Hey Glort,
Just had a client arrive with a 308 that needs some attention... so much for my lazy start to the day.... but that's another story....
What did transpire is that he mentioned to me that he has a few ibc"s worth of lard, the commercial grade stuff, that he has to dispose of... this could be quite interesting indeed... comes from some local emporiums in the fast food line, ex chip fryers.... I have asked him for a sample, which he says he will hack out and get to me next week.... I see another heat exchanger in my immediate future for getting this stuff into a liquid to stuff down the ip to make more fun.... Have you had any experience with this stuff yet?
A LONG time ago, many years, I processed similar stuff with heating and drying, and stuck it through an engine... If I remember correctly, it worked fine, but was a PITA to do on a micro/small scale... to do occasional runs on it, of small qtys less than 20L at a time, the time overheads and additional heating requirements made it a non-worthwhile endeavour....but.... with around 5000 L of the stuff looking for a home, this might just be worthwhile.... Your thoughts?
In fact, I can already see a bit of exhaust plumbing heading to a heating tank.... I must be insane... its not like I actually enjoy making work for myself, is it?
I checked the oil level of TM, it was a little down, but not majorly... I did fill it to the max mark, which is slightly over full, so let's see how it pans out.... At least the beast runs mechanically quieter with tighter tappets... one bonus...
As I sit here typing, TM is thumping away in the background, hauling around 3.5kw electrical, pumping out around 5kw heat and, above all, stopping about 30L of sludge from being released into the environment in a less "friendly" way..... damn Glort, you better watch out, looks like I am becoming a greenie.....
The venting to the inlet for me is a much easier(read that as lazy) way of keeping things in the gen shed cleaner... the shed is well ventilated, to put it mildly, with about a 300mm gap from ground level to the bottom of the sides all the way round, with the exception of the back wall, which is part of the house... While that makes for a nice airy and drafty enclosure, it also makes for a lot of dust, which adheres to any mildly oily or damp surface, and is an absolute pain to keep clean... particularly as anyone arriving onto the premises, parks literally within spitting distance of the beast.... Given that the doors are 2x1m glass, everything is pretty exposed, so the "showcase" has to be kept presentable... Way easier to clean a bit of pipe on the inside, than wipe down an entire genset every couple of days... and... NO.... I don't spend the weekend with a tiny paintbrush painting the names on the tyres either!!
I might still take you up on the veg oil... do you think they will allow a few ibc as hand luggage?
I have adjusted the visco a bit on this batch of gunk, I am now running on a 25% parrafin to 75% of 50W or so gunk, seems quite a bit better at starting and running so far. So far, the combustability seems more dependant on viscosity than content, if that makes any sense, on a daily basis. I have found that on a very hot day, thick fuel works just as well, if not better than dino, but as air temperatures drop, so does the heat content of the compression stroke, so the heavier oils tend to soot up a bit more... thin them out, allowing them to atomise a bit better, and away you go...
I have put a wee bit more thought into the semi automated WI heavy dose cycling and don't think it will be worthwhile in the long run, not with the varying types of gunk I feed the beast.... If I had a large batch of gunk, of uniform nature, automation becomes more viable... Yes, I can install a variable dose pump with pinpoint egt and knock monitoring, but that will be just a few more things to go wrong in the long run... I gonna keep it simple... want water, open tap... want power, start gen.... have smoke, mix fuel thinner... not quite idiot proof, but certainly more "visual" and simple for a fool like me to understand....
My thinking and dumb way of explaining the oil consumption/cc breathing in relation to valve clearances is probably way off track, but here it goes anyway... Less clearance means the valves open and close slightly before and slightly after they would with larger clearances. The exhaust starts venting a little earlier, the inlet valve overlap is a little longer, there might be less "vacuum" in the cylinder due to this (the exhaust gas has a fair momentum in a long exhaust run) ... this might just cause a little less oil to be drawn past the piston on each stroke... Who knows? Probably all BS anyway and it is all due to crappy worn bore, shitty and stuck oil control rings, and, above all, due to the fact I tripped over a black cat while walking under a ladder...
Again I ramble...
Keep it chugging...
Cheers
Ed
