# Biodiesel: not for after SHTF



## Tirediron

No matter how many PAW *fictionstories use biodiesel as a source of fuel after SHTF, it is not really a viable option. IF you have done any experiments with it you would discover that it requires pure clean methanol and high grade lye to produce good results. what about tritation?? how much litmus paper are you going to store. 
Straight vegitable oil how ever could be a viable solution, it just needs to be heated to lower the viscosity. And filtered of course. 
Why doesn't the main stream media tell you this because 1 person can make it work. main stream is only interested in what solutions big corporations can do. 
If you do not have the knowledge and skill base to understand why biodiesel will not work post apocalypse start the learning process now or be prepared to walk or pedal you way thru.*


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## cowboyhermit

I think this is a good point most people don't consider. Even today making biodiesel is fairly involved and a bit more than most people want to mess with on a regular basis.

Pure methanol and lye have been around for a long time though, at least the middle ages, so their production would certainly be possible if time consuming, expensive, and difficult. Let alone growing, harvesting, and crushing the oilseeds. 
I think this would have to be someones job for it to be manageable, providing fuel for a family/group/community. Even then it would be tough, ethanol is a lot easier if only more engines were designed to run on 95%.


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## Bobbb

I'm coming up on a small engine purchase and one of the criteria is whether to go diesel or gasoline. I want to be able to swap it out of various tools (bandsaw mill, wood chipper, well drilling unit) rather than have each powered by it's own engine. Diesel, of course, is more expensive. I still have a lot more research to do but in the back of my mind was this biodiesel issue - if the SHTF I'd like to have some means of making fuel to power the engine. I'm not decided on how much of a premium I'm willing to pay for this insurance but I am kicking it around.

What are your thoughts on my situation?


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## cowboyhermit

One thing to consider is that the small modern diesels (aluminum) don't have the same kind of durability that many people associate with diesel engines. At least as good as gasoline models but not exceptional in my experience.

I would like to hear others views as well.

Generally I love mechanical (non-electronic) direct injected diesel engines. Like Tirediron mentioned they can run on various kinds of oil as long as viscosity is taken into account and particulates and water filtered out well.
A "gasoline" engine has a lot of flexibility as well, very easy to convert to propane or natural gas (methane) but can also run on methanol (what indy cars burn) or ethanol. Of course there are corrosion problems with alcohol. 
If anyone finds a small engine designed to run on ethanol please post it here! Would save a lot of headaches to have one with quality stainless steel parts to begin with.


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## LincTex

Bobbb said:


> I'm coming up on a small engine purchase and one of the criteria is whether to go diesel or gasoline. I want to be able to swap it out of various tools (bandsaw mill, wood chipper, well drilling unit) rather than have each powered by it's own engine.
> 
> What are your thoughts on my situation?


You need a small diesel engine... installed in a small tractor. 
Preferably one with a hydraulic pump and PTO. 
The bandsaw mill, wood chipper and well driller can all be made to fit directly on the tractor. Look for a Yanmar, John Deere powered by a Yanmar, Kubota, Ford (Shibaura), etc.

I don't know if anyone really makes the "ideal" machine. I have a little Chinese tractor that starts with a hand crank (really quite easily) but it is just a puller, it has no PTO and hydraulics (but I added both of them to it). It also has a 120/240 60Hz generator that I can swap on in minutes, as well as a very large Leece-Neville alternator to charge batteries (over 100 amps). I can also use it to jump start or pull start other machines, I suppose.

The little Yanmar YM2000 has all the fun stuff, even a 3 speed PTO for different tilling conditions, but needs its starter. I have never tried to pull start it, but it would not be impossible to do because it is all mechanical.

The Farmall C has a fuel system that is mostly steel and iron, so it should be able to handle alcohol fuels. It starts easily with a crank, a starter, or by rolling it. It also has hydraulics , PTO and a belt pulley. It currently doesn't have a magneto, but I have one ready to go on if needed.

Not one of these tractors I paid more than $500 for.


