Alexander briefing the class prior to the project
starting, converting two diesel engines
to run on SVO, straight vegetable oil.

A view of the engine before the conversion.
The first thing was the modification of the
fuel injectors and installing longer glow plugs.

The injectors on the TDI are not replaced but just modified
by adding shims which allow the thicker SVO to inject better.  Alexander also changed the glow plugs out so to get the
ignition further into the combustion chamber.

We had to replace on of one of the return fuel lines to
the fuel tank in order to utilize the heat exchanger
that had been installed.

Alexander wanted us to drain all the biodiesel from
the tank, and yes Rachel found some soap that I believe
came from some of my earlier sloppy batches of biodiesel.
Clean fuel is critical, no matter what you are running in a
diesel engine unless you like to change your fuel filters a lot.

The finished product, I will update this image later and take
off the TDI cover so as to have a better comparison with the
original engine before the conversion.

I get to  pour in the first 5 gallons of canola oil with the help
of Tim Turner and Adrian Boggs, two new friends at met at
this workshop.  Within the next few minutes I was starting the
car up and taking it off first its first spin.   I only had 10 gallons
of virgin oil to use which go me a little over 300 miles before I had
to switch back to biodiesel.  It does seem that the engine runs better now with this conversion which I attribute to the
modifications made for the thicker viscosity of the SVO. 

This is Clark Goslee from Black Mountain, NC
240DMercedes whose car was the other one that got
converted at the workshop.

For more information contact Eric Henry  336.675.6266 eric@burlingtonbiodiesel.org