Isuzu Trooper Owners Club UK™

[Monty666]

Hi another newby!
I run a '97 Vauxhall Monterey on 100% bio and it runs great.
The legal requirements are that you can manufacture up to 2500ltrs per year for your own private use without having to pay duty.
The engine runs far smoother than on normal fossil diesel, I had the engine running when I first filled the tank and you hear any diesel 'clatter' disapear as soon as the fuel reaches the engine (and no it hadn't stopped).
The cetane rating of properly produced bio is quite a lot higher than normal diesel and I seem to get a couple more miles to the gallon.
As bio has a natural cleaning effect you have to change the fuel filter after a couple of hundred miles as any gum/varnish depoits from the tank fuel lines will be semi disolved and deposited there.
As my bio is made from new oil and has no chunks of chips in it the filter change period can be extended to twice the usual interval, the engine oil looks more like that of a petrol engine, no black carbon deposits.
I still have winter to get through so will probably have to use a blend to prevent waxing of the filters but as its costing me 50p litre at the moment I can probably live with it....  

Regarding using SVO or vegi oil blends - This will screw up your engine, you will also need preheaters, extra filters and a friend on call with a recovery vehicle.
Diesels were made to run on vegi oil in the first place (good old Otto) but were very simple compared with todays engines. Using straight vegi oil will destroy your engine at some point (as will poor quality bio) When they intoduced the exemption from duty earlier this year I did a few months of research including visiting a number of bio diesel producers (one of which makes 10,000 liters per batch), these guys have been doing this for several years and are experts on what you can and can't do - If it was possible to run on vegi oil they wouldn't be spending hundreds of thousands on bio plants!!

[Google]

[markymoan]

Mine has run quite happily for over a year on veg, cooking oil, lamp oil, parrafin etc, .
Granted i use a mix and its a 2.8 wich will run on pee given the chance  
But i would never run a new truck on svo as it will eat the seals, the older trucks are ok though  
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[Monty666]

Must admit something I havn't tried - yet.
Perhaps Sunday morning after a heavy Saturday night would be the ideal time?
Seriously though, look at the outside of an old chip pan thats the sort of cr*p thats being left as a deposit inside your engine if you use new or waste vegi oil.
Your right an older technology diesel will run on just about anything - just depends on how long you want to run it for..

[markymoan]

Waste oil is full of water, thats a no no unless its processed properly.
The best stuff is the cheapest stuff, its thinner  
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[kylecollie]

i have been running my mk1 2.5 pajero on a 50/50 mix with no problems exept when i overdid the veg oil it wouldnt go above forty and realy struggled on hills,i have cut back since weather has got colder as it really struggled to start down to about 30/70 no probs at moment

[kingbeau]

I've been reading into this and, this morning decided to give it a try with new cheap cooking oil.
Just to dip my toe in first so to speak, I put in 15 litres of diesel, then went off to asda to buy 5 litres of cooking oil.
Changed my mind when I saw the price though... the cheapest stuff they had was £2.48 for a 3 litre bottle !
That's not very much of a saving is it?? That's only around 50p I'm saving per 3 litres over proper diesel.
Certainly not worth the risk.

Is anyone else using new oil and how much are you paying?

I had read somewhere that it's only around 50p a litre???
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[wayneh]

if you shop about you can get veg oil for as little as 43p per ltr, i'm considering running on a petrol parrafin mix

[Hard1]

I think the veg oil price will continue to rise as the USA goes nuts on producing Ethanol from traditional veg oil crops. Some wag over there obviously thinks it's possible to "grow your own" fuel thus depriving world markets of veg oils used for vital animal feeds etc.....

Not only that but the massive switch to rape seed growing is also beginning to impact on traditional cereal crops, thus putting pressure on food costs in general.

So, up up up and away out of sight seems to be the coming mantra....

Personally, I have pumped my tyres up rock hard, travelling at 50 mph ish and the electric fan job has just received full no. 1 priority, putting off-roading toys on the back burner for now  

I keep the veg oil for frying the eggs.....
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1999 Cougar with a NICE motor..

Click HERE to see under my bonnet!

[Philp]

I am seriously considering proper bio-diesel as the prices go up and up.  When we move house I hope to have enough space to build my own reactor but for the time being I would have to buy it in.  I take it from the above that a late 3.1 will run happily on bio with just an extra filter change  here and there at the beginning?  I'd even consider setting up a small oil tank and buying in bulk if that made it cheaper.  They even do bio heating oil now so if the next house has oil fired heating I'd also look at switching to that.
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Phil

96 or is it a 98 Isuzu Bighorn Lotus

[I_n_K]

[Hard1]

Amazingly Phil, you can't buy bio-diesel in this neck of the woods. It's probably because we're all rich and 99% responsible for global warming in the first place.....
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1999 Cougar with a NICE motor..

Click HERE to see under my bonnet!

[Hard1]

[I_n_K]

Cheers . . . been giving the tyres a cursory glance these last coupla days, thinking I should check them but not really knowing what they should be at... 35-40 it is  
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'93 Trooper Duty 3.1TD

[Philp]

I have a feeling the tyre place put something ridiculous in my new tyres as they feel very hard, I need to get the pressure gauage out and check them.  

Hard1, theres a few places up here selling bio diesel, I may just get a few five gallon cans  and give it a whirl when I get back from France in a couple of weeks time.
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Phil

96 or is it a 98 Isuzu Bighorn Lotus

[Webby]

[quote="Hard1"]I think the veg oil price will continue to rise as the USA goes nuts on producing Ethanol from traditional veg oil crops. Some wag over there obviously thinks it's possible to "grow your own" fuel thus depriving world markets of veg oils used for vital animal feeds etc.....

Not only that but the massive switch to rape seed growing is also beginning to impact on traditional cereal crops, thus putting pressure on food costs in general.
[quote]
Without going too far off topic, its more to do with the fact that the vast majority of the Ethanol plants are farmer owner co-operatives.  So there is a much greater incentive so send their crops there.  The quality requirements are less than for milling, there's not a huge difference in price and they get a return on the profits made by the plant.  As a byproduct they are also less reliant on the oil market as a country.
I won't start on food costs as that will really derail this thread.  

Back to tyre pressures, don't increase the pressures too much as any increases in mpg you may gain will be lost with the increased tyre wear in the centre of the tread.  Personally when my truck was running standard tyres, i had them between 55 and 60psi with no ill affects, but that was due to the load they were carrying mainly.
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Isuzu Trooper SWB 3.0DT Commercial