Buying a E-350 7.3L diesel... with vegetable oil (WVO) conversion?

[tlrobinson]

I'm looking for a E-350 with the 7.3L diesel engine, and found one... but it's been converted to run on waste vegetable oil (WVO). It still also runs on diesel as well and has a switch to toggle between them.

Do WVO conversions hurt the engine at all?

I'm not sure I'd want to keep the WVO system as it has a vegatable oil tank that takes up space. How hard is it to rip these things out?

Thanks.

 

[villageidiot327]

I'm not sure how the 7.3 injection system reacts to WVO......

I work on Mercedes for a living, doing mostly classics, 50's and 60's stuff, we service a lot of the w123 diesels 70's/80's. When the WVO craze hit a few years back, a customer had come in touting how his wagon was awesome, runs on French fries etc...... Then it muffed up. Sometime between it being awesome and muffing up, he had a big article written about him/car/WVO etc....... Before the article went to print, we had already torn all that crap outta there.

It'll be a separate tank, usually a filter or 3, a heat exchanger to warm up the sludge etc. The stuff wreaks havoc on injection pumps and injectors, as well as crudding up glow plugs etc.

YMMV and all that, that's just what I've seen in my world.

 

[dleeallen]

I can tell you about my experience on a VW TDI with a WVO system. I bought the car used and like you didn't really want the WVO. Removing the system wasn't too bad though it required plugging some holes in the body where the heater lines went to the tank. Also had to replace a heater line or two as I recall to undo the 'T' connections they had used to tap into the coolant. The removal wasn't a big deal though.

The big issue I found was the carbon build up in the intake. It was incredible. From what I have read it is critical to get the WVO up to temp before using it, and really only use it under higher load running like high speeds vs stop and go. My car was from Cape Cod so did stop and go... In my case it ended up ok because the car got a new head due to some bent valves so I was able to clean it all up. I don't know enough about the design of the 7.3 vs a TDI to know if it's likely to be the same situation, but it's something to look for.

 

[boardrider247]

I can tell you about my experience on a VW TDI with a WVO system. I bought the car used and like you didn't really want the WVO. Removing the system wasn't too bad though it required plugging some holes in the body where the heater lines went to the tank. Also had to replace a heater line or two as I recall to undo the 'T' connections they had used to tap into the coolant. The removal wasn't a big deal though.

The big issue I found was the carbon build up in the intake. It was incredible. From what I have read it is critical to get the WVO up to temp before using it, and really only use it under higher load running like high speeds vs stop and go. My car was from Cape Cod so did stop and go... In my case it ended up ok because the car got a new head due to some bent valves so I was able to clean it all up. I don't know enough about the design of the 7.3 vs a TDI to know if it's likely to be the same situation, but it's something to look for.

The 1.9l TDI is notorious for having carbon build up in the intake. They all do that until you do some mods. I'm not saying the WVO didn't contribute but it was far from the root cause of your intake problem.

 

[Abitibi]

I've run wvo on most of my trucks for the last 10 years and I still love it. I also use a two tanks system. I'm from Canada though and seems like we get higher oil quality. For myself I only use Canola oil from sushi restaurants which change their oil every couple days. The oil I got from the states wasn't as nice...

The 7.3 is known to love wvo compared to other motors. My friend Simon in Winnipeg has been running wvo in his 7.3 for a very long time without issues. But like mentioned above, just make sure you have a good system and that you reach proper operating temperature before switching to wvo and doing a good purge at the end. For me, I would pay extra for a good set up.

Feel free to pm me for more info.

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[Abitibi]

Also, if you don't want to use wvo, just use diesel instead... You'll end up with an extra diesel fuel tank. Also an extra heated fuel filter (great for winter) and the capacity to switch tanks on the fly



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