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## Bobbb

LincTex said:


> You need a small diesel engine... installed in a small tractor.
> Preferably one with a hydraulic pump and PTO.
> The bandsaw mill, wood chipper and well driller can all be made to fit directly on the tractor. Look for a Yanmar, John Deere powered by a Yanmar, Kubota, Ford (Shibaura), etc.


I have this photo in my files. Picked it up from my web travels.

Any engineering or fabrication insights from y'all?


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## Tirediron

The down side to a remote powered band saw is the need for twice as much track to run the carriage down instead of the log length + the saw length for a moving head system. bonus is you can use the tractor to move the mill if you want, load the roll way, swathe dimensional, move the lumber and the slabs after. For your other applications I don't see the down side. Plus you can buy an old tractor pretty cheap sometimes. And driving it into place to hook up the power shaft is way easier on the back than hefting a motor into place.


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## eddy_dvyvan

Bobbb said:


> I'm coming up on a small engine purchase and one of the criteria is whether to go diesel or gasoline. I want to be able to swap it out of various tools (bandsaw mill, wood chipper, well drilling unit) rather than have each powered by it's own engine. Diesel, of course, is more expensive. I still have a lot more research to do but in the back of my mind was this biodiesel issue - if the SHTF I'd like to have some means of making fuel to power the engine. I'm not decided on how much of a premium I'm willing to pay for this insurance but I am kicking it around.
> 
> What are your thoughts on my situation?


I have a few petrol vehicals and a single diesel. I prefer the diesel long term as the old ones are so simple. easy to rebuild (liners) and will run on more options than petrol. At the moment when i service all my vehicals i keep my used oil and filter it and slowly mix it in with my diesel and it runs perfect. It MAY even be a benifit because the low sulpher diesel we have here doesnt lubricate the pump like the old diesel and MAYBE the addition of the oil helps that.

Eventually i hope to have a play with bioD but at the moment i do use some veg oil depending on weather. I have a small seperate tank that i use for it.

I know you can make a form of lye from wood ash???? I havnt looked much into it yet tho.

Cheers


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## eddy_dvyvan

sorry double post


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## LincTex

Bobbb said:


> I have this photo in my files. Picked it up from my web travels. Any engineering or fabrication insights from y'all?


Looks like a nice set-up. I suppose he built that himself. I wonder what max log length is... 10-12 feet? I would be happy with anything over 8 feet.



Tirediron said:


> Plus you can buy an old tractor pretty cheap sometimes. And driving it into place to hook up the power shaft is way easier on the back than hefting a motor into place.


I have actually seen old tractors that still ran but weren't worth putting tires on being used for stationary power units. I heard of an old McCormick W6 that has run a saw mill and nothing else for over 20 years, LOL! I don't think the oil has been changed one time since it was set up on blocks, though oil needs to be added from time to time (used, of course).

You could always use a hydraulic orbit motor to run that bandsaw mill.... just need long enough hoses. It will also depend on what hydraulic pump capacity you have to work with, but there are more ways than one to skin that cat.


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## FrankW

Vegetable oil from high volume restaurants as a free source would disappear in any depression or worse because high volume restaurants would disappear.

That bieng said, Diesel is pretty tolerant to mixes and also proper Diesel fuel Can be stored for years with little deleterious effects whereas gasoline will be sour within 18 months (give or take)


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## cowboyhermit

We had a W6 sitting on a hammer mill for almost as long. Easiest machine on the place to start in cold weather, and I always used the crank. You can close the louvers in the front and everything
Every so often we would rotate the spark plugs so that the fouled up one would burn off

I was going to say about using hydraulics as well, some machines are not too easy to adapt to pto so hydraulic may be easier. A lot of old tractors have dismal hydraulic flows but there were some decent pto driven units, not nice to tie up the pto but if you need real power they work. The belt wheels on old models could also be adapted to a hydraulic pump.


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## Tirediron

BlueZ said:


> Vegetable oil from high volume restaurants as a free source would disappear in any depression or worse because high volume restaurants would disappear.
> 
> That bieng said, Diesel is pretty tolerant to mixes and also proper Diesel fuel Can be stored for years with little deleterious effects whereas gasoline will be sour within 18 months (give or take)


Modern low sulphur diesel fuel does not store particularly well in warm or hot climates, and is prone to algae so it needs to be stabilized. 
BlueZ if you don't know don't guess.


