Rudolph Diesel�s invention of the diesel engine was originally run on vegetable oil. Most diesel engines can be run on pure vegetable oil. There are many cars around the world with hundreds of thousands of veggie oil miles with no problems. In Europe they sell fuel grade vegetable oil just for this purpose.
How does a two tank veggie oil system work?
The vehicle should be started on diesel, so a separate tank and fuel lines are required for the veggie oil. Typically the tank is mounted in the trunk.
Once the vehicle reaches operating temperatures running on diesel, a dash mounted switch allows you to change over to veggie.
The veggie tank, veggie filter and the veggie fuel lines must be heated to thin the oil and make it suitable for injection into the engine. The engine's coolant system is used to to do this. You can also use an electric heater to heat the veggie oil. Veggie oil starts off thicker that diesel fuel but once it reaches about 160F it is has the same viscosity as diesel fuel and can be injected in a standard diesel engine. The veggie oil is able to reach this temperature as it passes through the engine and get injected.
The veggie filter and solenoid valves are mounted in engine compartment. The valves allow you to switch between veggie and diesel when needed.
The car is switched back to diesel for a minute before shutting down to flush the veggie oil from the lines. This allows for easier start up since when the car is cool the vegetable oil is to thick to inject effectivly.
What Veggie Oil Can I Use?
Any vegetable oil can be used. Even waste vegetable oil. Used vegetable oil is the best because you can get it free from restaurants. It's best to filter the used veggie oil before use. I use a house water filter housing with a 5 micron filter element. This helps your car veggie filter last a lot longer. The oil should be amber color when poured and not have any solids in it. It must be all liquid.