The technology you are talking about is SVO, or Straight Vegetable
Oil. Involved starting as you said using Diesel, then switching over
to thinned vegetable oil (by heating the oil with an heat exchanger).
Need to switch back before stopping though to purge the system of Veg
Oil. As I understand it, injector pumps which use fuel oil for
lubrication will not work for this, while those which use a different
source (e.g. an oil sump) might.

There is also a conversion process to make Bio Diesel. This involved
Ethel, and hence the issues with some rubber seals and such. It is
possible to purchase this from 100% Bio diesel, or is some mix
(80/20% seems common) with regular diesel.


Have not used either process myself.
-al-


On Fri, 4 Jun 2004 21:17:47 -0400, "Paul Schilter"
paulschilter@comcast,dot,net wrote:

There was a story in the Detroit News about car diesels using vegetable oil
obtained from local restaurants. You have to start the engine with diesel
fuel but when the vegetable oil gets heated to where it's thin enough you
switch over to the vegetable oil. The story said that the restaurants are
glad to give it away for free so they don't have to pay to have it hauled
away. The first image I got was a piece of French Fry getting into the
injector. The story didn't mention any filtering of the vegetable oil. I
think I'd have to hear a lot of favorable first hand reports before I'd
think of trying this. Exhaust fumes would be different though.
Paul