veggie oil disaster

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alex51

New Member
Joined
Sep 13, 2004
Messages
9
Car
2009 Vito London Taxi
Hello all . First post on this forum but i've been a viewer for several months now and have found it to be very informative . Sorry that my first post is a question rather than advice . Been running my e300td on vegetable oil for a couple of weeks now after doing some research and believing that apparantly my car needs no modifications to run on 100% svo . Been running great , smoother and quieter than before , and at 43p a litre i was well chuffed . Until yesterday that is . Appears that i've done the seals on the fuel pump and am faced with a bill for up to £1100 . This was based on a quote from a diesel injection specialist . Does anybody know if this seems reasonable or am i being ripped off ? When i spoke to the mb dealer parts dept they were talking about 25p each for the seals but needed to know exactly which ones had gone and to wait until i'd stripped the pump down before ordering them . Has anybody any experience of having this done and cost etc ?
 
alex51 said:
Hello all . First post on this forum but i've been a viewer for several months now and have found it to be very informative .
Welcome to the forum!

Moving thread to engine section.

EDIT: I see GrahamC230k beat me to it :)
 
I find this odd - the seals MB have been using for years are made of viton, which is resistant to SVO - unless the pump isnt genuine / has been repaired or re-manufactured using cheaper seals...
 
Are the seals leaking on the fuel delivery pump or the injector pump ?
 
Karl said:
Are the seals leaking on the fuel delivery pump or the injector pump ?

1. The repair quote is reasonable.

2. Veg oil does not have the lubricity of normal diesel: there are several sites that discuss this. The people who wax on about how good veg oil are generally run it on older-style diesels. But anyway, the bottom line is that most diesel systems are designed to run on standard diesel: unless the owenrs manual says to do then you are at risk.
 
Sorry to hear about your problems. I looked into this a while ago and came to the conclusion that whilst Straight Vegetable Oil and so called Bio Diesel (a methyl Ester Derivative of vegetable oil) can be used as fuels in their own right, in general the safer route seems to be using them to stretch conventional diesel.

Found this site helpful

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html
 
Wierd, I did 30,000 miles in my 300D with no problems whatsoever, albeit that I only tended to run on a 50/50 mix of diesel/veg oil.

It may be down to the fact that you are running 100% veg, which is more viscous and will cause a tierd pump to have to work much harder....hence failure.

In future I would keep to a lower concentration of veg, especially if you have not put pre-heaters prior to the fuel pump, which would help reduce the viscosity of the Veg.

I hate to say it, but a full rebuild and calibration of the pump is likely to cost £1000+
 
If you do need to rebuild a pump, try T.T. Automotive in Loughborough. We use them a lot to rebuild all sorts of pumps from various manufacturers and save a load of money using them compared to original agents.
Their number is 01509 216 665.

Just a thought!
 
Just thought i'd give you an update . Had the car repaired by Thomas auto injection centre in ashford kent . Total bill to replace seals in my diesel pump £156 !! how chuffed am i ? so i thought i'd recommend them , they do all sorts of petrol and diesel injection and pump problems and air con too . top fellas :bannana: and very professional service . thanks for everyones support and advice .
 
oh i should add that they are an authorised bosch repair centre and their numbers 01233 642816 hope they can help somebody else too .
 
Hi

So what was the cause? Was it definitely the veggie? Are you still going to use it but dilute with diesel? Or have you had enough.

Good to get it fixed so cheap.

230K
 
no i've learnt my lesson on this one , the guy from thomas's seems to think that the viton seals aren't impervious to the vegetable oil so i'm not willing to risk it again , even diluted .
 
alex51 said:
Just thought i'd give you an update . Had the car repaired by Thomas auto injection centre in ashford kent . Total bill to replace seals in my diesel pump £156 !! how chuffed am i ? so i thought i'd recommend them , they do all sorts of petrol and diesel injection and pump problems and air con too . top fellas :bannana: and very professional service . thanks for everyones support and advice .

Alex,

Pleased you got it sorted but which seals did they replace, the fuel delivery pump seals or the fuel injection pump seals?
 
Karl said:
Alex,

Pleased you got it sorted but which seals did they replace, the fuel delivery pump seals or the fuel injection pump seals?


:confused: Think its the fuel delivery pump , Karl . The one on the rhs underneath the manifold . he replaced the large seal in the middle after splitting it in half and also several small seals . Sorry i cant be more specific .
 

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