A story of one of the legendary W123's of Mercedes on vegetable oil
Archive for January 2006
At last, today I brought the car to Stam Automotive Products in Beverwijk, I’ll leave her with them for the week.
It will take approximately 5 days. The car will be fully coated with the special anti-corrosion stuff Dinitrol. They make small holes in the body and this stuff will be sprayed in under high pressure. This will keep out rust for years.
Cleaning the car beforehand.
At the service center
I think I figured it all out. Whe one read the following links, one can draw the conclusion that even with a W123 it is not a particular good idea (although they seem to drive perfectly on it) to drive on SVO from the supermarket without any changes. The best SVO isﾃつ Rapeseed oil which meet the DIN requirements,ﾃつ and this can be bought at some places in the Netherlands, so I need to have a big tank of this stuff so I don’t have to much hassle each time myﾃつ Benzﾃつ fuel tank is empty again, this way I can fill her up when I like.
Also, only heating the fuel seems also not to be enough, there needs to be done a lot more. I’ve got someﾃつ nice SVO friends now and there is a lot to tell youﾃつ about (pros and cons, and do’s and dont’s). But, as this will stay the blog of my car and not the fuel, I may write a seperate article about it in the future. Otherwise this will be atﾃつ the expense of the overview.
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In short, if you care for your car, and want to keep it for hundreds of thousands kilometers, you need a professional system which does more than just heating the fuel. I’ll go for the advanced one-fuel tank system from Elsbett. I talked on the phone for a while with a firm who does the install of these Elsbett PPO Systems in The Netherlands.
If you’re interested in the subject right now, just read the following links:
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html
http://www.rerorust.de/ﾃつ (german)
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Even more links see sectionﾃつ “organic Vegetable Diesel Fuel”ﾃつ on this page: http://ontario.indymedia.org/twiki/bin/view/Toronto/SustainableTechnologies
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Melissa and I decided a couple of days ago that we are going to visit the Solar eclipse on the 29th of march this year, we combine this with an nice journey through Turkey and a week to the greek island Rhodos.
The plan is to visit Libya or Turkey, we need to work that out. I’d like to go with the 300TD, so a checkup is needed too.
I made an appointment at the Dinitrol firm (the anti-corrosion treatment) for the 25th of february.ﾃつ I am also reading a lot about the PPO subject. It dawns on me that in the end it is not a safe thing to do, without any changes, or only some minor changes.
Right, after changing my stuff between the cars and workingﾃつ at the USA 300TDﾃつ for the day, I drove home with the Saharagelber again. That’s quite a difference, it drives really like a new one, but driving aﾃつ W123 which has 440000km (265000 miles) on it, drives even better in some way, like an old shoe that just fits so perfectly around your foot compared to a new shoe wich needs to “form” a bitﾃつ to your foot.
I decided to investigate the engine of the USA 300TD, after a lot of miles on PPO (about 25000km).ﾃつ I also have some problems with the fuel pump, it seems like it is not able to supply the injector nozzles with enough fuel. At the moment I stop with PPO driving and first do some extensive research on the PPO subject.
It’s time to get my Saharagelber out of our company hall, I am looking forward to it to drive with this car again.
It’s still winter but these circumstances oblige me to take the the Saharagelber again.
I quickly have to make an appointment for the anti-corrosion treatment soﾃつ I can keep driving with this car. Iﾃつ alsoﾃつ have toﾃつ find out how I can drive on PPO in a responsible way.