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Cummins starts on goat fat & cheap alcohol on TV...

bmanning
Explorer
Explorer
New reality TV show called "No Man's Land" follows 3 gents in Texas, Utah, & Arizona who live far from civilization & off-the-land essentially. Living in AZ myself I found the premise interesting enough to check out.

The guy living in the Sonoran Desert comes across a Dodge with a 5.9L that won't start; he boils down goat fat, filters it through cloth, adds some cheap alcohol, dumps it into the fuel tank & the Cummins comes to life.

Would a diesel actual run on boiled, strained animal fat & cheap alcohol from Mexico?

I can see the liquid fat doing the job but would alcohol be good to get a diesel to fire? :h

I wouldn't think so but what do I know...
BManning
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6 REPLIES 6

srt20
Explorer
Explorer
Golden_HVAC wrote:
I guess that they tried it and it worked. I would not try it on a 2007 or later truck, they have much finer fuel injectors and inject at much higher pressures.

The older 7.3L found in the Fords and the older 90's Dodge pickups had a lot of tolerance for poor fuel quality, while newer trucks will not.

Have you heard of VeggieVan.org? They where running a VW based diesel engine on used cooking oil way back in the 90's. One guy who was featured in Home Power Magazine even ran his oil furnace and car and Ford pickup on used vegetable grease. It was processed with methanol, and that thinned out the oil. It also allowed it to separate the glycerin out of the fuel. So the fuel would act like normal mineral based diesel fuel at 20F to 90F and beyond, no need to use a heated fuel tank.

Others have run a warmed up diesel engine on straight vegetable oil, from a heated tank, warmed to 140F by the hot water from the engine. However care must be taken to run on normal or biodiesel just before shutting it off and first thing the next time it is fired up, so that the oil is thin enough to pump through the injectors. If allowed to stop while on cooking oil, the oil can thicken to much at 90F to allow the factory pump to move it into the injectors with enough pressure to restart the engine.

Did you know you can run a diesel engine on WD40? While expensive to run it for a few minutes on 3 or 4 cans of WD 40, you can start a engine that has been run out of fuel, and needs to be primed with new fuel. This is not required on modern trucks with a booster pressure tank in the fuel tank, that will provide enough pressure and flow to fill the fuel filters and get to the primary high pressure pump mounted on the engine. I would not try it with a modern 2007 and later truck engine, but have used it on a boat back in 1994 that later went on to win the Trans Pacific race to Hawaii. The fuel tank was removed from the boat, washed and refilled with fuel. Then the engine had nothing to draw from, but I ran it on wd 40 for enough time to draw out fuel from the tank, and prime the new fuel filters. A trucker friend said that is how they would prime the Isuzu engines on their freezer trailers once they ran out of fuel while driving down the interstates.

So If they showed it working on goat fat, it might be possible. I would rather use cooking oil processed by methanol.

Fred.


I've started and kept a carb gas car running with WD40.

gkainz
Explorer
Explorer
yeah, it's TV ... and I already gave my son-in-law a ration of grief for that clip (he's a producer on the show ... also co-produced Mountain Man, also on History Channel).

That little clip was "out of his hands" as he put it and suggested I "relax my grip on reality a little and just enjoy the show" ... so I did. 🙂
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Dannyabear1
Explorer
Explorer
It's TV

Golden_HVAC
Explorer
Explorer
I guess that they tried it and it worked. I would not try it on a 2007 or later truck, they have much finer fuel injectors and inject at much higher pressures.

The older 7.3L found in the Fords and the older 90's Dodge pickups had a lot of tolerance for poor fuel quality, while newer trucks will not.

Have you heard of VeggieVan.org? They where running a VW based diesel engine on used cooking oil way back in the 90's. One guy who was featured in Home Power Magazine even ran his oil furnace and car and Ford pickup on used vegetable grease. It was processed with methanol, and that thinned out the oil. It also allowed it to separate the glycerin out of the fuel. So the fuel would act like normal mineral based diesel fuel at 20F to 90F and beyond, no need to use a heated fuel tank.

Others have run a warmed up diesel engine on straight vegetable oil, from a heated tank, warmed to 140F by the hot water from the engine. However care must be taken to run on normal or biodiesel just before shutting it off and first thing the next time it is fired up, so that the oil is thin enough to pump through the injectors. If allowed to stop while on cooking oil, the oil can thicken to much at 90F to allow the factory pump to move it into the injectors with enough pressure to restart the engine.

Did you know you can run a diesel engine on WD40? While expensive to run it for a few minutes on 3 or 4 cans of WD 40, you can start a engine that has been run out of fuel, and needs to be primed with new fuel. This is not required on modern trucks with a booster pressure tank in the fuel tank, that will provide enough pressure and flow to fill the fuel filters and get to the primary high pressure pump mounted on the engine. I would not try it with a modern 2007 and later truck engine, but have used it on a boat back in 1994 that later went on to win the Trans Pacific race to Hawaii. The fuel tank was removed from the boat, washed and refilled with fuel. Then the engine had nothing to draw from, but I ran it on wd 40 for enough time to draw out fuel from the tank, and prime the new fuel filters. A trucker friend said that is how they would prime the Isuzu engines on their freezer trailers once they ran out of fuel while driving down the interstates.

So If they showed it working on goat fat, it might be possible. I would rather use cooking oil processed by methanol.

Fred.
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Turtle_n_Peeps
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I turned the channel right after the one guy said the diesel fuel was gelling in 90 degree weather. :R
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hotpepperkid
Explorer
Explorer
Alcohol is mostly water don't think it would do the injectors any good. As far as the goat fat you would have to keep it from gelling other than that don't see why it wouldn't work, but what do I know Im not a goat farmer.
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