Chapter 4 - The Good Oil

So we are travelling around the East coast of Oz and amazing things are happening. Serendipity is on overdrive and life is as simple as the van we are in and the stuff within it. I loved the fact that we were driving on biodiesel and yet I was amazed at how many people had no idea what it was.

As I kept explaining the whole biodiesel thing to those we encountered, I started to think more and more about trying to run on straight vegetable oil (SVO). We kept hearing rumours of people doing it, tractors running on it, old diesel cars, yet to actually find a person who we could talk about it with was not so easy. As always, the internet had lots of information, although a lot of it was conflicting, with many sites saying SVO is too hard and others saying it is too easy and totally do-able. Confusing.

The more I read about SVO systems the more it seemed like the truly carbon neutral way to drive. Sure there is the Prius Plus which you could charge from a solar panel, or even the solar panels that can now be fitted on the roof of a Prius but you have to fork out the stack of cash for the car first and then the extra options second (and these options will then void all warranties you had from the manufacturer). If you have a tough old indirect injection diesel engine and a source of relatively good waste vegetable oil, then this may be a way to go.

So we made the slightly irrational and totally emotional decision to sell the lovely comfy and rather expensive VW van and use the money to fund a vegetable oil experiment.


Question: How hard can it be to convert a diesel van to run on vegetable oil?
Answer: Much harder than I thought…

The fact that I’m neither a mechanic, auto electrician nor rev-head may explain a fair amount of the difficulties experienced though.