All's well that ends well.

[Ged]

Having fitted my heat exchanger, I thought that I should try to use my cloudy WVO.
We had to go to Winchester about 130 miles from here for an important dentists appointment that Lis my wife had waited 3 months for.
I thought that a good long run with a hot engine would be ideal for using the cloudy oil.
We set off with plenty of time to spare but hadn't got to the end of the road before the car started misbehaving.
My heart started pounding... it will be O.K. by the time the engine heats up, surley. No it got worse and worse, we just managed to limp to a garage about 15 minutes from away before the car finally ground to a halt.
The atmosphere in the car was far from good, I felt terrible, Lis was fuming and the kids were already playing up. What have you done Daddy, have you broken the car?

Into the garage and told them what I'd done, they gave me the "you can't run your car on vegetable oil" look and told me they were far to busy (drinking tea by the looks of it) to do anything, as it would probably be a nightmare job anyway.

I called the AA, Lis cancelled the dentist and we sat in frosty silence waiting.

After about half an hour I suddenly thought that maybe I should check my inline filter just in case, it was completely full of crud from the tank! I quickly changed it for my spare and we were off, stopping only briefly to pick up some more filters and we made it to the dentist with a minute to spare.

The things I learned were:
Don't experiment on important journeys.
Always check the inline filter.
Cloudy oil is O.K. with a heat exchanger.
And interestingly on the way back I had to top up with some diesel and even running almost neat (about 80%) diesel the car performed noticeably better with the heat exchanger than it has done without.

[lisboa]

well done .not in the dog house now .

[Bob3D]

Yes. I've substantially stopped using my filtered oil for the winter, but I plan to still use some at low concentrations on long journeys.

However, I have certainly stopped totally if the journey is time sensitive...

My bus ground to a halt a few weeks ago with a clogged inline filter. Changing it only takes me a few seconds and I always have several spares in the centre console, and it has always been the answer with the car running fine afterwards. But I can't help wondering if some of the gunge hasn't made it's way into the main filter, partially clogging it.

If so, will 100% mineral diesel dissolve the fatty deposits over time?

Anyway, well done on "getting out of jail" on your journey!

Bob

[Ged]

Originally Posted by Bob3D

If so, will 100% mineral diesel dissolve the fatty deposits over time?

Apparently Diesel and petrol are not good at disolving animal fats. Genuine turps and acetone are supposed to be the ones.

The stuff in my inline filter was the usual tank crud that I'm still getting even after running on oil for nearly 6 months. I think I let the level get too low before filling up with this batch of oil.

Is there any relatively easy way of cleaning the tank out?

[Townaceclive]

Drop the tank out and power hose it out. Or get one from a scrapper and clean that and do a quick switch over.

[Ged]

How long does that take?

[Townaceclive]

Talking Townace here about half an hour to remove and refit. Day to clean out and dry.

[Ged]

That doesn't sound too bad, I think I'll give it a go. Are there any do's and don'ts of tank removal?

[ClintJ]

Could read in the headlines,
Fast Thinking saves a Mans Life and marriage!
Its almost too easy at times like that to just lie a little bit..
And Ive had that dog house look as well.
Its a great feeling isnt it.

Clint

[Ged]

I'm rubbish at lying!
I sometimes don't always offer all the information but that's diferent... isn't it?