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Biodiesel: converting a diesel bus to run on biodiesel

Colby

WOOPOOW!!
Joined
Nov 1, 2008
Messages
4,218
Location
Atlanta, GA
I am a senior in highschool and every graduating class has to do a visionquest senior project related to what we would like to do when we leave highschool. For mine, i wanted to do something with diesel engines since i would like to become a diesel mechanic. My teacher and former science teacher have gotten a bus for our schools environmental club at school, and they would like me to make it run on biodiesel for my senior project. My question is, for those of you who know about this stuff, what would it take for us to make this happen? I have the help of the county bus transportation garage and the funds from the school an i also have a mechanic helping me, but he doesnt know how to actually convert the engine, or what it needs to be done.
 
Are you going to be purchasing B100 from a local source?
Or running wavy gravy that you buy or refine yourself?

I am not sure how many cold nights you get, but you would need to look into how far they have come with anti gel agents in B100.
For wavy gravy you would need a dual tank system with a sylonoid to switch between them. Second tank would need heated, prob with heater hoses from block.

Both fuels will begin to soften standard gaskets and orings. Viton or other material will need to be used in tank/lines/filter/pump seals.

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it will run on biodiesel the way it sits... just might start to leak after a few years (which it prolly already does). Thats if you want it to just run on BIOdiesel not cooking oil. If you want long term relabilty, you need to change out fuel rail gaskets, fuel pump gaskets, fuel filler hose and maybe gaskets in the injectors. I believe the epa has a website that list which vehicles are already "ok" to run bio, I would check there first, Bio Diesel isnt nearly as corosive as eth/e85 is. My personal opinion though... I dont like the stuff. My truck lost milage, ran sluggish and stunk like burnt fries.

Making it run on cooking oil is fairly simple on the older engines. Basically you need a good filter, a second fuel tank and a diverter valve (I said basically). You warm the motor up on reg diesel and then swap over to the veg oil, MUST BE AT TEMP before you switch or it will gel to heck. Its slightly more involved than that but not a whole lot. Kind of like the bio in being vehicle specific. We did it to a tractor just by adding a diverter and a tank.
 
depending on what motor you have and how it's controlled, you could run almost anything through them as long as it's clean"thumbsup"

Any motor that doesn't have a fuel quality management will run on anything. IE 7.3l fords 12v cummins anything pre 1998 ish really Hell we ran recycled used ATF straight with it only being filtered in MSD's 99 Superduty 7.3f
 
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Old Deuces we would use used motoroil thinned with a little gas. Was the easiest way to get rid of it instead of filling out all the epa paperwork to get it disposed of.
 
Wow thanks a million for all the great info! The bus we have to work on is a 90's model blue bird with the cummins engine. My teacher was extremely relieved to find out we dont have to buy some expensive converter
 
The project is still in the planning stages, so I have no clue what fuels we are going to be running right now. Hell, I havent even seen the bus yet, I have just been told that it has a cummins engine in it. Thanks for the info, im sure when I need it I will look back at it.
 
I cant imagine gelling will be much of an issue in HotLanta... might just be a guess.

If its the 5.9 industrial engine, I'm not sure there is anything you need to do other than turn up the injector pump for a little more power :twisted:. I want to say the industrial engines have been bio ready for a long time. Not by design but because they used better/different seals etc than in the consumer engines. I know my highschool switched to Bio back when I was in school in the 90's as part of a pilot program (farm school) and all they did was put stickers on the sides of the buses (we learned all about the switch over as part of FFA). They were trying to convince the local farmers to use what they grew, had nothing to do with being green.
 
Its looking like my teacher wants to be able to go to a mcdonalds and use their grease to run in the bus. So would that be the same?
 
Its looking like my teacher wants to be able to go to a mcdonalds and use their grease to run in the bus. So would that be the same?

On extreme 4x4 they made a diesel sami that ran on filtered used veg oil. the used a small tank of straight diesel to get the engine running and up to temp then switched to the Veg after that
 
Its looking like my teacher wants to be able to go to a mcdonalds and use their grease to run in the bus. So would that be the same?


so they are wanting you to convert to run on veggie oil? it will have to be started and shut down on diesel.... once it gets goin you turn on veggie oil.... and before you shut it down, you switch back to diesel..... and get the lines cleaned of veggie oil..... wast of time IMO.... all biodiesel in general is.....

plus be ready to change fuel filters very often, unless you are gonna buy a system to make your own biofuel
 
running on used veggie oil is a royal pain in the butt. As stated above you have to start up and shutdown on reg diesel in order to keep it from gumming. Used Veg is a mess to deal with, lots of particulates in it.
 
Gotcha thanks guys. Would filtering the grease and things before it gets put into the tank be better and cleaner running? And how do you switch from the veggie to diesel? Does it require a seperate tank? Im thinking if you have to start up and shut down on diesel, i could add a small tank with diesel, and use the big tank for the oil correct? I really appreatiate all the help. Im definetly taking notes.
 
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You have to prefilter but, its still dirty... just the nature of the beast. Make sure the vehicle filters are large and easy to access/change. Your looking at most of your conversion money being spent right there. You will need a second tank and a tank diverter valve (like they use with multitank systems). You'll need a min 5 gallon of reg diesel so a small fuel cell would work.
 
Awesome! What filtors would you recomend? I will have details on the engine hopefully tomorrow.

With the tank switching valve, it would be like on some of the ford truck models? My dads f150 has two tanks so i get how that works. Where should i look to find the system?
 
Some run wavy gravy unprocessed, just filtered, but most process it.

Part1
watch


Part2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaaFsWNqLPI
 
thats the kind of switch Im talking about. Needs to be able to switched over "wet".

Ive got no opinions on filters. When I played with it, we used clean veg oil we got cheap in 55 gal drums and used it in an old tractor so filtering wasnt much of a concern.
 
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