The first part of this post is easy. Does anyone with a twin to my Volvo i.e. ex Knight transportation know the capcity of each of the fuel tanks. I think they may be 75 and 125, but not sure.

Next, I am looking at converting the large tank to be able to use recycled veggie oil. No I am not a flaming liberal - former Marine circa 1967 1968. But recent articles in Home Power magazines have intrigued me about bio diesel or straight veggie oil. I am interested in Bio diesel because I work for a consortium of folks trying to make ethanol production something other than a farm subsidie program. One of the ways to make biodiesel is to use ethanol.

Now you can use straight veggie oil as the good mr Diesel actually invented his first engine to run on peanut oil.

Straight veggie oil cannot be used to start your engine, need petro, so you start and stop on petro and use veggie inbetween. Downside of veggie, none so far. It runs, much, much cleaner, has more power and slightly better fuel economy. Can't afford new, but people are using restaurant oil that they clean. (My son is in the restaurant business ergo, I have a source).

Anyway the folks who have modified vehicles are in Mo and I may go visit them.

anythoughts from the closet tree huggers out there?

Chuck

I don't have any input for you. I am real interested in the outcome of your research. I've talked to a few others over the years that have done much the same with decent results but didn't pay attention to the details at the time.

Tally this reply up to "you are not alone" in your interest. Keep us updated (I know you will).

Chuck,

IM no authority on this subject and am not a tree hugger, althought like everyone else, I want to live in a clean environment. IMO, lots of govt regulations concerning engines and fuels are unnecessary, expensive, and counter productive in some cases.

I know the use of various types of oils such as cooking/veggie/used crankcase oils are increasingly being used in diesel engines with no known downside.

If you do a search for "bio diesel" on Google, I think you will find lots of information on this subject.

I converted 5 or 6 of those Knight trucks. As I recall fuel tank size is as you stated. You might consider running a mixture of diesel/cooking oil in both tanks.

You would have to alter the fuel system to run say, vegatable oil from one tank alone. These systems supply a considerable amount of excess fuel to the engine. The excess fuel is returned to the fuel tanks through separate fuel lines in approximately equal amounts, to both tanks.

If I ever find the right situation, i.e. if I locate a source for cooking oil, I'll try it myself.

onezman

http://onezman.tripod.com/whitehotrvhauler

You just need to multiply the Area of the cylinder's circle, times the height of the cylinder.

Area = Pi * (radius * radius)
Volume = Area * Height

The only thing is all the units must be the same. For example, if you measure the radius in inches, the height must be measured in inches, then the result will be in cubic inches, which you can convert to gallons or whatever on the volume conversion page.

The radius is 1/2 the diameter.

As an example, I will calculate for a tank with a diameter of 100 inches and a height of 100 inches.

Area = 3.14 * (50 inches * 50 inches) = 7,850 square inches
Volume = 7,850 square inches * 100 inches = 785,000 cubic inches

You could then convert cubic inches to whatever you need on the volume conversion page.

1 cubic inches = 0.00432900431 gallons

The fuel capacity of each tank should be engraved on the tank near the fill cap. Each tank is required to have the info on it at or near the fill cap.
Wick

......and that is NOT usable fuel that is total volume available......useble is a percentage of the total under ideal conditions...geofkaye

Here is a site that is a good start for looking into Biodiesel or straight vegetable oil.

http://www.biofueloasis.com/html/basics.html

Mike

...bio's and veggies are all good ideas on a vehicle that is worth very little.....but I don't want to spend 10k for a new engine.....maybe in an old VW or something like that just to bang around town and of course there is the road tax issue with the fines starting at $10,000.........geofkaye

May I offer this site as possible sources of help and information. I spoke to Steve Spence the otherday and they are having great success with a Freightliner they recently converted to run on Veggie oil. http://www.green-trust.org/

......great!....but who covers the warranty then things don't go as planned.....a small M series engine is $12,000 now.....First thing Freightliner is going to say is "what warranty?''.....geofkaye