Trials and Tribulations of Vege-Oil

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So the hot topic that everybody is asking about on the road is the process of the veg-oil system. We've been happy to explain, hoping that more people will get involved and the sustainable energy movement will grow. Interestingly, it's the senior citizens on the road who are most interested. Anyway, here's a bit about how it works and some of our experiences with it.

First we scope out restaurants. The most ritzy restaurants tend to have the best oil. Unfortunatly they also seem a bit less likely to want to give it away. Chain restaurants often have guidelines or regulations and tend to not work out so well. Once we find a restaurant we'll ask the manager if we can pump out their waste oil to fuel Gimli. We've had a variety of answers such as:
*A) "we have to pass it with corporate."
*B) "We don't have (or don't use) cooking oil." - A complete lie, considering Brandi and I won't bother asking them unless we saw the oil container out back.
*C) "Somebody else just took it."
*D) "People pay us for it."
*E) "It's a liability"
*F) "Go for it." We like that answer very much.

So after we go through several rejections, we get the okay, and park the bus out back by the waste container. Next, one of several things will happen. One such thing is that the container will be empty or near enough to not be worth the time. Another is that the oil looks totally disgusting (which is really a comparative term, considering even the good oil is kinda disgusting). Or the other thing that'll happen is the container will have plenty of good looking oil. So then we test it.

To test it we bust out a propane burner and heat up a small sample of oil. If it smokes, we're happy because there's little or no water. If it bubbles, we may still use it but that means it's mediocre. If it crackles (which is often) that means it has too much water and is unusable, so the search begins anew. Water in the oil is hard on our system and bad for the engine. If we want to get across country and back, we have to pass up on watery oil.

Then, if the manager says yes, there's oil in the container, and it passes our test...we get to fueling. We get all geared up in our gnarly work clothes, and get to work. First we hook up our pump to our battery, and pump out oil through a 150 micron filter. We pump it from the waste oil drum into 5 gallon oil containers. From those, we pump the oil through a 70 micron filter, then a 30 micron, and then into the tank, where eventually it will pass through a final 10 micron filter. The whole time we're doing this, we're switching out clogged filters for clean ones, and cleaning the dirty ones with de-greaser spray.

So far, no restaurant has had enough oil to entirely fill our tank. When it's all done we clean up and drive away on free fuel. Inside the system the oil gets heated and filtered. It smells kind of like the food served at whatever type of restuarant we got it from. We seem to get a comparable amount of power from Veg as we do on diesel.

That's it in a large nutshell, it's a long dirty process, and it's a process that we can only do when all the conditions line up, but still, it allows us to travel for free when we're able to get it.

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Photos

Gimli's Surgery
this was Gimli getting done what allows us to do what we do now.

Comments

[David]

VegRev says hello!!!
Hey you two. I'm soooo happy that you're making it happen! I can just imagine the both of you on the hunt for good Veg. Not many people have done what you are doing (traveling on veg. around the country and filtering as you go). It takes dedication, perseverance, and love. You are pioneers in a time when there are few bold enough to venture out into the unknown. Thank you for your shared experiences and adventures. I look forward to reading more! David www.VegRev.com