Nextera canola oil

[Eco Diesel]

The other day I pulled my 6/1 roid demonstrator out to play as it hadn't been run for about a month. It had been pumping water most of the summer filling 4 of the dugouts in the neigborhood durring a severely hot and dry summer. If it were not for it we would have had no water! I had been running this engine strictly on pump diesel since the first firing as I  havn't yet fabricated my multi chamber fuel tank. About 6 days before the unit was finished pumping water The suction line became plugged with a school of minows and the pump lost its prime. It may have run unloaded for as long as 6 hrs that day and as I currently am using a temporary 1" ball valve to control running temp and the engine was normaly under a very heavy working load the operating temp had dropped from 205 down to 160. After this happened I noticed the exhaust was far more smokey and I expected that the injector had coked up from the cooler running temp. It was staring at me the other day just begging me to fire it up so today when I grabbed my yellow diesel container to fill the standard listeroid tank I discovered it had less than a 1/4 litre of diesel in it. Swell I thought! When I looked in the Listeroid tank I could see the top of the petcock was barrely covered by fuel so the tank was basicaly out of fuel when I poured in the coffee cup amount of diesel in. For some reason I didn't feel like driving to the pump and I thought to myself maybe I should go up to the kitchen and grab one of the bottles of Nextera canola oil that I had been given by an Esso bulk dealer. When I was doing sales calls last year I kept seeing display stands with this Nextera canola oil on them so I was asking the guys at the fertilizer plants if they had any samples they were giving away and ended up getting a number of bottles which I was saving aparently just for this very day. This Nextera canola oil seed produces a very light oil thats almost as light or viscous as pump diesel. I poured in approx a 1/3 litre of Nextera into the tank right on top of the coffee cup sized amount of diesel and fired it up. The outside temperature was about 14 degrees C, engine temp at 205 degrees and a constant 2500 watt resistive load on the genny. Initialy the engine ran pretty much the same as it did a month ago with smokier than normal exhaust and the same exhaust note Ive become acustomed to. After about 20 minutes of running though, the engines exhaust note changed to a slightly softer more gentler sound with less knock and the typical diesel exhaust smell disapeared in favor of a much more pleasant smell. After 45 minutes of run time on this blended mix The exhaust has now cleared right up to being virtualy undetectable and the engine is definitly sounds to be operating better than before. I am in belief that this blend of Nextera and diesel may have actualy cleaned the injector. I will pull the injector to inspect after I have a bit more run time on this blend. So far I am impressed with what I see, hear and smell.

Troy

[rcavictim]

And has this taught us anything like never send a ball valve to do a thermostat`s job.   

Is this a DI or IDI engine?  I suspect IDI would be more prone to coke up if too cold, but I`m actually very surprised that a 160 degree engine would coke at all on store bought diesel.  That must be junky fuel.  I have only ever run into injector coking issues when trying to run thick oil and used motor oil, etc without adding injector heat.

[rcavictim]

And has this taught us anything like never send a ball valve to do a thermostat`s job.   

Is this a DI or IDI engine?  I suspect IDI would be more prone to coke up if too cold, but I`m actually very surprised that a 160 degree engine would coke at all on store bought diesel.  That must be junky fuel.  I have only ever run into injector coking issues when trying to run thick oil and used motor oil, etc without adding injector heat.

When you added injector heat, how did you arrange that ? Electrical heater wrapped around the line ? How did you hold the temperature constant ?

Jens

Jens,

I added pictures to my slow speed China diesel project post today.  http://listerengine.com/smf/index.php?topic=2666.new;topicseen#new

If you look at the  last photo you can see the power wires and the remains of some ceramic beads (many broke installing the thing) around a very large diameter chuink of resistance alloy wire like nichrome.  I plug a variac into the genset 120 VAC output and through a heavy current step down xfmer put 60-100 watts into this heat coil around the injector (about 35-40 amps at 3 or 4 volts).  It glows a dull red.  It lifts the injector body temp from normal 220F to about 400F where it does a terrific job burning some highly refined mineral oil I have that is as thick as straight STP oil treatment at room temp with no coking issues if I also have a radiant heat lamp on the injector line and line from the alternate tank.  A double jacket fuel line with engine coolant circulating through would take care of the tank to IP line in the final draft.  Once the engine is up to temp the IP is hot enough and so is the HP line to the injector without adding radiant heat.

