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Frequently Asked Questions
and General Information
Click On Any Topic or Question Below
WHY EVEN CONSIDER A CONVERSION? Why am I reading this?
Is everything I need to know right here?
Seems like there’s disagreement on some issues out there. What gives?
Why should I consider converting my car?
THE BASICS OF RUNNING DIESEL ENGINES ON VEGETABLE OIL?
What happens when the engine runs on cold oil, such as...?
Can I convert my gasoline car to run on veggie oil?
Can a converted car still run on diesel – or biodiesel?
SINGLE VS. DOUBLE TANK CONVERSIONS
THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF WHAT WE DO
HOW DO I WORK THIS THING? - A guide to your new veg vehicle
Two tank systems- The Veg Switch
Changing the veg filter - Bleeding air from the system
How do emissions compare to other fuels?
Aren’t diesel engines inherently “dirty”?
Then why can’t you buy a new diesel car in California?
Why shouldn’t I just buy virgin at Costco for my fuel?
Filtered Waste Vegetable Oil For Sale!
GETTING WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil) YOURSELF
So I can just pull into a restaurant parking lot and start pumping their WVO?
Where can I get WVO, if not a restaurant?
What do I have to do to the WVO before putting it in my car?
A: Because you are smart and considerate. While we love talking to our clients, they (and you) would rather have us working on their cars than fielding questions that are easily answered here. Therefore we beg you to PLEASE read through this FAQ thoroughly before calling us with questions.
Q: Is everything I need to know right here?
A: Mostly. However, we are mechanics, not encyclopedists. There are many excellent -- and much more thorough -- sources on this subject online. We point to many of them in this FAQ, and you should also see our “links” page. We strongly encourage you to go out there and read everything you can before making any decisions. Really, you only need a couple of hours to become quite well-informed.
Q: Seems like there’s disagreement on some issues out there. What gives?
A: The short answer: people like arguing. The longer answer: rigging cars to run on (Straight Vegetable Oil) is a pretty new field of endeavor. It takes years to properly test equipment and theories even when government and big industry are investing – and in this case, they aren’t. Yet. But the fact that you’re reading this probably means that you don’t need absolute certitude in order to forge ahead and do what seems to be the right thing. So take our advice: note the points of contention, but focus on the areas of consensus. Here are some things that nearly every informed person agrees on:
- Most diesel automobiles can run on indefinitely and with no ill effects provided that oil is heated properly and certain other simple measures are taken.
- Thousands of diesel cars and trucks have been running on for years. Including ours.
- Burning in your engine is absolutely better for the environment than burning petro diesel (see “Environmental Questions” for details).
- Grease cars are, by a significant margin, cooler than hybrids.
Why should I consider converting my car?
Three principle reasons spring to mind.
- Geopolitics: Do you believe that countries should be ruled by kings? Do you think our government should be in the business of supporting kings? The answer should be obvious. However, the king of Saudi Arabia, as well as other comically villainous tyrants, have oil that we desperately need. Consequently, we suck up to them. It’s embarrassing. If there is anything that our 230-year-old democracy should be clear about, it’s that kings are bad. Let’s stop needing their oil.
- Environment: If you believe that global warming is a myth, that automobiles can’t possibly be contributing to the heating of our planet, please email us. (How did you find this website?) While burning is worse for the atmosphere than not burning it, burning petrofuel is much worse. See “Environmental Questions” for an explanation of carbon-neutrality. Aside from the question of greenhouse-gas emissions, getting crude oil out of the ground, refined, and into your car is an ecological disaster from start to finish.
By contrast, -burning cars have the opportunity to turn a waste product into fuel. If you get your oil from a restaurant (or from us in San Francisco), you are taking a substance that would otherwise probably be shipped a great distance by diesel-burning trucks (it’s often used in cosmetics and animal feed), and using it locally in place of a nasty toxic chemical (diesel) that came to you from the other side of the world, in a series of chemical-oozing, smoke-belching conveyances.
- Money: As if all the foregoing were not enough, dig this: you can get your fuel for free. Restaurants ordinarily pay someone to haul away their used vegetable oil. Many of them are happy to give it to you. If you don’t mind a little legwork and lifting, you can save yourself a heck of a lot of money. See “Getting .” Or you can buy high-quality, filtered from us at roughly half the price of diesel. Or check craigslist.com – many people are selling filtered waste oil. You can even buy virgin oil at Costco for less than diesel – though ecologically speaking, there are some good reasons not do that.
