Today I drove the truck down to Walpole, MA to meet with Mark at SVOlink (formerly alt energy oasis, www.svolink.com). Mark used to do vegetable oil conversions of diesel engines and now focuses on processing and selling vegetable oil. He took the time to show me his box truck conversion, his processing facility, and talk me through my options for the Clover Food Lab conversion.
It appears I have 3 options:
- Run biodiesel — non-petroleum fuel (or a mixture of petroleum and non-petroleum fuel) that has been processed for use in diesel engines
- Run pure vegetable oil with diesel back-up — requires separate tank for oil, heater, switches, etc. (~$5,000)
- Run pure vegetable oil/ diesel mixture — requires heater, no separate tank, no switches, limited amount of vegetable oil that can be mixed (10% in winter, 50% in summer)
I like the idea of using my oil directly, rather than having to drop it off, have it processed with other oil, and buy it back. That rules out option #1. And cost might rule out option #2, unless I do the design and installation. I’m still looking into my options. If you’re interested in this and live in the Boston area, there are two places that do conversions:
- Greasecar sells kits (and is based in a town near where I grew up): www.greasecar.com
- Green Grease Monkey is an outfit in the Boston area that does conversions: www.greengreasemonkey.com
And there’s a book called “Sliding Home” that’s suppose to be great and packed with details. I’ve ordered it from Amazon and will let you know what I think.