Buring used diesel oil as a fuel?

[Jim Allen]

Going back to filtration, would one pass, via gravity, through a one micron filter be enough to filter out the particulates in conventional oil drained from a diesel? If so, it would be easy to get a filter housing, a filter and build a contraption where you pour the dirty oil into a big funnel type container at the top and it drains through the filter into a "clean" container at the bottom. Kinda like Kevin Costner did with his urine in "Waterworld." Ahem! At least my vehicles have to drink it... not me.

This has always been such an attractive idea to me. I have three diesels, two tractors and a pickup, all old, all mechanically injected and all worried about by me over the ULSD lubricity question. This solves several problems at once.

 

[Syntec-Man]

i don't know if it is a good idea. The oil has alot of addictives in it which can screw up your cat pretty fast. you got to ask yourself is it worth it? you can use it for heating fuel. you can also dilute it 1L of diesel fuel into 40L of diesel.

 

[Shaman]

If your gonna do offline filtration, look on ebay. Frantz go for less than the MG's usually.

Also, if synthetic oil didn't burn, then none of the Runaway TDI's on TDIclub could happen.

 

[1040 WreckerMan]

Syntec, most diesels do not have "CATS." All new diesel engines sold in 07 and newer will have CATS along with a bunch of other JUNK. I should also clarify a previous post I made in this thread. There is a difference between a DPF and a CAT. The DPF is a Diesel Particulate Filter and is a just that, a filter or soot trap. The CAT is a catalyst and the newer 07+ engines employ "active" cats.

Sdeeter, I mis read your post I thought you had written WVO, not waste motor oil. You are correct, Cummins wants no more than 5%. However mfg's are very conservative with their ratings and depending on the particular circumstances I think it's fine to run larger %'s. You need to look carefully at many factors before you go above 5%. This is especially true if you want to keep your warranty (if you have one) and do anything other than what the mfg says.

Shaman, I've seen several engines of different sizes runaway and it's usually not a pretty picture. We just had an C9 hit 7100RPM because it drank some oil (engine governed at 2100). Everything will burn, it just depends how hot you need to get it

 

[SteveD2]

Quote:

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Syntec, most diesels do not have "CATS." All new diesel engines sold in 07 and newer will have CATS along with a bunch of other JUNK.

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Just to clarify...

Dodge has used cats on their diesels since around 1994. They had a break from using them on the 1999 to 2004 trucks, then started up again in 2004.5. The 2007s will add a particulate filter to the cat as well...

I agree, I know there are guys running almost 50% WMO in their CTDs, but the main thing is that it has to be 100% used dino motor oil...not gear oils, not synthetics.

And as far as filtering WMO...IMO, I would not even consider running WMO in any newer diesel with electronic injectors (this includes the 2003+ dodge trucks). In a mechanical engine, probably no problem. But the electronic injector engines (mostly Common Rails) have a hard enough time keeping injectors...

I would also say that 1 micron would probably be OK since you are worried about wear metals suspended in the oil, however you are also worried about the acids, etc. also in that oil. A lot of guys leave WMO sit for a couple weeks to settle, then decant the clear oil from the top.

steved

 

[Flywest]

If you do wish to burn waste oil with your diesel fuel and have a diesel setup that will tolerate it, in terms of DPF or CAT muffler etc - then I would consider a couple extra steps than just low micron (MG or Frantz) type filtration.

If you look at a used oil analysis, you'll see there is all sorts of wear metals etc present besides just the soot etc products of combustion..in your waste oil.

Theres aluminium and iron and silica (dirt) and a host of other things like copper tin and so on from the casings bearings gears cogs coolers pumps gallerys etc that the oil passes thru!

So....if you don't remove them in some way (and the sub micron filtration may not do all that) then they get pushed thru your injectors at very high pressures by the HPOP (high pressure oil pump) and could increase wear or score the injectors - and may even damage the HPOP itself!

So after your micron filtering I'd suggest passing the oil thru a hose surrounded by rare earth neodymium magnets (available from ebay or salvaged out of old PC hard drives)!

This will take care of trapping the Fe based metals that are attracted to magnets - but still doesn't help with aluminium etc...

So lastly - you should centrifuge your waste oil!

This separates out the sub micron sized particulate matter that micron filters can't get!

After that - your oils about as clean as you can get it short of just multiple filtering it IMO unless someone has other idea's to suggest? (heating it will boil off moisture contamination)!

You should also consider that - waste oil collected from unkown sources - usually has trans fluid, brake fluid, gear box oil, and diff oil, and radiator coolant, and all sorts of nasty things in it, from a general mechanical repair workshop....they repair damaged behicles and damamged vehicles have all sorts of problems with their fluids being mixed / contaminated depending on the repair!

Probably far better to filter your own waste oil...at least it is a known quantity!

Hope this helps!

Go easey on me - my first post here!

Cheers!

 

[1040 WreckerMan]

Flywest, the oil mixed in with the fuel will NOT hurt the HPOP as they are separate systems. The high pressure oil actuates the injectors, but is not in contact with fuel at any time, baring an injector failure. Additionally, the HPOP gets unfiltered oil directly from the low pressure lube oil pump, so the HPOP gets the full concentration of wear metals in the oil.

You are correct that centrifuge filtering would be very helpful. The more filtering that is done the better suited the oil will be for burning as a fuel additive.

 

[Flywest]

Thanks Wreckerman - you make an excellent point that the oil from HPOP etc already has wear metals in it and is under high pressure!

I was thinking about the wear metals in old filtered oil mixed with the diesel that does go thru the injectors as fuel - but thats not what I typed!

As you say - the cleaner it can be made the better, and I concurr with what others have said - in that no more than 5% oil to diesel blend!

Cheers!