Stop Being Ripped Off with Diesel: DIY convert to Vegetable Oil instead

welcome friend so ever I've wanted to convert this TDI to runoff straight-up vegetable oil but I've never really had the guts in this video let's take the plunge and do a two tank conversion on it so we can run off carbon neutral vegetable oil I've got two solenoid valves and I've got work out how to fit that a load of hoses are on a heat exchanger in this engine bay so let's do some brainstorming let me explain how a regular diesel fuel system works and how we're going to change it so that we can burn vegetable oil typically the main diesel tank runs through a fuel filter to the injector pump here is pressurized such that when the injectors do inject it into the cylinder its atomized or put into a fine mist the dark art of achieving a nice mist is something we'll return to as it's really important for achieving just the right kind of explosion any leftover fuel not pumped in and consumed by the engine gets sent back to the tank via the returned fuel lines there might be a few other bits and bobs like check valves to stop the injector pump draining down overnight and a lift pump to pump the fuel out of the tank who knows what witchcraft is going on in the very latest vehicles but in general for most diesel vehicles that's the system here is the fuel filter don't make a belts there so I don't want to get too close to that but if we could shift this over that way from this fuel filter I believe it comes out of this pipe just runs underneath there coming along here into here tandem pump this bad boy somehow wants to fit in the entry [Music] okay so the purpose of this no shenanigans is just working out exactly where the fuel is going and making sure I've got the supply and return lines kind of identified properly yes okay right we're still be using the diesel filter post-conversion as it were but the housing takes up a lot of room and the filter element needed changing anyway so we've got it out and about to see if we can't reach it a bit and fit the new veg oil filter alongside it somehow I don't exactly know how you assess the condition of these filters but it doesn't look super clean now the VW hose clamps are quite funky low-profile things but after pipe grip wrestling to the death with a few of them I can recommend the specialist hose clip pliers if you won't be careful how you get them off if they've been stuck on a long time breaking the seal by twisting first is normally a good idea I've got a half idea where I want to mount the auxiliary diesel fuel tank so let's see if we can't route some hoses from there into the engine bay that went well we've revealed this area where the two fuel hoses are coming in and there's space for two more here which is great news yeah it's worth putting tape over the end of that hose it might be easier to thread the second one through in the other direction you can see here there's a cooler in the regular diesel fuel circuit so I'll have to take that out I've been threading through the new pipe you can see where they're gonna go now it's conveniently following this trunking along with all along and then we're gonna come up here and in through this grommet piece that was there anyway for some cabling so it should be quite convenient really they just go into there through that sort of piece there and then all the way into the engine compartment it goes I don't fit in that here we go place so I think I work I'll just write on this where it's going if you weren't any conformance driving you and want the tank up this high really underbody ones keep it the center of mass much better so for handling that's much better but as I don't really go fast in the van I think this would be quite nicely [Music] ten connections there and just venting the tank outside fits in quite nicely I reckon not for the boy races but just gonna be nice convenient there's the fuel return and it goes down near the bottom just to prevent aeration of the water and then that's the fuel pickup you can see there this pipes gonna snag on this horrible sharp hose clamp thing so it'd be much better to be to be off now I have these special pliers I'm all about reusing these super low-profile VW hose clamps in fact I wanted to purchase some more but for the life of me I couldn't find them anywhere online let me show you what we're attempting here the main tank is going to become a vegetable oil store and the small tank we added is now gonna be the diesel store we want to add a heated fuel filter for the vegetable oil this is a common spin on filter albeit one with insulation that's mounted on a heat exchanger that pulls heat from the cooling system indeed it seems the key to successful motoring on veg oil is to reduce the viscosity enough that it mists nicely at the injectors and passes through the filter without problem there are ways to chemically reduce the viscosity but I've chosen to use a heating system to that end there's another heat exchanger here before the fuel gets to the injectors the parts I'm using here are part of the bio tuning conversion kit and full-disclosure although they didn't sponsor this video they did give me a bargain-basement deal