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A Mercedes diesel conversion consists of a modification to the fuel system
You'll need to do a Mercedes diesel conversion to run vegetable oil as fuel in your Mercedes. The Mercedes diesel conversion consists of a modification to the fuel system. Basically the oil has to be heated, and needs and additional fuel pump added to push it. The reason is because vegetable oil is thicker than regular petroleum diesel. A larger filter needs to be added to the fuel system. Vegetable oil will clog up the stock fuel filters too quickly so they need to be bypassed. There are two types of conversions. Dual tank, and single tank.A dual tank system consists of two separate fuel tanks. The car starts on regular petroleum diesel. The second fuel tank has the vegetable oil in it. As you're running your vehicle on the petroleum diesel, your other tank is heating the vegetable oil. The heat comes from the engine coolant. The engine coolant travels to the tank containing the vegetable oil , and acts as a heat exchanger to heat the oil. When the vegetable oil is hot enough, you can switch the petroleum diesel tank off, and switch over to the tank containing the vegetable oil. When you're coming close to your destination you switch back to your petroleum diesel tank to purge all the vegetable oil out of the fuel system.A single tank system is using only the stock fuel tank of the vehicle. There is no additional tank added. The vehicle starts up, and shuts off on the vegetable oil. You can still put regular petroleum diesel, or biodiesel in the tank after the conversion. I recommend to blend petroleum diesel with the vegetable oil to thin it out when its cold outside. It's less likely to damage mechanical components to your vehicle like the injection pump if your running a two tank system. Vegetable oil has to be heated to 160 degrees to have the same viscosity as petroleum diesel. Starting your vehicle on cold vegetable oil will put strain on the injection pump. Its cheaper to get a single tank system, than a duel tank but will likely be more problematic.
Easily learn how to electricy heat your vegetable oil
Climate plays a key factor. I would strongly recommend a two tank system in a cold climate. In California in the summer time, you can blend more vegetable oil with petroleum diesel in your stock fuel tank with no conversion. Be careful how much vegetable oil you add. The thickness of the vegetable oil will clog your stock fuel filters, and your car will experience a loss of power. In order to run 100% vegetable oil, you have to bypass the stock fuel filters, unless you want to be changing them constantly. The vegetable oil can be heated by either electrical heat, or engine coolant. If you use electrical heat. you'll have to upgrade your alternator. Coolant heat is more widely used, but isn't immediate heat like electrical. You have to wait for the coolant to get hot from the engine to heat exchange the oil.
If your filtering, and using waste vegetable oil as fuel, this 12V fuel transfer pump makes transferring WVO very convenientTuthill Diesel Fuel Transfer Pump with Suction Pipe-12 Volt, 10 GPM, Model# FR1616
Myself, and many others agree that this 12V fuel transfer pump is the industry standard for transferring waste vegetable oil. I use this pump to collect waste vegetable from the restaurants. I simply connect the pump to a car battery, and transfer the waste vegetable oil from the restaurant drums into my cubie containers. After I settled my oil in the sun, I would pour the good oil through the 5 micron filter attached to the top of my 50 gallon drum. I then use this pump to transfer the good, filtered waste vegetable oil from the bottom of my 50 gallon drum, to my diesel Mercedes Benz. This pump is a must have if your filtering, and using waste vegetable oil as fuel. You pump your filtered WVO into your car like if you were at a gas station! The only place that I know of where you can get this pump is at: Because WVO is thick, you need to change the fuse that comes with the pump to a fuse that can withstand a higher number of amps. Simply change the fuse, and pump away!
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