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## LincTex

Tirediron said:


> Modern low sulphur diesel fuel does not store particularly well in warm or hot climates ... BlueZ if you don't know don't guess.


Well, it USED TO. Back before it got messed with so bad. I think if you could store good ol' "non-ULSD" like off-road/heating oil it would be worth it to do so because it keeps for so much longer.


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## Tirediron

Yeah in a cool tank underground it would probably last pretty well, especially with some algicyd added


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## cqp33

Tirediron said:


> Modern low sulphur diesel fuel does not store particularly well in warm or hot climates, and is prone to algae so it needs to be stabilized.
> BlueZ if you don't know don't guess.


a few years ago my ship (US Navy) was stuck in port because our fuel turned green, passed every test onboard we had for it, flash point, viscosity, etc but with it being green we did not want to take the chance of burning it in our LM2500 turbine engines until tested in a lab! Turned out it was algae, we burned it with no issues after it was tested in several labs! We had been in the yards for quite a while and because my ship used sea water in the tanks to feed the fuel it grew quicker in that environment. We (Navy) pump sea water into the tanks to push the fuel out since fuel sits on top of the sea water, this allows the weight of the sea water to replace the fuel to maintain stability.

I should also add that i am stationed in Hawaii, since the water temp here is always above 70 this is an ideal environment for algae to grow in sea water!


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## LincTex

The algae we get in our fuel filters in Texas is a gray sludgy looking stuff. Very fine, but coats the pleats of the filter quickly. I keep used motor oil in my diesel and that seems to make a big difference, but any newer diesel trucks really can't do that.


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## Tirediron

I have noticed that mixed gas for a chainsaw seems to last a lot longer without going foul too.


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## eddy_dvyvan

Tirediron said:


> I have noticed that mixed gas for a chainsaw seems to last a lot longer without going foul too.


I actually believe the oposite there. I used to pre mix my chain saw fuel in large quantities only to find it actually ran considerably worse.

Now i only put in what im using that day and no issues. Was advised this by the bloke at sthil as well. Maybe climate issues play a role in the difference


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## cowboyhermit

Supposedly the Stihl 2cycle engine oil (maybe all 2cycle oil) has all the "fuel stabilizers" that are needed :dunno: I haven't had much problems with chainsaw gas going bad but then I am rather obsessive about keeping it clean/fresh.

With regards to the algae/modern diesel, even the "farm" fuel we get now is low sulfur (and last year we got 10%ethanol in our gasoline). I was never much for additives but we had to start using them a while back in diesel. We had some old injector pumps behaving badly (governors acting up, etc) so we started adding Howe's and it really did clear things up, the modern diesel really is not "oily" and has almost no lubrication imo.

For a while now we have been using something called RedTek that SEEMS to do a great job. http://www.redtek.com/products_fuel.htmlIt is also a good anti-gel and a little goes a long way. It is also good for gas or diesel which is nice but kinda weird
Supposed to;
"Improved Combustion
Increased Horsepower
Smoother Running Engines
Decreased Fuel Consumption
Extended Fuel System Life
Complete Water Dissipation
Rust and Corrosion Protection
Prolonged Seal and Gasket Life
Algae/Bacteria Protection"
No word on whether it will balance your tires and take out the trash

But I can vouch for the water dissipation, lubrication, and anti-gel.


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## LincTex

cowboyhermit said:


> Supposedly the Stihl 2cycle engine oil (maybe all 2cycle oil) has all the "fuel stabilizers" that are needed


Just barely enough, maybe for 30 days stability.



cowboyhermit said:


> I haven't had much problems with chainsaw gas going bad but then I am rather obsessive about keeping it clean/fresh.


I only mix a gallon at a time, and it last about 30 days before it's all gone. If not, it goes into the rider mower... the 18HP Briggs doesn't mind.



cowboyhermit said:


> the modern diesel really is not "oily" and has almost no lubrication imo.


