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from GreaseCar.comWhat Is Grease Car? Grease Car is a project that has evolved over the past two years. The project grew out of "the tractor class" taught by John Fabel at Hampshire College. Justin Carven (Hampshire) and Skip Wrightson (UVM) have converted Justin's VW Westfalia van to run on used cooking grease with a water heated fuel system. They completed their cross country trip, testing the newly converted turbo-diesel engine, while stopping at restaurants to fuel up on grease. Below you can read more about Project Grease Car and how it has developed. Who or What Is Diesel? The Diesel engine was invented 1895 by Rudolph Diesel, a German inventor. Diesel hoped that his engine would run on coal dust; after several failures, he turned his attention to crude and vegetabble oils. At the 1900 World's Fair, Diesel presented an engine that ran on peanut oil. In 1911, he stated, "the Diesel engine can be fed on vegetable oils and would help considerably in the development of agriculture in the countries of the world which use it"; the idea holds true today, especially in developing countries. The Low-Down On Vegetable Diesel (and the alternatives): Vegetable diesel is simply; vegetable oil. Basic modifications can be made to common diesel engines (with pre-combustion chambers) that allow them to run on a variety of oils. In their current form, diesel engines burning vegetable oil use a "dual fuel system" much like that found in old John Deere tractors that warmed up on gasoline then were switched over to run on kerosene for regular operation. The vegetable diesel system which I have been developing enables diesel engines to run on fuels ranging from bacon grease to light salad oil by heating the fuel system to allow the fuel to pass freely through lines, filter and injectors. This system utilizes waste heat produced by the engine in the form of coolant water to heat the auxiliary fuel circuit. Currently, this requires the engine to be started on petroleum diesel fuel (or bio-diesel) until the vegetable oil tank has reached operational temperature. Once warmed, a switch is turned and pre-heated vegetable oil is burned in the engine. When the engine is to be shut down for the day the switch is turned again and the engine is run on diesel fuel for a short period to flush the engine of cooling vegetable oils. When I began working on the Bio-fuels project at Hampshire college, I became involved with a project started by Ariel Benjamin and Greg Koller and overseen by Professor John Fabel that was based on the work of Carl Beilenberg (Better World Workshop). Carl discovered that vegetable oil can be burned in a diesel engine by heating the fuel filter to enable proper fuel flow. Previous attempts to burn vegetable oil failed due to the extremely short life of fuel filters - the wax crystals that form in vegetable oil at ambient temperatures coated the filter element blocking fuel flow. The heater jacket that Carl designed encased the vegetable fuel filter and filled with hot coolant water from the engine to bring the fuel past the wax melting temperature. Carl's system was designed for use in rural Africa where vegetable oil was cheaper than petroleum and he designed a hand operated press that enables the extraction of oil from any oil rich seed. Unfortunately, vegetable oil is kept artificially high in this country due to price control and petroleum is kept low with subsidies so that is far too expensive to operate a vehicle on vegetable oil. This led me to look at other fuel alternative such as "bio-diesel," which is chemically altered vegetable oil that can be made with used cooking grease. The process involves mixing a catalyst solution of lye and methyl or ethyl alcohol with the vegetable oil in order to produce a diesel substitute that can directly replace or be mixed with petroleum diesel without modification of the engine. The utilization of waste cooking oil offered a cheap substitute for clean, filtered salad oil. I liked the idea of used cooking grease but didn't like the nasty chemicals , processing time, and bulky equipment. I knew if I was able to burn straight grease it would not only solve the expense problem of Carl's system but it would also avoid most of the steps involved with the bio-diesel processing system.
Project "Grease Car" After the success of the "Tractor Project" I turned my attention to developing a system able to utilize waste cooking grease and install it in a car. I spent $300 and purchased a 1984 VW Quantum turbo-diesel for the experiment. I then worked with "Grant-master Flash" John Fabel to get a grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance in order to fund the prototype and testing of the system. Entering into this project, I was not sure if the technology would work. I had seen how vegetable oil reacted with temperature and how it was able to flow through fuel lines but used cooking grease was a different story. At 50 degrees Fahrenheit vegetable oil will still flow fairly quickly and is translucent. Grease, however, becomes solid - the consistency of butter or shortening. Bio-diesel is produced from used grease, but once the glycerin is removed it becomes about as thin as diesel fuel. I knew Carl's filter heater would not be adequate for use of grease below extreme tropical weather but it was his concept of heating fuel that I believed would be the answer. The whole fuel system would have to be heated including lines and the tank. In the true spirit of appropriate technology I wanted to keep the system simple and requiring as little input and as few additives as possible. I was overrun with advice including suggestions of electric and solar heaters, chemical additives and engine modification, I opted not to heed any of these suggestions. I decided to stick with a simple heating system; Simple, clean, efficient and cheap. I started by looking at Carl's water jacket design, which I had problems with, due to the fairly involved fabrication process required to make it. It was also bulky and it was Carl's design. I knew I had to have my parts fit my own specifications. While I was working on the tractor, I had discussed different fuel heating methods with Carl, including wrapping the fuel line around the exhaust or around a copper insert in the water line. However, he was satisfied with his own design and didn't want to make changes. (Who can blame him - it worked) I pulled out some of my old sketches and began fabricating copper coils. After a year of testing and experimenting, I feel that I have come up with a nicely working system that enables someone to quickly install a simple after market kit in a matter of hours and pour in a variety of clean or dirty oils right into the filtering tank. The first prototype ('84 VW Quantum TD) ran for 2,000 grease miles before I retired it. I then rebuilt the motor and dropped it into my newly acquired '82 VW Westfalia. This new vehicle was assembled with the intention of driving across the country and back to log around 10,000 miles. Due to the success of the trip and the interest generated by the media I am now attempting to start the first production run of GreaseCar conversion kits for sale to the general public. -Justin Carven, Spring 2000 |
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