THE BASICS OF RUNNING DIESEL ENGINES ON VEGETABLE OIL
A century ago, Rudolf Diesel designed one of his earliest engines to run on just about anything, including peanut oil. The engine that is named after him uses higher pressures and temperatures to create the explosions in the piston chambers than conventional gasoline-powered engines. This makes the engine more fuel-efficient, and allows it to burn fuel that does not combust at lower temperatures, or in the presence of a mere spark.
Of course, modern diesel engines are designed for the fuel known as “petrodiesel” – or just “diesel” – a fuel refined from crude oil that is distinguished from “gasoline” by being slightly thicker and more energy-rich. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel for a good primer on diesel.
This means that diesel engines want to run on a fuel that has the physical properties of petrodiesel – most importantly, its viscosity (thickness) and chemical properties. Vegetable oil at room temperature is much thicker than diesel, but if it’s heated to a certain temperature (about 160 degrees Fahrenheit), it attains the same viscosity as diesel, and will combust fully. Therefore, the biggest factor in veggie conversions is making the oil hot before it hits the injectors.Q: What happens when the engine runs on cold oil, such as when you start it up with a single-tank conversion?
A: See “Single- Vs. Double-tank Conversions” below.
Fortunately, you have an excellent source of heat under your hood: the coolant that circulates around and through the engine. While many conversions, including ours, employ electric heat-exchangers that run off your battery, the primary means of heating the veggie oil fuel is usually coolant.
As for chemical properties: veggie oil is an organic solvent and will clean out the carbonized sediment left behind from years of running on sooty diesel and will leave your vehicle running cleaning then before. If you would like to run Biodiesel ( an alkyl-ester made from veggie oil) we will have to install special chemical grade fuel lines as Biodiesel eats through conventional fuel lines, among other things.
Lastly, vegetable oil is much more, uh, oily than diesel. It lubricates, whereas diesel actually dries out whatever it touches. So engines running on veggie oil tend to run quieter, and many owners report that they go through less engine oil.
For more nitty-gritty, check out Frybrid’s site: http://www.frybrid.com/.htm.Q: Can I convert my gasoline car to run on veggie oil?
A: Absolutely not. Only diesel engines can be converted. You should probably buy a diesel. We did and have been smiling past the gas station ever since.
Q: Can a converted car still run on diesel – or biodiesel?
A: Yes. In fact, you can mix veggie oil, diesel, and biodiesel in any proportion in your fuel tank. The engine doesn’t care.
A: No. Biodiesel is made by treating veggie oil with methanol and lye, among other things, in order to remove the glycerin, which is the component that gives veggie oil its thickness and oiliness. Biodiesel can be used in any diesel engine with almost no modifications (just have to change out some fuel lines and probably the fuel filter), and it can be used in a VegRev Biodiesel grade system, just tell us you want your system to be capable of running biodiesel and we’ll upgrade the fuel lines for you. While we are big proponents of biodiesel over petrodiesel, there’s no denying that making biodiesel involves toxic and explosive chemicals (at best Biodiesel is at least 20% petrol-based chemicals, and we strongly feel that if you can use instead, you’re doing the earth and your bank account a favor.
SINGLE VS. DOUBLE TANK CONVERSIONS
Let’s review: to combust fully, and therefore not leave carbon deposits on your injectors and cylinder walls (which will eventually kill many engines) vegetable oil must be heated to about 160 degrees Fahrenheit before entering the injectors.
Because there is no practical way to heat your fuel to this temperature before starting your engine, this means that your engine should start on a fuel that is already thin, such as diesel or biodiesel. Once the engine is at normal operating temperature (just a few minutes), and your heat-exchangers have had a chance to heat the , it’s safe to run the engine on . Note that it is also important to “purge” the engine of vegetable oil before turning it off and letting it cool. Otherwise, you’ll end up with cold vegetable oil in the fuel lines, pumps and and injector heads, and the next time you start it, you’ll be doing what we just said you shouldn’t do two paragraphs ago.
Thus: two fuel tanks -- one to hold the diesel or biodiesel that you use to start and purge your engine, and another one for the vegetable oil is the safest bet for your engine.A: Yes, yes, we know. Many people, especially Mercedes owners, have single-tank conversions that have run smoothly for years. We even offer single-tank conversions! But let’s be clear: the safest, most “proper” conversion is a two-tank system, in which the engine never burns fuel that is not the proper viscosity – i.e., cold . Most mechanics and conversion companies will express something between doubt and horror about single-tank conversions. (On the other hand, some specialize in them.)
