Summary:
Do you have expensive-fuel blues? Then news of a car that runs on recycled vegetable oil may cheer you up. This 540-word article explains the basics of the veggie car.

Details or Sample:
Veggie Car – A True Tale

With the high price of diesel and gasoline these days, alternate fuels are looking better all the time – especially when that alternate fuel is free, as in used vegetable oil. Apparently diesel-burning cars can be modified to run on just that. But it’s not a new idea.

“When Rudolf Diesel introduced his signature engine at the 1900 Paris Exposition, he said two words as he started it: ‘Peanut oil.’ He designed his engine so farmers could grow their own fuel. Most diesel engines were indeed run on vegetable oil until the 1920s, when the petroleum industry promoted a gasoline byproduct as diesel fuel.” *

It looks like engines are going back to Mr. Diesel’s original intent. Kits are available so owners of modern diesel-powered vehicles can modify them to burn vegetable oil again. Golden Fuel Systems (formerly Greasel Conversions Inc., Springfield, MO) and Greasecar Vegetable Fuel Systems (Easthampton, MA) are two companies that sell conversion kits. They cost around $500 and installation is another $1000, though the kits are designed for self-installation. The changeover involves installing another (heated) fuel tank, placed in the trunk of a car or the bed of a truck, some new fuel lines and another fuel filter.

Sadly, gasoline engines can’t be converted in the same way. And even converted diesel engines can never be weaned off diesel entirely because cold vegetable oil is too viscous to start the engine. However, modified cars can switch from the diesel to vegetable oil tanks with a flick of a switch once the vegetable oil is at the required 150 degrees necessary for it to work as a fuel. It’s necessary to switch back to diesel again as a last maneuver before turning off the motor in order to purge the lines of vegetable fuel and make starting with diesel possible next time around.

The big problem with using vegetable oil as fuel is where do you fill up? The man featured on a recent local TV news story got his oil from a restaurant in town. So does Jonathan Pratt in Yorktown NY. After filtering the once-used oil through a tube to remove food particles, he pours it straight into his fuel tank.

What types of vegetable oil work in a veggie car? Any type, even hydrogenated, claims one conversion company – as long as it’s filtered and contains no water, or bacterial or chemical

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Written by: Nell
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Words: 540