B

boydy1989

Well-Known Member
about this old oil as a fuel... Im gonna try it myself.

Will a 10 micron filter be fine enough?

And...

what size holes have petrol and/or diesel fuel filters?

i was thinking about getting a couple of cheap fuel filters (i work at halfrauds) and using them to filter the waste engine oil, or what ever else i can find.

the other alternative i have found, a local hydraulics place will sell me a 10 micron filter unit for £30, but i would really need two, one at 30 micron also.

Any thoughts?
 
boydy1989 said:
about this old oil as a fuel... Im gonna try it myself.

Will a 10 micron filter be fine enough?

And...

what size holes have petrol and/or diesel fuel filters?

i was thinking about getting a couple of cheap fuel filters (i work at halfrauds) and using them to filter the waste engine oil, or what ever else i can find.

the other alternative i have found, a local hydraulics place will sell me a 10 micron filter unit for £30, but i would really need two, one at 30 micron also.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

An ENGINE oil filter will generally PASS (allow through) any particle smaller than about 30 - 25 microns. A normal DIESEL FUEL filter will normally filter a bit finer than a normal engine oil filter, say that it will definitely NOT pass anything bigger than about 20 - 25 microns. A TD5 fuel filter is designed to stop anything bigger than about TEN microns from passing through. This is because the TD5 injectors work at such incredible pressures and have such fine tolerances. That is why TD5 fuel filters can clog up so quickly.

Anyway, if you filter first through a 30 and then through a 10, you may find that for every 10 filter you need to change, you might need to change several of the 30s. Experience will tell you. A simple pressure gauge in the feed to the first filter in the line will show INCREASING pressure as the filters get choked with crap.

The fact is, if you let the oil settle for a while in a tank, and pump it off the top to avoid lifting the crap and sludge at the bottom, (a) you will end up with excellent fuel in a single pass, and (b) your filtering system should last a very long time. Let's face it - how many gallons a week do you use anyway? 10? 20? 40? 40 gallons a week might be 1,000 miles a week, and that's a lot.

Just work out a way to reduce the viscosity (thickness) of the oil OR instead simply run on a mixture of diesel and recovered oils. Of course, if you are lucky, your recovered oils may be fine just the way they are.

CharlesY
 
Last edited:
i was planning on using it alongside pump diesel to thin it, as im not sure i can get kero very easily up here, or if my landlord would like me storing it :)

So, just to confirm, if i get an in line fuel filter suited to a more modern diesel vehicle, and also one more suited to an older vehicle, and run them in line, (obviousl the larger one first) this I will have filtered it enough to run it in my 300TDi?

My only concern would be damage to the injectors.

I dont do that heavy milage in a week, maybe 4 gallons a week.

That said, in jus under 2 weeks i have a near 1000 mile drive coming up, and would quite like to reduce the cost of this. :)
 
and also, will running this through filters using only gravity take that long its not worth trying, or will it be ok for the small amount i will use?
 
Gravity takes ages. It was taking overnight to filter 18 litres through two inline fuel filters but as they get clogged up it slows to virtually nothing very quickly.
I'm going to try and put together a cheap pumped system but it will have to wait as I've just got a contract in Algeria for 28 days starting Saturday.
When I say cheap it's still looking like £250 for the pump and filter units.
 
coudln't you use an old car fuel pump to pump it? They seem to pump at a hell of a rate. is this likely to work OK?
 
Sounds to me like you're heading for free fuel.

Car fuel pump would be struggling to make enough pressure - barely 4 psi most of them.

Yes, your two filter setup would be good,

NO, the injectors won't come to harm from any fuel that has passed through those filters. Injectors aren't nearly as fussy about fuel as popular legend suggests. Get an old one and take it to bits. Dead easy. Two minutes to its component parts, and the same to re-assemble it. Setting the spring pressure needs a pressurising tool. I have that here for LandyZoners within reach.

CharlesY
 
I think this sounds like a bit of a personal challenge. Don't think i'm going to get it done in time for the journey to surrey and back, but, while im there i think I will visit the breakers yard and get a handful of proper filter heads, with screw on canisters.

I may even get 4, so i can run two filters in parallel to aid gravity fed filtring.

Then, to look for a simple pump...

Anyone got an old oil fired heating system i can salvage parts from? :)
 
boydy1989 said:
I think this sounds like a bit of a personal challenge. Don't think i'm going to get it done in time for the journey to surrey and back, but, while im there i think I will visit the breakers yard and get a handful of proper filter heads, with screw on canisters.

