Greasecar Conversion Project

In June of 2002 I read the article Drive a Greasecar - DIY Biodiesel on Slashdot and got excited. I've always found cars interesting but never had the opportunity to actually tinker with one. It seemed like a great idea. Converting old cars to run on used vegitable oil seemed like an amazing idea. Recycling cars and burning a used renewable resource to power a vehicle seemed like a creative solution. I spent the next week or so surfing the web looking at Greasecar, Veggie Van, Greasel. After going out to GreaseCar factory and talking taking a look at Justin's car I decided this was something I definately wanted to do. I then spent another week watching eBay for Diesel Mercedes Benz and Volkswagon. I orginally wanted a VW becasue I assumed the parts and upkeep would be cheaper as well as I prefer to drive standard cars. What I found was that Volkswagons really only came in $7,000+ newer cars and old $500 beaters. Mercedes however had many older cars that were very well kept and reasonably priced. Once I saw my car listed I knew I had to have it. It is a one owner always dealer serviced fully loaded 1975 Mercedes Benz 300D fully loaded (working AC, Moonroof, power everything). I think the cars 276,000 miles scared off all biders and I ended up purchasing the car for the base asking price of $2500. The was as discribed by the seller in Mint condition with very few issues for a 27 year old car. I purchased a Delux Grease Kit from Greasecar.com and was ready to start the conversion...

I got the car home and excitedly disassembled it trying to figure out where everything goes. Unfortunately I realize it would have to be registered, insured and inspected. So, I put the car back together again, got my insurance and registration and went to get it inspected. It failed. The inspector spent 45 minutes going over every detail of the car to find one of the back seatbelts failed to latch correctly. So, after scouring a few junkyards I got a new seatbelt, got the car inspected and started the installation again...

Installation took about a week of after work tinkering. Not really a lot of time if you consider the fact that when I started I was looking at the engine while looking up on the reference CD to try and figure out what a fuel pump and an injector pump actually looked like. Luckly I saved my installation notes:

Wednesday, August 28th, 2002 11:59 PM
More on the car. I finished running the fuel line yesterday and couldn't get the damn thing running on diesel again. I wrote down 3 pages of notes that I email to try to get help, but I won't bore you with it. Anyway it was a 3 hour ordeal which involved redoing and checking everthing atleast once. I ran through 2 batteries of failed start attempts in the process. Well, I got an email back this morning letting me know all I needed to do was use the primer pump on the fuel line (part of the car)... I did this during lunch (as well as some battery recharging and wham! I was in business!
This evenings process was successful but with a few catches. I cleaned up the enginge comparment. I hooked up the wires to the switches. In this process I blew 2 fuses and destroyed a switch. However I foudn the 27 year old spare fuses (well only one) and am back in business. Everything is all hooked up and should be ready to burn grease.
Tomorrows plan is to replace the broken parts, get some veggie oil (clean to start) and see if it works! I'm really excited about this. Not only is the project a worthy goal but I've been learning a hell of a lot about cars I've always wanted to know but never took the time to figure out.
If it burns veggie tomorrow then I only have two more things left to do. I need to install the pumping rig in the trunk for getting used oil into the tank (very cool setup that looks like a normal gas pump) and then the last step would be to clean up the hoses running through the car and put everything back together (hopefully friday)...
With any luck I'll be ready to go to the ball (greasefest 2002) on Saturday!

Thursday, August 29th, 2002 11:45 pm
IT IS DONE! I now have a 1975 Mercedes Benz that mainly runs on veggie oil (currently Amercia's Choice Corn Oil since I haven't gotten any recycled oil yet). The car is back together running FINE! Corn oil smells interesting, not like fries, but definately better then diesel! I'm still in shock that this actually works and I did it!!!!