Date:         Sat, 11 Dec 1999 14:24:04 EST
Reply-To:     Oxroad@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jeffrey R <Oxroad@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Diesel Vanagon on Car Talk
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

FWIW-

Today on Car Talk

A woman named Halle from Rutlage, maybe Michigan? called in with a problem
running her Vanagon diesel on "Bio-diesel" fuel. Bio diesel is apparently a
fuel made from used vegitable oil combined with or treated with lye.

Halle lives on a commune and they share three diesel autos, a Jetta, a
Vanagon and something else I can't remember along with a diesel tractor. All
the vehicles run fine on the Bio Diesel except the Vanagon.

The Vanagon would run for a few minutes then stall.  All the woman knew is
they took the bus to the dealer who "replaced some hoses" and cleaned or
maybe replaced the injectors. The bus ran fine for about two months then
started the same symptoms.

So Tom and Ray suggested something in the bio diesel was decomposing some of
the fuel lines and parts of them were plugging up the injectors. For whatever
reason the composition of the fuel lines on the other vehicles spared them
from this decomposition, according to Tom and Ray.

Solution: drain the biodiesel from the bus and fill with regular diesel and
see if the the bus runs normally. They didn't make mention of cleaning or
replacing the injectors (?) so I dunno, maybe the fuel would clean them?

That's the story  to the best of my knowlege and will hopefully offer some
insight to those of you who are making enough french fries to warrant mixing
up your own bio diesel in the garage.

From where I sit you have to have a fair amount of free time just to get
where you're going if you drive a Vanagon Diesel. Then to have time to eat
all those french fries AND distill your own home-brew fuel.

Ahh....c'mon. I'm just ribbin' you.

Best O
Jeff
83.5 Westy
NYC