these morons are doing. Get the kinks worked out before you subject us all to your sophomoric chemistry experiments. University of Minnesota professor Dr. David Kittelson recommended that I run a max of B20. I'm inclined to follow his recommendations to avoid future problems. As much as this pains me, unless you're making B100 yourself, I'd recommend following his advice as well.
posted by Mr. Winberg @ 12:52 PM
5 Comments:
Just as I suspected- but thanks for the reminder. In around 400,000 mi. of trucking (including 4 winters), I don't think I had fuel problems more than twice, and even then- a. it may not have been the supplier's fault, and b. it didn't result in a complete shutdown.
-and I always bought the least expensive or most convenient fuel, as needed. A lot of truckers are picky about where they buy fuel. I could never tell the difference.
Bad petrodiesel is ususaly pretty hard
to find.
I wonder what work you have had to do on the Volvo turbo diesel in order to have it running on biodiesel?
Nothing but changing any rubber fuel lines over to plastic/vinyl.
Hi mycolepdodiscus
Thanks for that, I have just realised you were the owner of 'sodak', have viewed that blog, very interesting and you clearly know a lot about these cars. I am almost ready to take the plunge and go over to bio. One last worry - on a Volvo Community blog, one member is sure that his third only ever fill of bio was responsible for the shaft seal going on his pump, but perhaps this was a coincidence and it was about to go anyway? I have read time and time again that these Bosch pumps are fine with bio and veggie oil?
What is responsible for the seal going? Pure speculation on his part. My seal was fine after running a summer's worth of B100. The more common failure is a failure of the seal due to a bad shaft bushing (according the Bosch rebuild shop that I dealt with).
Post a Comment
<< Home