Biofuel (WVO) Conversion. Landrover Discovery 300TDI

[setsuna]

I decided to document the conversion of my Discovery to use WVO/UCO (Waste Vegetable Oil/ Waste Cooking Oil).
Not a toyota, but someone may find it interesting

This is a wonderful fuel which runs very nicely, smells nice, and is 100% carbon neutral (unlike bio-diesel)!!

Some Background:

The oil needs to be heated to become a similar viscosity as diesel to be able to be pumped and adequately injected for combustion, so you need to start your car on diesel, get it up to temperature, and then ‘switch’ over to run on oil.

It is also recommended to ‘purge’ your fuel system—injector pump, lines, and injectors of the oil before shutting down for extended periods when the engine temperature drops. 1. Because the engine will have a hard time to start again, and 2. the cooling of the oil in the injectors could possibly lead to coking of the nozzles.


Project Part 1: Installing Twin tanks. (Diesel/WVO)

I sourced some lovely sill tanks from a fellow 'Landrover Enthusiest' on Friday, so the first task was installing them.



I wanted to install a stock sender into the tank, so I could use the original dash gauge to indicate fuel levels, so got angry on the tank with the grinder.




Shallower tank, and different sizes required some float modification.



Some pictures inside the tank.




I had originally intended on using the fuel pickup/return on the sender I was installing, but looking inside the tank convinced me to use the tank pickup instead.



Filling was originally designed to be via ‘marine hatch’ under the footwell mat, but I intended otherwise.
The pretty metallic ring is off an old steering wheel I had kept for some reason, probably because it was pretty and too good to throw away, good thing I kept it after all!

[setsuna]

Weld in the filler.



Weld on the mounts.



Some spray paint makes it look a bit prettier




“Lest we forget”

[setsuna]

Now the filler. I raided a engine oil filler housing off a motor years ago ‘be handy one day!!’, and so it finally came in handy!

Machined down a lip for it to adapt to the filler pipe.



As the material size would allow direct fitment to the filler pipe, had to do it in two stages, fit the filler cap to the sleeve, then the sleeve to the pipe.



Tight fit, and with a tiny smear of blue, it will never come apart, and never leak! (hope)



“Together at last, a match made.. IN THE WORKSHOP!!”





Some more blue, some rubber and a plate to keep them all together.
Also not having a compatible connector, araldite makes a strong alternative



Installed nicely.



Connected nicely.

[setsuna]

Finished off nicely!!

[setsuna]

Project Part 2: WVO ‘Conversion’


The Raw components:

Pollak Valve: comes with 6 ports, diesel in, diesel return, wvo in, wvo return, and the connections to and from the motor.



Heat Exchanger: comes in various sizes, this one is a ’30 plate’ unit.



It has 30 plates between which alternating fluids flow with a copper plate in between for efficient thermal transfer.



Pollak and heat exchanger installed nicely.
Also added a vacuum gauge to the fuel supply line to monitor the condition of the filters, not much use in the engine bay, but it was a nice gauge I had raided and saved so I just had to use it! in cabin gauge to come.

Coolant and Fuel lines connected.



Coolant lines installed connects the heat exchanger in series with the cabin heater.
Dual filters, one for each fuel type to save on contamination of the fuels between the tanks.

I just need to find some banjo fittings and we will be ready to go!



Diesel goes here.



Oil goes here.

[setsuna]

A nice switch in the cabin actuates the pollak valve. Red light for WVO



And we are now WVO powered

[TC1600]

Nice work, just out of curiosity would you be looking at setting up a temp switch so that when the coolant gets to a preset temp it automatically switches to WVO? I guess the only catch would be a turbo timer type setup that switches back to diesel for a few seconds on shutdown.

[setsuna]

yeah I had considered making it fully automatic. with manual override settings.

but seriously it is not that hard to remember to flick the switch after driving a few kms, you get into the habit of changing over at a certain place anyway. its enjoyable to know whats going on. I guess its similar to the difference between driving a auto or manual gearbox.

also its good to be able to control it during short stops. you can stop for a few hours without any issue and start again on the WVO.

the vehicle is fitted with a turbo timer, so the purge timer is already there when stopping permanently.

David

[fixeruperer]

do you smell the diesel with the filler point being inside ?

best mod to do to those disco's it to fit the isuzu motor .
do you go to rovertech at all ?

[setsuna]

nope, no smell of diesel inside the cabin.
which is great, (especially because I haven't blued up the filler connection yet).. *cough* don't tell anyone.

if it was petrol I would definitely think twice about having the filler inside the cabin.

the smell from the exhaust of a lovely BBQ smell is about the only smell you get. hehehe.

I thought that it was originally an isuzu motor? or based on one anyway (so a mate keeps saying)
except the truck motor has different cylinder liners which greatly increase the capacity.

I do goto rovertech, but mostly frequent west coast rover and linn rover.
are you associated with rovertech?

David

[fixeruperer]

yeh i work a few units down from rovertech at the Jag place. (blue sign's).
Im not shaw if the rover tdi is based on the isuzu one but i know its a common conversion and the isuzu motor is quite a few cc's more.
did you do this conversiona a while ago ?, i just remember a blue tdi with the same chip oil conversion at rovertech.

[sleepyu]

just out of curiosity where do u get the waste oil from?

[setsuna]

The conversion had been in place maybe a month, and the tank system only a few days. hehe.
plus I haven't been over those parts for a long time, let alone shown anyone

finding a reliable source of oil is probably the hardest part of the conversion.
luckily I had found a local fish and chip shop for my supply years ago and have had him ever since.

David