You have to watch the material that the return line out of the injector is made from as plastic will melt instantly.  In this picture I had gone back to regular diesel and normal plastic return line because the engine is now removed from the previous wooden test stand which had an external thick oil supply tank coupled into that large quick coupler you see on the two way fuel valve.

[rcavictim]

Sorry but I can't figure out how to get to the additional pictures ....

I am surprised that you were able to heat up your lines that hot - I was under the impression that you start to get cracking (or whatever) of the petroleum if you go much over 250 degrees. This is why I was wondering about the temperature control of the heater - I was concerned about it getting too hot.
I am assuming you still keep the electric heat on the injector lines even after warmup.

Jens

You don`t see all six pictures on the near last post on page one of that thread?  If not what browser do you use please?

Correct, I leave the power applied to the heater continuously.  I start with a cold engine at 100 watts and dial it down to about 60-70 watts once the engine is at operating temp.  I have an AC wattmeter in the ac line to the variac.

As far as cracking I really do not know.  I can tell you this. In a previous life I made a heavily modified oil furnace `gun` that could burn straight bunker- C or used crankcase motor oil as fuel.  The long straight HP fuel line leading to the nozzle (a stock nozzle with sintered bronze filter element attached rated at 0.65 gallons per hour) had a folded double section of oven element tightly hose clamped along a foot of it`s length and a tight wrap of asbestos over that so the air blast from the combustion air that blows down the same tunnel this tube is contained in, would not cool the oil as it approzched the injector nozzle.  The oven element was run a dull red color in heat.  The oil hitting the nozzle had to be easily 400 degrees F or likely higher given the very miniscule flow rate there.  It combusted with the 10 kV electric spark ignitor just like #2 fuel oil and burned just as clean.  Absolutely no smoke visible in the exhaust and no burner or chimney deposits whatsoever.  This was the result of two years of DIY  R&D in the Western Arctic to come up with a waste oil furnace that I needed to heat a large steel on concrete commercial building on the windswept shore of the Great Slave Lake.  Because of the extra BTU`s contained in the heavy oil this furnace produced as much heat with such a small nozzle as the equivalent furnace fitted with a 1.25 GPH nozzle running #2 duel oil.

The rest of my modified `gun` took care of water separation, preheat  and fine filtering of the oil before it hit the stock high pressure nozzle pump.  I never clogged a nozzle in the entire time I ran this highly successful furnace system.  I need to make another for the shop where I live now.  In fact I have been collecting the required parts.

[rcavictim]

Sorry, I thought you had added some pictures and I could only see the original six. I looked at the last picture and I can see what may be beads in the extreme right of the picture. Not much to see ....

Thanks for the info on your super furnace - that tidbit of information will save me tons of work on a furnace I am working on (metal casting)

Jens

Jens,

I`ll try to get a close up picture of that injector heater and post it.  As for the furnace idea, you are welcome.  I should add, adjust the combuction box size and nozzle spray pattern so that no part of the flame licks the insides of the firebox.  If it does you will have a fast growth of an unburned carbon cone from that spot.

[rcavictim]

Here is the DIY injector heater for my JD175A.  The spacing between the two injector hold down studs on the head was just a bit too narrow to clear my fragile ceramic beads and many got broken during the installation.  It still works fine however.  The wire is about #14 gauge diameter and is salvaged from a high power motor start resistor.  Due to the heat it is imperative to terminate the ends in a solderless, bolted connection.