Right... I bit the bullet and went for the Oilybits Veg conversion kit... bought it last Tuesday. Arrived yesterday
Not going to have time to fit it this weekend as I've gone climbing, but When it goes in there'll be photos and a story and hopefully more of these than these
I would risk putting it in tonight if the following road test wasn't a 600 mile round trip!
Mike/Yoda, how long did your kits take to fit (ish)

More to follow soon

I dragged in a friend who had never fitted one but is a bit of a mechanical guru. Plus myself, fairly competent (most of the time) and a fast learner. It took us a Saturday and a Sunday morning. Neither of us had particularly examined the instructions much until the morning of. We actually started work at 10am. We weren't rushing, just taking our time. Now, I think I could fit one myself in a day. I read somewhere the book time is 6 hours for a professional or very competent installer. Book out a weekend I reckon.

What truck you got? classic? Or taking the plunge with oilybits common rail kit?

mines more complex because of the console, its a smartveg, took me about two days, most of that was arguing with myself about were i was fitting the aux tank and the heat exchanger

i did a wee write up about fitting so it should help - dont forget, no jubilee clips on fuel connections

Uh yes..... DEF NOOOOO JUBILEE CLIPS!! *quietly whistles off into the corner*

And agreed, plenty of debate and head scratching about where to put things. I can post a pic or two of my installation if it helps Dan.

Yoda, your pics have already helped me get my head round the theory and Mike, your info is invaluable. I don't currently have a cover on the back (got my own personal cover design in the pipeline) so my tank will be at the front of the tub under my bling bar. The oilybits kit has the proper clips which was a relief after watching your airlocks Yoda
As to the truck, it's a '93 Strada. Very nearly as old as me! But the essential parts are just a non-FBW 4D56 with no intercooler (so access to the engine bay is a piece of p1ss)

Brilliant. Have fun. The hardest bit is the engine bay with the solenoids. I don't think you have a control module right? So one big wiring issue to not worry about. Manual switch over is no big deal. But I think Mike was saying have a temp switch on the heat exchanger in series with your manual switch over so that you can't go to veg until it's hot enough. Wire an Led to the temp switch and it illuminates when you can switch to veg.

Right....
Got the system all installed and raring to go over the weekend
Simple enough job, time consuming but manageable.
The kit is easy enough to get the old head around and not too bad to install. Biggest issue I had with it is my (K34- Strada import) fuel pump has an 8mm fuel input and 6mm fuel return line. The fuel lines and pollak valve are set-up for 10mm input and 8mm return. So there was some imaginative fiddling to be done.
After a little hiccup wiring into the wrong end of the socket on the valve (signal lines for fuel guages) and blowing a couple of fuses I got it up and running on both tanks!
BUT
The fuel filter from the kit bloody leaks air and I've gots me an air bubble just after my heat exchanger. Royal pain in the arse! Any time I run on the new tank it pulls air into the system.
Got to get this sorted then I can test the switch-over properly and get running sweet sweet veg.

More to follow...

right what i and most veg users do is use the standard vehicle filter for the veg in the main tank and a simple inline filter for the aux tanks diesel



hope you aint used jubilee clips on ANY part of the fuel system, if you have that will be your air leaks

Thanks Dan.....

I did same as Treeboa. Works great. Please please tell me you haven't used Jubilee clips on the fuel lines like I did!!

But well done good to see some one fitting the Oily bits kit.

Ta fellas... got the air leak down to the aux. filter which comes with the kit... Going to see if a fiddle will fix, if not I'll tell Oily Bits it's crap and tell them to ship with something like yours Mike.
Jubilee clips ("Hi-grip hose clamps") came with the kit but Luke, you saved me from the misfortune involved in fitting the little buggers! Thanks!
Other then the clips (and possibly the fuel filter) it seems like a good kit. Easy enough to fit and the wiring is easy as pie!
Either of you fitted a sender unit to your aux. tank? the pollak valve allows you to wire both to the one fuel gauge and only shows the one you're using...

mines got a sender ( float ) in the tank that feeds the separate display, trouble with using the single gauge is its calibrated for the main tanks sender, so you may get a false high/low unless you mod to fit another L200 float swtch

Good news, Dan, well done

I got a sender with my kit, again just a float. The dieselveg control module has an aux tank low fuel light on it. I haven't fitted it yet mind. Will probably do that when I run the front to back wires for my tub heater.

Bah, I don't have a low fuel light anyway... Just got to watch the guages!

So I'm talking to OilyBits about getting an l200/4d56 specific kit on the go. I had a funny with my fuel lines. They seemed to be 8mm and 6mm ID. Is this because my old girl is so old or are the "classics" the same? If so the kits will probably need tighter lines.
All good so far. Insured it for no cost as well so a worthwhile mod even if you only want to extend your range!

Maybe a list/info feed for veggie things to watch out for: symptoms of ring gumming, cold weather, bad oils, filter intervals etc

Treeboa is da mam for that job !!!
check his post on the subject !!!

Wenn Sie hier auf Links zu eBay klicken und einen Kauf tätigen, kann dies dazu führen, dass diese Website eine Provision erhält.

right letsd run through this

fuel lines, a lot of the dedicated veg burners change all the lines out so they have 10mm feeds, poss worth it, especially if you live in colder areas of the uk

ring gumming, should not happen if you stick to the warm up and flushing correctly, signs of ring gumming is a gain on your oil level in the engine, and a stickiness felt if you put some oil between your first finger and thumb, bad starting from cold due to lack of compression, in theory you should be able to smell it in the oil, i have a drum of mixed old oil and old chip pan oil i use for oil tempering, its about 75% old oil, i cant smell it tbh

cold weather should not give issues on veg unless its well below zero, if your worried add 2-5% unleaded to your veg, do it in the veg container as its been known to cause fallout of ffa`s - dont want that in the tank with the silly mitsi strainer on the pickup pipe

bad oils, of the mainstream cooking veg oils there is no problems, issues come from the likes of palm oil that thickens at room temps, olive oil does to a degree but the cost of it puts it as an uneconomical oil to use, mixed olive oil as in olivero is not a problem, i used 1000 ltrs of that stuff that was well past its sell by date

filtered old oils, now these can be a problem, they need filtering to 1 micron and ideally centrifuged, i know our filters are 5 microns but try that micron and your filters will block in 1000 miles or earlier, this stuff though also carries animal fats, you cant filter it out totally, you find it goes gloopy at higher temps than svo, again unleaded will sort it but you need higher percentages, as with all oils used in the cold months have a small jar of the stuff your currently using on your outside window ledge, that will give you a warning of whats happening with the oil in your tank

filter intervals, i have noticed if you have the heat exchanger before the filter you find the filters fail quicker, could be the combination of the heat on the glue used and the action of veg on it, the canny veg burner carries a spare filter behind the back seat anyway

engine oil changes, if your twin tanked then stay with the usual changes, if not then its recommended to change 50% sooner, so about every 3k on classics using mineral oil, i dont use synth, never have - never seen the need in a slow reving low performance diesel


if your going to work with oilybits then i would say tell them to dump the daft filter and supply an inline one, also supply an external water trap like this Werbung: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NICE-PERIOD-50...9d#ht_500wt_900

from that take the tank strainer out and dump it