on this kit from the heat exchanger the veg off flows to the supply valve and this select whether or not you're running veg oil or diesel the idea is to start on diesel until the engines warm and then to switch over to veggie oil which is now preheated from the engines coolant just like before we have fuel that needs to be returned to the tank but we need a way to select which tank it goes to so to do this we use another 12-volt solenoid valve van I'm converting is a 1.9 TDI pump reduce diesel so there's some differences namely that it's unit injectors that it uses and there's a tandem pump that pumps the fuel into that in fact it's the pressure and force of the tandem pump heating the fuel which is what requires that cooler you saw on the main tank return line earlier it would be counterproductive to keep that on the main tank seen as now it's used for vegetable oil but we can switch it across to the diesel now I just wanna get to the underside of this scrap car of my dad's to see if I can salvage any useful parts especially I'm looking for a lift pump that I can use on the new diesel fuel tank I think I need to butcher this heat exchanger a little bit just to make it fit a bit nicer just on the flip it they said it'll be easy to remove they said filter underneath that is the oil cooler and that's what we're unattach the coolant pipe from now hopefully and and you can drain out some of this coolant also I think that's the pipe that we're gonna try and intercept so I've got a line that's aligned so in the diagram earlier and the bio tuning instructions it says to break into the cooling system from the heater core they here I'm doing it on the way to the oil cooler because it just seemed much more convenient I think on some cars the flow of coolant to the oil cooler is controlled by the thermostat and we don't really want that restricting our flow to the heat exchangers that little section of hose there in the tea we can verify if it's ok to break into the cooling circuit here just by checking the these hoses heat up at the same rate as the heater core ones cutting into this bad boy for the return nothing I might not snip off any extra because that's gonna work just fine so just to be clear we're creating a parallel circuit here that's going to the heat exchangers probably do but it'd be nice it's a in just a little bit more that's gonna shoot over to the filter heat exchanger there this is the top and the mount and it's got these banjo fittings that you can adjust depending where you want your hoses and I've marked them so I can tighten those down in a moment and then the heat exchanger itself the coolant coming in and out of these pipes that goes on there and then you've got this little extension piece here slots up clamps that seal there and then you can shove something through there and tighten it up once you've decided exactly what angle you want that and that just pops on there and spins on and then the last thing once all this is together is to put this nice little bit of insulation nice and toasty after plenty of head-scratching and working out who's routing and the like I'm planning to put the fuel filter down here the beauty of this location at the bottom is that the filter will spin off easily and any spilt fuel just go straight on the ground all over the engine after enlarging those two decent eight mil bolt holes then time to finalize the direction of these banjos just by cinching them down onto the copper washers then I can add a bit of Loctite to this extension bar before tightening that right down that'll keep it in place with the heat exchanger so when I spin the fuel filter that's what comes off [Music] basically with this but as soon as you get into tight radius the pipe just poles like that so I thought I'd try and get round that by shoving some over some copper pipe and then I'll use my pipe vendor on it and that they forget all that I'm gonna try soldiering together these plumbing fittings and that'll also step me down to a smaller hose which is what I need to connect to the next heat exchanger anyway so here we go soldering is not the most amazing I was a bit heavy-handed with the solder but I think it'll work because I'm impatient and none of my hose clamps fit I'm having to use this I believe this is known as the clamp tight wire method and you can get a special tool to do it but one of these turnbuckles can be kind of bodged to work it's super handy because it works on basically any size of Pi and all you need to stock is lengths of wire I'm using copper here just because it's what I had but I think stainless steel is a good choice the only real downside to this method is that you need good access notice I'm not working here in a cramped engine bay but I have it out and about and I can manipulate tools around the pipe quite easily one really nice advantage though is unlike the standard Jubilee clips there's no sharp sticky-outy bits I've also heard people claim it gives a more even pressure around the circumference I don't know how much truth there is to that so let's plow on that little u-bend gets connected to the heated filter and then both hose for fuel and for coolant is coming up to the final