That said, Mercedes diesel sedans built between 1978 and 1985 have legendarily strong and resilient engines, and certain favorable characteristics in their combustion process. If the climate is warm enough, and you do it right, you can indeed drive your Mercedes on for tens of thousands of miles at least – perhaps indefinitely. There are even VW Jettas, Ford and Chevy trucks, and other diesel cars that are running single-tank systems, using special glow-plugs, injector nozzles, etc. to get around the issue of cold starts.
This is the single most contentious issue in the business, and we aren’t going to solve it here. (See http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_.html#1tank for a long discussion.) Suffice it to say that if you want a single-tank conversion you are both in good company, and a bit of a test-pilot. Unless you go for the very expensive Elsbett single-tank conversion (http://www.elsbett.com/us/elsbett-conversion-technology/cars-and-vans.html) or another like it, you will be starting on cold ; therefore incomplete combustion will occur, and carbon deposits will be made deep in the bowels of your engine. Whether that damage will actually hurt or kill your engine depends on many things: the kind of engine, the climate, the quality of the fuel, the speed with which your system gets the to the right temperature, etc.
The only well-documented scientific study on this topic that we know about showed that a diesel tractor engine was killed by unheated . The data on converted Mercedes, etc., is simply not yet scientifically verified or quantified, as far as we know.
We don’t recommend single-tank conversions for anything but Mercedes Benzes. Here’s one way to think about it: if you bought a 1981 Mercedes with 250,000 miles on it (those engines can do 500,000) for $2000, you might well be happy to get 50 or 100,000 miles out of it – indeed, your fuel savings using could easily pay for the conversion and maybe even the car by the time it goes kaput. If you dropped 25 large on a 2006 Jetta TDI, you probably don’t want to take the risk. Go double-tank.
One last thing to consider when thinking about a single tank system. When your single tank fuel filter clogs, as they all do eventually, and your car starts losing power, hopefully you won’t be on the on-ramp to the Bay Bridge. Normally, when your single tank system starts losing power due to a clogged filter you will be able to make it home no problem, yet that one time having your car die on the Bay Bridge will leave you wishing you had a two-tank system (just push a button and keep on driving). Having us install a pressure gauge (see Our Systems below for details) to monitor the veg filter life can also mitigate the above scenario. With our two tank system you would simply press a button and continue driving on bio or dinodiesel and change that filter whenever you have time. If you are fueling up at VegRev, with our high quality filtered WVO (waste vegetable oil), changing your veg fuel filter will be nothing more than a routine maintenance procedure like changing your engine oil filter.
THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF WHAT WE DO
Principally, we design systems that will enable any diesel vehicle out there to run on WVO (see Projects page for examples). We also install WVO kits from any of the major WVO kit providers (see links page for a list of kit providers). We sell filtered WVO, see the contacts page for details. We also do repairs on anything veg related; e.g changing fuel filters, replacing and upgrading fuel lines to Biodiesel grade, troubleshooting faulty systems, completing conversions that other mechanics and/or DIY’ers got stuck ½ way through – happens more than you’d think. As it is the socio-political and environmental aspects of veg fuel that truly inspire and motivate us and not just our desire to be covered in grease, we don’t do general mechanic work. We recommend that anyone buying a diesel vehicle for WVO or biodiesel use locate a diesel mechanic immediately upon purchasing the vehicle.
HOW DO I WORK THIS THING? - A GUIDE TO YOUR NEW VEG VEHICLE
Congratulations! You've made the move, decided to take action and joined the ranks of the few, the proud, the greasy, and had you your vehicle upgraded to run on vegetable oil. And you may be asking yourself, "how do I drive this thing?" First off, fear not. It's simple, easy and clearly not rocket science, however, I await my first veggie powered jet flight anxiously.
Every two tank system, at very least, has a veg switch and a fuel guage. The veg fuel gauge is just like any other fuel gauge, except that when a veg fuel gauge is at the half way point it always read half full and never half empty ;)
The veg switch is a three way switch for: 1) diesel (or biodiesel), 2)veg, and 3)purge. The veg switch will either be installed with a vertical of horizontal orientation depending on the vehicle and customer preference. If the switch is installed horizontally the veg setting will be to the right (the mnemonic being "right on veg!"). The middle, or default setting is for diesel/ biodiesel, ( whichever your start up fuel is). The left setting is for "purge". If the switch is positioned vertically, the veg setting will always be to the top (the mnemonic this time being "up with veg!"). The middle setting will again be diesel/ BioD, and the bottom setting will be purge.
