Hello to all,

I'm new to Mercedes and this message board. I am shopping around for a W123 300D or 300TD. I would like to run the car on Methyl Ester fuel made from recycled vegetable oil. Does anyone have experience running their Mercedes on this fuel?

I've really enjoyed reading all the information on this board, and it's given me a good feel for the vehicles before I take the ownership plunge.

Thanks in advance,
Scott

Hey Scott,

Try searching on bio diesel. There are lots of posts on this subject. I'd love to try runnning it myself. I'd have to make my own though. Do you have a process for making it?

burnan

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burnan
1993 2.5 turbo

I burn it when I have time to make it. Tons of DIY info on the web. Bio makes up a large portion of the fuel market in Germany and MB has made cars ready to burn it since the late 70's from what I have read. MB rubber fuel line holds up to the methanol very well, and my 83 300d runs great on it at any mixture from 100% bio to 99% dino fuel. No modifications needed to run bio. Cost to make not counting time is about 60 cents/gallon.

Jim
83 300d 238,000

I must concur with the above post. Both my '76 300D and previously my '84 300TD run great on biodiesel. In fact I haven't found a diesel vehicle that DON'T like it. In older cars reguardless of what they are you MAY have trouble at first. The reason is because Methyl Esters will "super clean" your fuel system. ( read buy some extra fuel filters) I'm doing OK on a mix of biodiesel right now. Temps. are in the teens to twenties lately so I have been mixing it about 60/40 with premium"soydiesel" that I buy locally. The only time I had trouble was when I pushed the envelope a couple weeks ago, it looked like the weather was going to be in the high 30's to low40's for about 3 days so I filled up on 100% B.D.. Long story short, I got caught on the second day when we ended up getting down to 14°F at night and I had to add some pump fuel and a shot of "diesel service" 911. to get things liquid again!

I've never heard of bio diesel. How do you make it? I've never seen it for sale in Canada.

Here is a site with pictures of a DIY bio user...

http://www.kelseyville.com/biodsl/

I use used oil from Checkers Drive in and a local fish house. The old nasty stuff in the grease dumpsters out back. I get this for free, mix with a 15-20% mix of pure methanol and Red Devil Lye. End product is bio-diesel, and liquid soap. Filter the bio off and into the tank it goes. Car loves the stuff. Runs with less clatter, no smoke, and smells like french fries
Trade off is about 3% less mileage per gallon,and as mentioned above more fuel filters. This stuff will clean out 20 years of junk in your tank and it will gell at low temps if you do not use full 20% methanol when making it.

Are you sure about the mileage factor? I mean what was your procedure for figuring this out? The reason I ask is because if it was cooler for one than the other then your research is flawed. Personally I don't see that much difference in my mileage, everything else remaining constant. I don't have a problem with temps changing on me ( although I am in Michigan where temps can and do change quickly at times) because it only takes me two days to empty a tank of fuel. In the Rabbits I get better mileage on biodiesel than on Petro-diesel.
I have noticed in heavier vehicles, My Mercedes, My dually etc. the mileage is either the same or only slightly lower like 1-2 mpg.

The reason I have to mix in cooler weather is because I only use 15% Methanol. This makes the cost lower and I can justify using a little diesel in the mix for a couple months out of the year. Besides, I could always put in my second tank and preheat it, like I do the straight veggie oil.

There are many different ways to go about it, you just have to look at what works best for you! Tom

How much is your cost say per gallon? I only mean the cost of the chemicals added and any cost to acquire the used cooking oil (which I am sure is nothing since restaurants have to pay to get rid of it) - not the cost for the equipment. How do you filter the soap from the fuel? Do you use the liquid soap and, if so, how good is it and on what?

Thanks,
Tom

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America: Land of the Free!

1977 300D: 300,000+ miles

American Honda: Factory Trained Technician & Honor Grad.
Formerly:
Shop Foreman;
Technical Advisor to Am. Honda;
Supervisor of Maintenance largest tree care co. in US for offices in Tex.

I haven't really figured out my cost per gallon since they started paying me to haul away the oil. I could if you are really interested , but I'm sure that I will still come out in the negative.
Before when I was just getting it for free my cost was $.38 per gallon, then my wonderful state instituted a road tax on Methanol. which brought production cost up to a little over $.50 per gallon.

Now that I have places paying me to haul the oil away it has gotten way cheaper than free

The liquid soap is drained off the bottom of the processor via. a ball valve. It is good for washing grease and dirt off of your hands and other things. It is a good liquid hand soap that leaves your hands feeling soft and pliable, which is real nice in the winter.

The chemicals are the only cost, around here Methanol is $2.50 per gallon ( remember one gallon of Methanol makes 5 gallons of fuel) if you buy it by the gallon. I don't I buy it by the 55gal drum.

Lye is about $3or $4 per bottle ( should make about 35-40 gallons of fuel) I'm still looking for a place to get this in bulk that wont draw attention.

