The Complete Guide to Running Your Car Off Vegetable Oil

The first step is to obtain an older-model car with a diesel engine. New cars won’t work, because their engines don’t tolerate fuel impurities and variations. Chances are if you’re reading this article, you’ve already got this step covered.

The next step is purchasing a vegetable oil fuel conversion kit, which can be found at alternative-fuel companies. You can either install it yourself, or take your vehicle to a mechanic specifically trained in alternative fuels for installation.

Once the kit is installed, set up 55-gallon drums at restaurants and start collecting their used vegetable oil. Once the drums are full, take them home and start filtering the oil for use in your car. Over an empty drum, place a filter sock and insert a hand-cranked pump into the used oil. Start transferring the used oil into the empty drum, passing it through the filter until the drum is full. Once you have a drum full of filtered oil, it’s time to transfer it to a stock pot. One end of the hand pump should be placed into the drum filled with filtered oil, while the other end is placed in the stock pot. Once the stock pot is full, it should be placed on a portable burner and warmed on a low setting. This is done for two hours to eliminate the water content in the oil, which could damage your engine.

Once this is completed, it’s time to put your fuel into the car. The fuel tank for vegetable oil cars is located in the trunk and should be filled with purified, filtered vegetable oil. The car should start out on diesel fuel, and when the engine warms up switch over to vegetable oil using the on-dash fuel selector switch that was installed earlier. The car can then be run on vegetable oil until about the last 10 miles of your trip, when you should switch back to diesel fuel as you arrive at your destination.

By spending some time and money making the conversion, you can protect the environment and save money on fuel costs, making this a win-win situation.