So you wake up in the morning and get ready for the day, make some home fries, drain the excess grease into your veg tank and get ready to take off. You'll start you vehicle just like to always did, with the key. Make sure the veg switch is in the middle position for diesel/BioD. After your vehicle is up to normal operating temperature (you'll have to figure out what this is for your vehicle by watching your water temperature gauge. It should only take a few minutes to reach normal operating temp.) press the fuel selecting switch to the veg setting and drive on as if nothing's changed, aside from perhaps a bit more of a smug attitude in the driver. If you have injection line heaters or a vegtherm installed you can switch over to veg a little before you reach full operating temperature. Before you turn the car off you'll have to put the veg switch in the purge setting for an amount of time that we will determine for you when we install your system; usually between 20-30 seconds. The caveat to purging is, if your 100% certain that you will be turning the car back on within 40-minutes in warm wheather (70 degrees and above) you don't need to purge as the vegetable oil will still be hot enough to be safe for the injectors. Adjust the time stopped and ambient temps by increments of 10; e.g. 60 degress don't leave car off without purging for more than 30-minutes. Always purge if you are not sure how long the car will be turned off for. Indirect injection vehicle such as the Merecedes diesels and some of the early Dodge and Ford trucks can start on warm (not hot, not cold) veg without a problem. All direct injection vehicle; TDI, PowerStrokes etc, should never be switched over to veg unless the system is hot.
CHANGING THE VEG FILTER / BLEEDING AIR - Two Tank Sytems
Regardless of what veg system you had installed, you have a veg filter. And like any oil or fuel filter, it will clog. If you have a pressure gauge you can monitor the filter from inside the vehicle. If you don't have a gauge, you'll have to wait till the you feel the vehicle losing some power to know that the filter is clogged. (If you have a single tank system, do not wait to change the filter once you feel it losing power. Change the filter immediately - when you get home or to your destination.) All you lucky folks that have a two tank system, when you feel a lose of power due to a clogged filter, just switch the veg switch over to the diesel/biodiesel setting and change the filter at your earliest convenience.
Step one: Replace old filter.
If you have a Stanadyne filter, screw the black plastic collar clockwise (if looking down from the top) until it comes lose. Now pull on the filter element until it comes lose. When putting the replacement filter in be sure that the metal tab on the top of the filter matches the slot in the filter ("head") housing. Once you have the filter back in the housing and the black collar screwed back in, unscrew the cap on top of the filter housing and fill the filter with CLEAN vegetable oil.
For all other filters, simply remove the old filter, fill the replacement with CLEAN vegetable oil and screw back into the filter ("head") housing.
Step two: prime the system.
Turn the vehicle over in the diesel setting and then hit the purge button and let the system purge for twice as long as your recommended purge time or about a minute (we will tell your purge time when you come to get your newly converted vehicle).
After you switch back to normal diesel mode, let the engine warm up to normal operating temperature. Now you will most likely need to bleed some air out of the veg fuel lines. With the engine warm, switch over to veg for 1 second and then quickly switch back to diesel (not purge). If you feel the engine is about to die, step on the accelerator until it feels like it has bled the air out. You will feel the engine's rpm's rev like it normally does (no hesitation or lack of power)when the air has passed. Now repeat the above procedure with increasing veg fuel intervals; 3-second on veg - back to diesel until idling normally, 5-seconds on veg - back to diesel until idling normally.You should only need to do this 3-5 times at most before all air has been bled from the system and you're cruising on veg again.
If at any point your vehicle dies due to fuel starvation caused by air in the lines, simply switch over to normal diesel mode and prime the fuel system to evacuate the air from the fuel lines. (Pre-'87 Mercedes need to use the hand primer pump to bleed air from the system, '87 and beyond Mercedes are all self priming - just keep turning the car over. Most truck are self priming except early Dodge's that have the hand primer pump. All VW TDI's are self priming.)
