Finding and Filtering WVO on the Road

Posted on 07/19/13 4 Comments

So you’re taking a long road trip and want to buy as little diesel as possible.  Here’s some methods to fuel your entire trip on WVO.

Take your oil with you:

This generally works on shorter trips(loading up cubies in your trunk).  Folks with trucks often tow/haul barrels and even totes of clean oil to make it there and back.    I know it can be a difficult decision weighing whether to bring people/gear and buying fuel, or consuming every last space by hauling your own free WVO from home.   The good thing is that there are ways to score WVO on the road!

tote trailer

Buy or trade for oil:

Craigslist(sale and wanted)  –  Craigslist is a great site for buy or selling anything.  It’s setup regionally(city by city).  You’ll need to search in the specific Craigslist for each area.  For instance, if you are travelling through Denver, you’ll search Denver’s craigslist.   Search for WVO, fryer oil, or biodiesel.  Contact anyone selling a WVO vehicle or even looking for oil and you may get a referral.    If you happen to be someone that plans in advance, post a “wanted” ad on Craigslist.

Message Boards – Search or post in the Classifieds sections of forums or message boards.  Here are a few:

Biodisel SVO Infopop

Alt Fuel Furnace – They have many WVO users.

WVO Designs Classifieds

You may also want to post a message on the Facebook Wall of our favorite WVO Retailer, access WVO Designs Facebook here.

Ok, not to overwhelm you with resources, one other place to check is with area Conversion Installers, see our WVO Conversion Installer List.

 

Mobile Collection and Cleaning:

So, if you want to dumpster dive for oil on the road here are some tips and tricks on how to clean the oil.

1.  Stay away from creamy oil.  It will clog filters and make life difficult.  Look for oil that’s been settling in the dumpster for a while.

2.  Settle the oil after collecting.  That’s right, just like at home, settling is key.  Collect the oil in a tank or cubies and let them sit for a day or 3.    Sunshine(Heat) will speed up settling.   Collecting the oil can be done with our 120V AC Portable WVO Pumps or 12V Battery pumps.

*Note WVO Designs 120V pumps will run off a 5000W inverter hooked up to a 12V Battery.   Most direct 12V pumps are not meant for WVO, or are really slow.   Plantdrive claims to have a robust 12V Gear pump applicable to collecting on the road.  Check it out here.

Racor1000

3.  Cleaning the oil can be done with Large filters or a centrifuge.   For filtering, I recommend pumping through a Racor 1000, or the less expensive version: Griffin G1000.  These filters have HUGE elements and relatively cheap replacement filters for only $10.  So, you can use that same pump for collecting the oil to pump through a filter into your clean fuel tank, and voila, clean oil on the road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Centrifuging on the road is doable, but you need some space, containers and a little creativity.  Oil must be gravity fed out of the Raw Power WVO Centrifuge.    You can save space by using a 12V pump with a ball valve to feed the centrifuge.


Happy Travels and please post questions or other tips below.

 

-Jason Jelonek

WVO Designs

4 Comments

  1. Dale says:
    Tuesday, August 6, 2013 at 1:19am

    Can you extend the amount of WVO you have by mixing in the pump diesel you can buy. Overall the price would be a bit higher than plain WVO but when supply is tight why not add a few gallons to a few gallons? Would heating be necessary? Would it hurt?

    Reply

    • Daryl S. says:
      Friday, August 23, 2013 at 8:49pm

      My understand is that heated diesel is corrosive to the engine and is not a good idea.

      Reply

  2. Daryl S. says:
    Friday, August 23, 2013 at 8:48pm

    Pause, if you’re filtering in succession from tank to tank to engine is there really a necessity in letting the oil settle? That would just be precautionary right? I stumbled across this article because I’m currently building a trap to tank transfer and filtration system. I am trying to gauge how much water is acceptable in an engine (not that I believe very much will pass through).
    Ostensibly, oil will pass through 3 separate 2 micron filters all with aqua block filter media. So is settling really necessary for me?

    Reply

  3. Jason says:
    Monday, August 26, 2013 at 4:58pm

    Hi Daryl,

    If you are comfortable with your filter life, then you don’t really need to settle.
    Settling freshly collected WVO is generally done to reduce contamination of filters and keep gunk out of your WVO filtration system.

    Reply

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