Is there anyone who is using biodiesel on regular basis? I'm trying to get my fleet of ambulances convereted to start using the new fuel but I'm hitting all sorts of bumps along the way (storage, potential damage, etc...). All these bumps are being answered by salesguys with typical Brooklyn saying: "don't worry about it" but I can't risk costly repairs and putting ambulances out of service especially with winter comming up. Most people that are using biodiesel here are construction sites but many rules and laws don't apply to them and construction machinery has higher tolerances for fuel quality than typical diesel engine. If anyone here is doing it in the city (not rural) shoot me a PM since I would like to talk to you. Cheers,

Matt

PM sent.

Are you planning on running unmodified vegitable oil or methylated/ethylated oil?

With unmodified oil you need a preheater on the tank to lower the viscosity of the oil to a point where it'll flow through your fuel system. Even then a lot of time you may need a two-tank system where you start on regular deisel then once everything is hot enough you flip over to the veggie oil.

The methylated/ethylated oil, which I believe is what the bulk biodiesel fuel sellers sell, can be run identically to regular diesel. It doesn't need any preheaters or the engine to be warmed up with regular diesel. However, this biodeisel is an INCREDIBLE engine cleaner. It'll loosen up and old deposits throughout your fuel line. Make sure you have a few spare fuel filters on hand.

All things considered, for something as critical as ambulances I'd stick with regular diesel. Biodiesel technology still has bugs that can shut a vehicle down for a few hours while simple repairs are made.

-Blast, who spent a summer helping a neighbor fiddle with biodiesel

Yeah we were going with *lated mix and what is worrying me are its solvent properties and how some of our trucks are older and contain a lot of rubber parts in the fuel lines. And no matter how hard you try you may not be able to replace them all. Also since there are different ignition points I don't know how this would affect us in the winter.

Also we have a big trouble with storage. I mean it will get expensive but I can deal with one time tank building cost but I can't justify putting ambulances out of service and repairing it.

I mean I want to do somethign for environment but it is a complicated road.

Thanks you Sire.