Since there isn't a lot happening here I thought maybe y'all would like to see the mods to my Trooper
This is from this mornings newsletter http://outfitnm.com/2010/07/08/bmn-bees-gardens-biodiesel

I mostly did that yard work while I waited for the glycerol to drain off the biodiesel, a slow process until hitting the biodiesel layer. When that happens, if I'm not right there, the thinner biodiesel will spill out in a matter of minutes. I have found it best to just wait and watch when the five gallon container nears 3/4 full. At times, I wish we had a larger processor and we do have three tanks, the better of them could be employed as a larger processor. Plus these tanks have also been cluttering our yard for years.

Whenever I think about tearing down a perfectly functional processor, I can't help recall when I was a kid and decided to tear my backyard fort down and rebuild it. Sure even as a kid of ten years, I had visions of grandeur, not unlike the house we live in currently, the fort of my youth had marginal aesthetic value as well as tickitacky structural design. I would spend hours, well maybe it was minutes, thinking about how awesome my little dugout-playhouse could be if say, I enlisted all of my friends which meant Steve Murphy, and together we placed four corner posts, sturdy enough to raise the fort up and off the dirt into which it had been residing in a kid's world what seemed to have been, forever.

I finally got the courage, no doubt through misguided inspiration of my own making, and one day started tearing my backyard playhouse down. Bear in mind, I was a kid, unbeknown to me, my time as such was severely limited. Naively, I pushed ahead in what now feels like the classic delusion of grandeur, all I had to do was get the hundreds of bent nails it took to create my previous back yard masterpiece pulled and begin to layout the new and seriously better fort design. As you might imagine, ten year olds do not make the best engineers. In fact if we were to ask my parents I probably never really got past the pulling old bent nails stage.

I can't help but think about my old fully-functional fort when looking at our 30 gallon processor. If I replaced the 30 gallon water heater with one of the 60 gallon heat exchangers (similar to a water heater except no heat element) and everything went as I imagined, for the same amount of work we could make twice as much biodiesel. Being older and a little wiser I follow my logic a little further when thinking about rebuilding things these days. We would need twice the capacity of circulation pump to mix the oil and methoxide. Perhaps I could sell this complete biodiesel processor and build the larger processorà

Above is the biodiesel circulation pump. These pumps are super cheap from Harbor Freight, like $25, thank you China.

Yes all this goes through my mind as I sit in the steel folding-chair waiting and watching the glycerol slowly ooze out of the once-clear plastic pipe. Yeah all right, so it was only five minutes. A guy like me has to think about something or I could go crazy. We don't want that, do we?

So what did "we" do when the goo turned to cool, clear, thin biodiesel and was no longer was I required to sit in that folding chair? Hmmm, well I been meaning to change the plumbing on the Isuzu so that the FPHE ((flat plate heat exchanger) oh boy, another heat exchanger) wasn't being heated during the Summer months possibly causing problems for the Isuzu fuel system due to over-heating. With aching knees creaking I leaned over the engine compartment visualizing my previous plan of pulling the hose from where it was on the main engine coolant circuit and placing it on the heater circuit.

Something seemed too easy about that plan, now as I stared at the engine something else seemed amiss in my theory. The coolant line from the water pump split with one leg feeding the cab heater and the other feeding the top of the engine. The latter coolant line being diverted to the FPHE, as you can see in the image below. The red hoses are the fuel lines which are heated by the FPHE. The larger black hoses are the coolant lines I changed.

In the above image is the way the engine compartment looked a 8:00AM.



Ahhh, I love Linux and the Gimp photo manipulation software. People I hope you don't believe that you need to buy expensive or worse pirate Adobe Photoshop to work your images, this program is perfect of the average user, and it is freaky-fast. So I expect the labels I superimposed on the photo explain everything. Graceful twist in the new hose routing don't you agree?



Okay, what is this yummy looking stuff? Why this is biodiesel having been washed with a fine spray of water over a period of hours. The next phase in the process is to place two aquarium bubblers in the clean water layer at the bottom of the tank which draw water bubbles up though the biodiesel cleansing and polishing it further. After 24 hours of bubbling the biodiesel will be crystal clear and ready for drying, and then it is ready to begin life as a directreplacement for planet-polluting dino-diesel.

And finally, the job which nearly drove yours truly to drink yesterday, nah, but I thought about it. Our 1981 Peugeot 505s turbo-diesel head-torquing project.

Jesus, it was a gunky-black-greasy mess. My hands are still high-lighted with black in every crack and pore. Somehow I made it through with a semblance of sanity. I removed the valve cover exposing the rocker arm, pictured above already reinstalled after torquing the head bolts. Yeah that's what the rocker arm looked like after I cleaned it, still black and slimy, right?

At some point, if I can make this diesel engine fire on all four cylinders without rebuilding the engine I will determine why this gunk is collecting under the valve cover, but the important thing to keep in mind is this is a no-longer-imported French car and it will be difficult at best to find parts to rebuild it, which is sort of a relief when I think about tearing this black greasy mess apart further.

Okally doke, enough already.

Glad to see you're still at it, Brian. This diesel stuff is addicting, no?

I've been contemplating another diesel project lately - it's about time I think. Also been considering home-brewed biodiesel, as I just don't feel comfortable running SVO through the fuel system of my truck. Either way, it's cool and worth the effort.

And as for Linux: I've been using it for all sorts of things (both personal and professional) for years now, and it's far and away my favorite OS. I've even got my wife's grandmother using it, as well as my friend's law office!

Cool cool
Yeah, I begin to think I'm keeping busy with my little projects, and a friend from way down in Texas calls to tell me his gang just successfully mated a VW TDI with a helicopter! When I asked if it had enough juice, compared to the 4cyl lycoming they yanked, he said, "We strapped the helicopter to a gooseneck trailer and fired up the engine, yes sir it lifted the trailer." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycoming_O-320

Weldon is a VW fanatic, and we have been talking to him about gettin us a relatively newish Jetta for my wife's commuter. Unfortunately, there is a huge difference in the diesels down there at sea level and what will work up here at 7500' When I showed him a 4wheel drive Audi on craigslist before I realised it wasn't diesel, Weldon told me I ought to buy a Toyota Forerunner and throw a TDI in it, if we need a 4x4.

Now there's a guy not afraid to start a project. Me? I'm still reeling from the Chevy V6 tbi engine into a Mercedes 240d project I did 15 years ago. There are some pluses these days though; I'm not high all the time, and we have a nice little shop to work in, now all I need are the TDI and the 4x4 chassis, and let's get started moddin. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />
Alas, the economy here in northern New Mexico always was lousy, now it is worse, the only people with money were already rich to begin with and a select few that work for the school system, go figure. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/zombie.gif" alt="" />