CHANGING THE VEG FILTER / BLEEDING AIR - Single Tank Sytems
When your filter clogs on the single tank system you'll need to change it immediately as you don't have a second tank/ filter to rely on. You'll know you're filter is clogged either by reading your vacuum gauge or by feeling a lose of normal driving power. When the filter is clogged follow these steps:
1) Unscrew and remove the old filter
2) Fill the new filter up with clean veg
3) Screw filter into filter head making sure there's a good seal
4) Using the manual three way valve, open the loop so that fuel is returning back to tank and pump the hand primer 20+/- times.
5) If the car doesn't want to start or dies shortly after starting, pump the hand primer several more times
6)After the car is running leave the loop open for the first 5+/- miles of driving then close the loop and keep it closed until you need to change the filter again or get air trapped in the system.
Q: How do emissions compare to other fuels?
A: Definitive answers are surprisingly hard to come by. Here’s what we can say with certainty:
- has no sulfur in it. Sulfur is a one of the worst pollutants in petrodiesel.
- is “carbon-neutral” – meaning that the amount of carbon released in its combustion is no greater than the amount of carbon absorbed from the atmosphere by the plant that yielded it in the first place. Petrodiesel, by contrast, releases carbon that was locked up in the earth’s crust for millions of year, and probably should have stayed there.
- Many studies point to a net reduction in carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, in -burning cars vs. diesel-burning cars.
As far as other pollutants, such as particular matter, Nitrous Oxide, etc., there doesn’t seem to be a strong consensus. And it depends on your car, your conversion, and your variety of . But no study we’ve seen says that pollutes significantly more in any category.
Here’s the crux: as a biomass fuel that is free of sulfur, emissions are without a doubt less harmful to the environment and less harmful to living things. A serious article about emissions: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ro_rev.html#1intro.
Q: Aren’t diesel engines inherently “dirty”?A: Myth! In fact, the opposite is true. Diesel engines are much more efficient than gasoline engines, meaning that they use less fuel and therefore emit fewer gases. In addition, diesel engines last twice as long as gasoline engines. Imagine how much fuel is burned in the manufacture of a new car, and then imagine not having to buy one for 12 more years because your Benz is still running.
The main reason diesels got the bad rap is the quality of diesel fuel sold in the U.S. It’s dirtier and smellier and results in more “particulate matter” than unleaded. This is not inherent in the fuel: European diesel, for example, is much cleaner than ours. And, in fact, California just started mandating the sale of “ultra low sulfur” diesel.Q: Then why can’t you buy a new diesel car in California?
A: The charitable answer is “idiocy,” but we suspect a vast industrial/governmental conspiracy against biodiesel and . While it’s true that gallon-per-gallon, diesel fuel results in more pollution than unleaded, diesel cars get much better mileage. A Jetta TDI can get 45mpg; your average Hummer gets 8. You do the math. And of course you can still buy a huge new diesel truck in CA. Make it moot by not using diesel at all!
Q: Why shouldn’t I just buy virgin at Costco for my fuel?
A: Many do, especially when they’re on the road and don’t have a WVO (Waste Veggie Oil) source. However, it’s far from clear that growing oil crops for fuel is a sustainable thing to do. Again, this a complicated argument, with well-meaning people on each side. The only reason we’re talking about it is to encourage you again to make the effort to find a source of WVO, which is clearly the best way to treat the environment.
Filtered Waste Vegetable Oil For Sale
Through a local partnership, we are offering filtered (down to 5-microns) waste vegetable oil (wvo). Prices for wvo fluctuate, but are usually approximately half the price of diesel and biodiesel. In light of recent research showing that Biodiesel produced from virgin oil is not only unsustainable as a fuel source but can actually exacerbate the effects of global warming (this is what we've been saying all along: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html?incamp=article_popular_1) now may be a good time to switch over to wvo as your main fuel source if you haven’t done so already. Biofuels made from local waste streams are not only sustainable but carbon responsible. Unfortunately there are no local Biodiesel suppliers that use a 100% waste stream source (except the city of SF, which uses that oil to fuels its own fleet).
If you are interested in buying filtered wvo please email vegrev@vegrev.com with "Put Me on the WVO Sales List" in the subject heading. Let us know how much oil you can commit to picking up on either a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. For the time being we will be limiting the individual weekly amount to 30-gallons per customer. If there is excess oil at the end of the week and you've stated that you would like more than 30-gallons we will contact you to arrange a pick-up. If you cannot make your pick-up please give us at least two weeks notice. Oil left without a notice will result in being removed from the list. If you are not interested in being a regular wvo customer but would like to receive an email when we have excess wvo for sale, just let me know that in an email.