I may even get 4, so i can run two filters in parallel to aid gravity fed filtring.

Then, to look for a simple pump...

Anyone got an old oil fired heating system i can salvage parts from? :)
Click to expand...
Boydy
Where and when you coming to Surrey?
I'm near Woking so we could meet up if you fancy a brew.
Trouble is I'm off to Algeria on 6th until 20th April.
Let me know by PM if you dont want to tell the world.
 
Alright where did mine go wrong then.
Got hold of about 25ltr old engine oil, filtered it through a halfurd large (cost about a tenner) fuel filter then mixed at a ratio of 1ltr waste oil to 2ltr pump diesel ended up with about 20 ltrs of this mix, put it in the tank which was just over 1/4 full ran fine at first so put some more in but now the smoke out the back. Put it this way could sell the thing to the Army on Salisbury Plain as a smoke machine! Power what power! bugger all from it, even put some where like £20 pump diesel in it still smokes like bugger.
DO you think its knackered now or is the mix just wrong
Oh its a 200Tdi
 
Something else has taken place. Your fuel mix should have been just fine. It seems to have been OK to start with, then it went wrong at the second fill?

I'm thinking hard ....

Meantime if you can, drain out the tank. Get it back to mostly diesel and let's hope the engine runs OK again.

CharlesY
 
CharlseY

Thats what i was thinking or not regarding the engine. Thinking rings on one piston:( hope not as the things not done that many miles about 100k. Yes going to try and drain whats left and change the filter to try and get whats left out. oh if it helps when cold runs on 3 till its hot.
Can you hear broken rings on these engines?
 
Shifty1962 said:
Boydy
Where and when you coming to Surrey?
I'm near Woking so we could meet up if you fancy a brew.
Trouble is I'm off to Algeria on 6th until 20th April.
Let me know by PM if you dont want to tell the world.
Click to expand...

no problem telling people... i think...

am going down there around the 14th, an back up on the 19th, so you wont b about unfortunately.

Bit of a shame, but never mind.
 
motiztab said:
CharlseY

Thats what i was thinking or not regarding the engine. Thinking rings on one piston:( hope not as the things not done that many miles about 100k. Yes going to try and drain whats left and change the filter to try and get whats left out. oh if it helps when cold runs on 3 till its hot.
Can you hear broken rings on these engines?
Click to expand...
If its running on three then it can't be the fuel. My TD5 did not like much more than a 30% mix but its a bit more choosy than a Tdi.
Sounds like you have a cylinder down on compression for one reason or another. If it gets better once hot its probably rings as valves either work or not.
If you take the oil filler off are you getting blow-by puffs out of the filler when the engine is running?
 
Shifty1962

Your thinking along the lines of what I was:( Just hoping that someone would say yeh the mix was wrong however i think that i do have a iffy injector came to that idea when doing the head gasket a couple of months back just cannot remember whih one was changed. Knowing my luck at the moment where one thing after the other is going wrong in life iam going to be the one with broken rings etc!
 
Keep the faith matey. Its a landrover and having seen how they keep them running all over Africa I'm converted.
I was sh*tting myself when I first went with the home brew fuel mix as I could not afford to fix anything that broke. However a few months later I've saved a few quid, my motor is running OK, it's passed its latest MOT, and the work has started to come in again. Potentially I can get my hands on thousands of litres of used oil each year for nothing and this all represents a saving of about £1 per litre at todays prices.
My old lady thinks I'm daft but she'll happily spend the savings.;)
I have to admit I favour used Hydraulic oil as its cleaner and thinner than used engine oil, but the latest experiment is with "spark eroder fluid" which shows potential. After all is said and done Oil is Oil so go with what you can get.
I'm going the whole hog and going to build a pumped filtration rig. I should easily cover the cost within the first year on the savings made on fuel.
 
Ilson lad said:
Wot about mounting a washing machine (230v) pump on a wooden plinth & using that?:)
Click to expand...

That's a centrifugal pump for moving water at virtually no pressure. It will not move oil hardly at all, and the motor will go up in flames in the process, as the rotor will not spin, so no back-EMF, so the windings will draw a huge current and melt.

Sorry ...

CharlesY
 
CharlesY said:
That's a centrifugal pump for moving water at virtually no pressure. It will not move oil hardly at all, and the motor will go up in flames in the process, as the rotor will not spin, so no back-EMF, so the windings will draw a huge current and melt.

Sorry ...

CharlesY
Click to expand...
:D:D Cheers Charles! Just trying to make use of a new pump I never fitted;)
 
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