I have one restaurant that I haul grease from that pays me $325.00 per month to haul away their oil. This is approx. 120-150 gallons per month. So I guess the quick math could look like this.... I get paid about $2.60 per gallon to haul it away.
I spend less than $10 going to get it and bring it home.
I then add about .60 worth of chemicals per gallon to transesterfy it.

I don't know I really don't have time to figure in an hour of labor and all the little stuff , but at this point I'm still getting my fuel for about -$1.80 per gallon. Tom

Hey fryerpowered,

Have you run "SVO" preheated without making up your bio-diesel concoction similar to what the "greasel.com" site shows. If so, I'd like to hear about it, because next fall I may turn my 82 300TD into a rightful candidate for burning "SVO". If you can run "SVO" by heating it, why would anyone mess around with creating their own bio-diesel fuel?

from an environmental and cost savings standpoint!! (not to mention the handle "Fryerpowered"). You guys get a big salute from me!

-Tom

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'96 E 3 2 0 (W 2 1 0) M 1 0 4 (Totalled)
Spaces in sig so as not to screw up the SEARCH; every time someone searches for that MB they don't want my sig!

2004 Audi A8L
'98 VW Passat 1.8T 5M
'87 Alfa Romeo Milano 2.5L 5M
'67 Impala convertible, 327cid

You can run heated SVO, it's not really a big hassle to do it either...in most cars. The trouble with the '76 is that it don't have the "circulating pump" in the heating system that the later MB's do. Therefore it is harder to heat up a second tank, in fact it is even hard to get heat out of the car if it is sitting still!

The later MB's don't have this problem, there is a circulating pump that pumps coolant to the heater core. How good is this pump? I haven't really taken the time to mess with it to find out as my W123 is not on the road right now. Nor will it be until the nice weather gets here!

Another reason a lot of folks don't mess with the SVO conversion is that they just don't want to fiddle with a second tank and the switches. YOu still have to warm up the car and "cool down" with either biodiesel or petro diesel. That is to say , you must flush the SVO from the system before turning the car off for longer periods of time. An hour or so this time of year could cause problems, in the summer you might get away with 3-4 hours if your second tank is insulated properly as well as your lines.

The SVO/WVO still has to be filtered down to 5-10 microns, for this it must be heated. Most people think, well as long as I'm going to expend the energy to heat this stuff I might as well make biodiesel from it...My case is different, I have 7 diesel vehicles. It would not be cost effective for me at this time to convert all of them. So I just converted one of my Rabbits ( the one I will use the most) and the rest get a pretty steady diet of B/D. I may convert the dually too as it has one leaky tank that I don't use right now anyways and it needs to be replaced. Maybe when I get some time and some sheeting I will make a heated tank to replace it, since all the switches and lines are already run to a second tank in this vehicle. Most of the work is already done. I only need to do some insulating and fabricate a tank.

Tanks need not be works of art...I'm pretty comfortable with using an old outboard motor tank. In a Rabbit I only use about 2.5 gallons per day, so the 5 gallon capacity gives me two days of routes per fillup. The Mercedes uses almost 6 gallons per day, in which case I would have to be creative and I'm just too busy for that right now!

BTW, Scott..go ahead and take that plunge. YOu will never regret owning one of these cars..it does make it harder to force yourself into something else to drive though. ( like your wifes car, or a friends) If you are as fortunate as me though, all your friends will ride in YOURS and decide they must have one too!
Tom

Thanks for all the info! Looks like there's several veggie burners on this board. I bought a book call "From the Fryer to the Fueltank" by Joshua Tickell, that give a full description of how to make diesel from vegetable oil. There's a message board at www.veggievan.org that is dedicated to running diesels on recycled oil and I've gotten a lot of info from there. It's great to be able to close the information loop with all the Mercedes diesel knowledge here. I'm still looking for a car - there was a 300TD in the paper that I called on but got no response to my message. If anyone knows of nice 300's near Denver, let me know.

Scott

Hey Fryer......

Whereabouts in Michigan are you located? Kirk, Phil and I might want to run down to gain some wisdom from you. We're in the Rockford area (N. Grand Rapids).
All of us are checking into grease and getting excited about it. We have 6 diesels between the 3 of us.

Don

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DAILY DRIVERS:
'84 300DT 298k (Aubrey's)
'99.5 Jetta TDI IV 251k (Julie's)
'97 Jetta TDI 127k (Amber's)
'97 Jetta TDI 186k (Matt's)
'96 Passat TDI 237k (Don's
'84 300D 211k Mint (Arne- Undergoing Greasecar Conversion)

SOLD:
'82 240D 229k (Matt's - Converted-300DT w/ 4 speed

Bill, partly it depends on what 'aroma' you want your car to exude as you drive down the road.... I read about peanut oil being used in tractors in the 1970's and they REALLY smelled like peanuts.. which is a good thing to me.....