Is it really possible to run a diesel land rover on vegetable oil?  Yes, it is!  


The simple answer is yes!  There are many options for doing this.  I suppose a fair amount depends upon the age and condition of your land rover and how much you care about your engine.  

Lots of people seem to happily just stick veg oil in the tank (usually blended with traditional mineral diesel) without a major problem.  This is far from ideal.  Even at optimum temperature, straight veg oil (or SVO) is significantly more viscous (thicker for us none technical types) than mineral diesel. The viscosity is likely to damage (at least) your injection pump over time - an expensive and skilled job to replace.

The other downside of just pouring SVO into your tank without modification is "bore lacquering".  This I believe is when fuel isn't burnt properly.  The walls of the cylinders are coated in the remains of the burn, this is sometimes referred to as "knacker lacquer".  It causes premature wear to the piston rings etc, causing increased smoke, oil consumption, reduction in compression, and eventually an engine that requires a rebuild.  From reading various articles on the Internet, it seems a similar problem affects and damages injectors.      

So - what are the sensible options?  

The way I see it, there are two options - fit a veg oil kit or make bio diesel.  There are many suppliers of veg oil kits (or you can put something together yourself).  These allow you to run your car on veg oil without the above mentioned problems.  Many use twin tank systems that allow you to purge the system with diesel before turning the engine off.    

I have decided to make Bio Diesel instead!  There were many reasons for this choice. We seem to change our cars reasonably regularly.  I don't want to have to move veg kits all the time.  I want quality, testable fuel I can be confident I can rely on.  SVO is expensive, I want to use waste vegetable oil.  I like the idea of recycling waste veg oil effectively.  I take a dirty, smell  black ugly waste product and turn in into the amber nectar - fuel for our land rovers!  

Below are the links to some more information about making Bio Diesel.  I am no expert, in fact I am new to this!  I hope this information will be of help to someone.  Below my sections are some links to external websites, these were all invaluable to me when I was getting started.  

What is Bio diesel
How is it made?
Types of Processor
The Process using my GL style processor
Quality tests
Finishing the fuel - water wash or not?
Storage
Winterisation of Bio fuels
Is my car suitable to run on Bio Diesel?
Filling your car - air powered drum pump