heat exchanger where fuel gets heated it's last little bit before it gets sent into the tandem pump hi those the coolant and the heated veg oil needs to then come across the engine and for this I'm using some rigid pipe for the I'm using standard 15 mil copper pipe but for the vegetable oil I'm told that encourages polymerization which is certainly unwanted so I'm using stainless steel we now must get this because this is a grubby reclaimed pipe and I'm placing it after the fuel filter it's super important to clean out as best I possibly can these modern unit injectors have such tight tolerances and small holes just a little bit could really screw them up immediately because I flicked a thing and it pinged across and now I can't find it and it's back there somewhere so proceed dismantling on the plus side this was kind of necessary for me to get to the wires coming through from the other side so I'm trying to work out where to route the cables through from here into the engine compartment the switch and the LED indicator to tell you when you've turned it on it's all setup and quite pleased with that yes yeah okay I just fished that through a rubber seal in the bulkhead here which some other cables come through it's going from that switch there down here back here to there under that little bit of insulation around here oh hey hey okay the air box the battery it's all been reassembled that gubbins an area the supply valve is kind of set for this position here the electrics comes in nice and easily to that and the piping is coming across to it and then it's a very short distance before it reaches the tandem pump and you want to minimize that distance so the purge is very quick so it's it's looking good yep just need to plumb it up put the electrics in and test it now that's quite a tight fit I'm relatively happy with that so once you've worked out the routing the wiring is actually relatively simple because the VAIO tuning kit comes with the switch all wired up so all you need to do is basically follow the instructions and wire the valves appropriately I'm using some conduits salvaged from that scrap car you saw earlier that's gonna work quite nice I guess the secret here is to route the cables nice and neatly and away from any moving parts of the engine or heat anything like that that might degrade their insulation the valves themselves are designed with quite a nice screw clamp system for the wires the push on to the solenoid body and are held there by one screw in with the contacts is a indicator LED that's handy when you're setting these up to make sure you've got things right and we want to set them up so that they default to diesel if the power fails for some reason I've got this one here set in it's just time to do the other one because I want to transfer current diesel from the main tank to the auxiliary tank that he saw me mounting I'm gonna hook up the common exit of the supply valve to the common entry of the return valve and that way I'm gonna set it so the tank pump goes and it'll just hopefully pump the diesel into the tank and we'll see how that works now also prime the filter and everything I are only a bit being the only one that we didn't fiddle with okay take two i cinched that up a bit and we'll see if that's leaking right because this is after the fuel filter it's really important to leave the first thread bearer of teflon tape otherwise you risk bits of it coming off and getting stuck in the injectors take three teflon tape and let's try it again can't see any leaks underneath and the tank is slowly filling haven't spoiled any of the leaks around here that is working well okay Hank it's actually doing the right thing so I'm gonna try send me back to you [Music] we're back I thought I was recording that that I obviously wasn't so you've missed some exciting fuel spill around egde which I've now cleared up but we're essentially connected from the solenoid valve here to the tandem pump and this all my valve here so the proper outlet day or nice chat so okay any blings alright well this is working well cooling system not been any hints of a leak so two down there looks good solenoid boxes all back together everything's bolted down [Music] okay we're running on diesel again [Music] say Oh great [Music] [Music] okay I exaggerate a little bit and there's a big clue in this video what went wrong over here I'll leave a post player diagnosis video / engine changing video in the meantime thank you so much for watching let's get us back on the road burn adventure floor [Music] you [Music]

Channel: FloweringElbow

Views: 19,925

Keywords: Flowering Elbow, how to convert diesel to veg oil, veg oil conversion, biotuning, TDI, cooking oil, vegetable oil for diesel, top gear, top gear biofuel challenge, top gear diesel challenge, how to, cheap alternative diesel fuel, Car, Motor, frying grease in diesel, cost of vegetable oil for diesel, vegetable oil for diesel engines, cheap diesel alternative, BLS engine, fry grease, zero carbon fuel, biodiesel, Syphon, High Miles, VW Caddy, diesel tuning, Car Throttle, Veg Oil

Id: _dNTMqf5nYM

Length: 23min 24sec (1404 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 27 2020