That's why I filter used motor oil really well and blend that into my fuel.



cowboyhermit said:


> For a while now we have been using something called RedTek that SEEMS to do a great job.


My grandfather used to add Essentialube® to all our diesel fuel. I guess it worked... every diesel powered piece of equipment he ever owned is still running to this day, over 20 years after his death.


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## Tirediron

Now I am not saying that keeping mixed fuel around is the right thing to do , but I have used mixed fuel that is at least a year old and had good results,(by accident, I sent someone to get the saw gas jug and they found the previous season's jug) but the gas was clean and water free when it was mixed, our bulk dealer goes right to the tank farm to fill his truck , then it goes into his customers tank. not the same as fuel from a gas station where the old gets mixed with the new.
Climate also seems to have a HUGE effect on the life cycle of fuel. even in mid summer here I doubt that our fuel ever gets over 60* in the storage tank.


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## cowboyhermit

Yeah, it must be a climate thing, I have used year old two cycle mixed gas without any problems. We have certainly had bad gas before, sometimes machines get parked for a couple years

Northern Europe (Stihl, Husqvarna) and Canada (even Washington and Oregon as well) have very different climates than other places.

Same with adding engine oil to diesel, not sure what that would do in terms of gel point not something Texans have to worry about


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## LincTex

cowboyhermit said:


> Same with adding engine oil to diesel, not sure what that would do in terms of gel point not something Texans have to worry about


It makes gel point worse. It also makes cetane worse. Not so much that is is noticeable unless it is really cold. Makes for a little blue haze from the exhaust when cold. If it gets really cold, I'll add a little gasoline to the mix to fix all those problems.


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## helicopter5472

LincTex said:


> It makes gel point worse. It also makes cetane worse. Not so much that is is noticeable unless it is really cold. Makes for a little blue haze from the exhaust when cold. If it gets really cold, I'll add a little gasoline to the mix to fix all those problems.


I used to add about 10 gallons of gas to my 300 gallon truck tanks in the winter months, never had any issues.


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## Tirediron

helicopter5472 said:


> I used to add about 10 gallons of gas to my 300 gallon truck tanks in the winter months, never had any issues.


Not sure that I would like to try that with low sulphur diesel, but it should work in a pinch. I have also heard of guys mixing straight vegi oil with some gas to thin it.


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## cowboyhermit

If anyone has had to rebuild an injector pump recently it is big $$$ so I am very careful with fuel and what I add, I filter everything. I know a lot of people used to add gas, particularly truckers coming up from the states in the winter but don't hear of it anymore. May have a lot to do with the type of fuel systems as well. It is probably a matter of scale too, the amount it would take to keep a typical diesel fuel from gelling in -40 might be a problem. The winter diesel in Canada has a lot of #1 in it for best performance, along with all kinds of additives. I have had mixed results with using summer fuel and after market additives alone in extreme cold weather, I have seen tractors gel up
Here is a bit of info about diesel (maybe not completely objective) and mixing with gasoline or oil.http://www.ufa.com/petroleum/resources/fuel/diesel_fuel_resources.html


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## LincTex

cowboyhermit said:


> I know a lot of people used to add gas, particularly truckers coming up from the states in the winter but don't hear of it anymore.


My FLD Freightliner had engine coolant (5/8 heater hoses) circulating in a heat exchanger to keep the fuel warm when driving up north. Our diesel tractors in North Dakota got a kerosene heater under them for a couple of hours if they were needed when cold out. I got one neighbor started on Howe's with its "no gel guarantee" and I guess he has never had one gel yet since using it, so I guess it works.


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## Tirediron

John deere used to like to mount their Glass filter out in the wind to help sell fuel conditioner I guess, Howes works pretty well, it is pretty popular here, My snow plow tractor gets a big drink of Howes in the fall.


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## LincTex

Tirediron said:


> John Deere used to like to mount their Glass filter out in the wind to help sell fuel conditioner I guess.


Get some dryer duct tubing, slip over the exhaust outlet, and direct down towards said glass fuel filter case. That keeps the cloudpoint from setting in


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