Converting a Diesel Engine to run Waste Vegetable Oil

People are becoming more aware that you can run Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO) in a traditional diesel engine. The original diesel designs allowed running on peanut oil. There is no guess as to why petroleum-based fuels became the primary fuel source. The Tales of a Vagabond site runs out of a 33' Skoolie Bus that has been converted to an energy efficient RV that is powered by WVO. The conversion was not very difficult, but it did require some engineering.

The Tales of a Vagabond WVO Skoolie Bus

A look at the 'Guts' of the WVO conversion process.

The WVO conversion was designed so that no chemical conversion of WVO has to be done. WVO can have additives mixed in with it to break it down and make it easier to burn in an engine. The process that was completed on the Vagabond Skoolie Bus utilizes the heat that is already produced by the bus while it is running. The heater coolant line from inside was re-routed to encase a WVO fuel line that flows from the engine to the 2 rear 75-gallon WVO tanks. This rises the WVO to the correct temperature to combust.

The controls for the WVO are simply laid out as switches that control servos to specify which fuel the Vagabond Skoolie Bus needs. After starting the bus on traditional diesel fuel, the bus warms up to it's running temperature, and the warm coolant flows through the bus. An extra coolant pump is activated to ensure the long path is followed without obstruction. A switch controls which tank the WVO comes from, so judging by the gauges, a tank is selected. The fuel pump switch is flipped, and pressure is checked to ensure there were no problems in getting the WVO to the engine compartment. As long as everything goes smoothly to this point, we flip the Fuel Intake Switch to Veggie Power, and the Return Tank Switch to return fuel to the WVO tanks to make sure there is no excess WVO in the diesel tank.

The process to shut down the bus is almost exactly in reverse, except you have to switch the Fuel Intake and wait a bit longer to switch the bus back to diesel return as the Fuel Lines from the WVO tanks are longer than those of the diesel, so purging the lines is a longer process..

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