The oil supply (microcosmic of the global market) is finite. Therefore we will be setting up a distribution list with a waiting list for those who sign up after we have met the demand. We plan on increasing supply incrementally to keep pace with demand, however, this could prove challenging given the level of demand we have seen. So if you want to buy wvo, get on the list now!
Priority will be given to all Veg Rev customers (those that have had any conversion system installed by Veg Rev). As new Veg Rev customers are added to the distribution list they will displace non-Veg Rev customers in the reverse order that the non-customers signed-up. Our hope is to service everyone, but given the high volume of demand it is most likely that eventually the list will be populated by Veg Rev customers alone. If you are a Veg Rev customer please indicate that in the email with a brief description of your vehicle and the system we installed.
Lastly, anyone who would like to buy wvo will need to be a part of the Veg Rev “fleet”. All that is required to become a fleet member is that you purchase a Veg Rev logo sticker for $2.00 and have it prominently displayed on the outside of you vehicle. Here’s an example of the sticker: http://www.vegrev.com/images/gold/sticker.jpg. We realize that this is a shameless self-promotional move, but as Veg Rev isn't making any money whatsoever through our wvo partner's sales, it's all we get out of it.
GETTING WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil) YOURSELF.
This is a field of study unto itself. Please see the many excellent sites we link to, and there are even books out there, such as “Dine Out With Your Diesel” by Kent Bergsma of Mercedes Source: http://mercedessource.com/node/2161. Haven’t read it, but Kent runs a great company and writes well.
Collecting, filtering, storing, and pumping your own WVO can be a very satisfying endeavor. Or it can be hell. It depends on your disposition, how much free time you have, and how much space you have in the garage. It used to be the only option, but more and more, co-ops (see Frybrid’s co-op page: http://www.frybrid.com/coop.htm ) are coming together to share the work, and people (like us) are selling filtered WVO. We will pass along a few tips, but mostly we’ll point to other sites here.A: In a word, restaurants. They have to pay to have their used cooking oil removed, usually by a rendering company such as Darling Co. (no kidding), which will sell their refined oil downstream to cosmetic companies and animal feed companies. If you can credibly assure the restaurant owner that you’ll take all his or her oil every week, including the nasty crap at the bottom, you might be able to secure a great source of free fuel indefinitely.
There are many nuances involved in making arrangements with restaurant owners. Before you approach a restaurant owner, find some others who have done it and ask them questions. And/or see sites such as this: http://www.blackstonepiano.com/tutorial/VeggiePower/GettingOil.htm or this: http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/negotiatingforwvo/ or this: http://www.vegauto.com/id13.html. There are also legal issues around transporting WVO. See the “LEGALITIES” FAQ section.Q: So I can just pull into a restaurant parking lot and start pumping up their WVO?
A: I guess you didn’t click on those links above, did you? This is very important: NEVER take WVO, however nasty or abandoned it looks, without getting permission. First of all, taking it out of the rendering company’s dumpster or barrel is stealing; you can be prosecuted for theft. Worse, you will give the rendering company an excellent reason to hate greasers. These companies have clout with lawmakers at city, state, and federal levels. Don’t take it from a company dumpster even if the restaurant owner gives you permission. Second, you might be taking another greaser’s hard-won oil, and we doubt you could live with the shame.
Q: Where can I get WVO, if not a restaurant?
A: Or check craigslist.com. See also http://www.fillup4free.com/.
Q: What kind of WVO do I want?
A: You want the cleanest and purest vegetable oil you can find. This generally means high-quality restaurants that change the oil in their fryers frequently, don’t use hydrogenated oil (which is solid at room temperature, and about as good for your fuel lines as your arteries), and who do not mix in animal lard, bacon grease, or other nastiness. Also, be careful that you don’t get oil that’s been exposed to rain. Water bad.
There are many kinds of veggie oil: olive, soy, corn, rape seed, etc. Most of them are just fine for you. For a scholarly article with a chart of comparative melting points and iodine levels, see http://www.shortcircuit.com.au/warfa/paper/paper.htm.Q: What do I have to do to the WVO before putting it in my car?
A: Filter and de-water. First, it’s best to let the oil settle in the containers you bring home for days – one or two weeks, even. The sediment collects on the bottom nicely. Then you’ll need to carefully filter the oil and insure that it’s free of water.
Again, this is a huge topic, there are dozens of filtration systems out there, and the best we can do is point you to other FAQs and websites.
