>From Ron: Friday & Saturday, Bill & I went to Weeki Wachee, Florida & met with a friend of mine named Greg, who sells school buses & is also very knowledgeable about mechanics. I traded him a converter for 2 tanks to use in filtering my oil, plus he threw in a diesel pump. Both of us had a good time & shared information galore. Just below here is my answer back to his letter he put on http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/schoolbusconversionuts/
Also have to mention that when I got back to my campsite last night, that there was a swimming pool, I mean a lake in my back yard from 1.7" of rain received Saturday. I had to back the bus into my space & the water was right up to my back porch. I have attached a picture of our SWIMMING POOL, lol MANY THANKS TO GREG. He really knows his stuff. We had a great day talking about schoolbuses & working on mine. Sure this is going to save me from having a broken down bus out on the highway because of this worn U-joint. Keep it greased often now & it'll make it back to Indiana where I'll tear it down. This morning I went back over to the American Legion, where I pumped 95 gallons. Would have gotten more FREE FUEL, but I ran out of containers to put it in. Let's see, 95 gallons of free fuel X 9mpg., well that would get me back to almost Indiana without collecting any more fuel, because day before yesterday, I filtered 30 gallons. The 2nd Vice President came out back as I was pumping oil & brought another officer with him. They want me to come back to sing again. Seems I really turned on the crowd there singing, "I'M MY OWN GRANDPA" & the "I-95" (ASSHOLE SONG). Also sang "Baby Likes To Rock It" & others. It was 72 degrees here this morning when I woke up. Now over 80. Well, a few more e-mails & then back over to Greg's house to ride him around in my bus sightseeing again. Ron "grchambault <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Hi, all. Today (well, actually, yesterday by over 4 hours), I spent the day in Florida with Ron Morrison. I was able to drive his bus on waste vegetable oil. It really does run! And it really does smell like french fries!! Besides studying how the system works, we also teamed up and went through my limited supply of RV water tanks to come up with the best one for fitting his bus to be used for vegetable oil storage. I had my thoughts; he had his. There was no 'right' answer, and I didn't argue at all when he made his decision to use two different tanks. I believe he will now have his 12 gallon heated tank, plus 45 gallons of storage for filtered oil. He can still carry his 55 gal. drums on the back porch for picking up the oil. Ron took me to a lodge and showed me how he gets his oil for free. We pulled in and went right straight to the back of the building. He walked over to their large waste vegetable oil tank and took a clear cup, dipped it in a bit, and took a look. Yup, the oil looked exactly like Mazola. It was already VERY clean... not scorched. Then, we walked inside where he went to the bar and spoke to the woman bartender. She said the 'boss' was out of town and she could not say whether or not he could pump out their oil. She did tell him, however, that they did have to pay to get rid of their oil, and "come back Monday." So, we went back to the place tonight and sat in on Karaoke. I knew Ron 'bragged' about how good he could sing, but WOW... he really is great! He stole the show! After singing a few different times, he notified me that a lady had came over to tell him he was wanted at the bar. He went up to the bar and man, there, asked if he was the one who had earlier asked for the waste oil. "Yup," he was that guy. After hearing him sing, the man said that he could have all the oil he wanted! Of course, the night didn't end right then. He (Ron) continued to sing a few more songs. We then took off with a couple of couples to another place with Karaoke. Ron, again, stole the show. In fact, the couple running the music at that place asked Ron back tomorrow night and next weekend, plus have a list of songs they want him to sing. >From there, we all left. When I took Ron back to the lodge to get his bus, no oil had yet been pumped from their waste oil tank and it was about 2am. So, he decided to do it when the sun comes up. On the way back to my house, Ron's bus stopped running. He flashed his lights at me, so I turned around and went back to find him parked right in front of the hospital entrance, dead in the water. He climbed out of his bus and said, "Darn, I must have been talking and forgot to switch back to diesel fuel before shutting the engine down. Opening the hood, I could see everything around the injector pump soaking wet. It smelled like fuel oil, not vegetable oil. So, Ron dug in and began looking for the problem. Right there on the line going into the injector pump, a hose clamp had failed and the plastic line had blown off the fitting. There had been fuel oil in the line, not vegetable oil. He had not made a mistake. The problem would have occurred on either fuel. Making the repair, Ron then pumped the diesel primer to fill everything back up with fuel. When cranking the engine, it would not fire! I reached in to pump the primer some more just to discover that he had not screwed the primer back down tight. Guys, if you don't screw that primer back down snug, the system will suck air and the engine will NOT fire up. I pumped the primer a few more times, then screwed the lever down tight. Rom came back and redid the priming, just to make sure he understood what I was saying when explaining how tight the primer had to be screwed shut. Sure enough, the engine fired right up! The ONLY complaint Ron had had with his waste vegetable oil system was that it occasionally allowed air to be sucked into the fuel system when the waste oil cooled down. GUESS WHAT... the problem is now solved. He knows to screw that primer plunger down tight, now! As for gasoline prices, we [in Florida] are having to pay $1.80 for diesel fuel and about $1.70 for regular gasoline over here on the Gulf coast. Ron, on the other hand, is running for FREE. Tomorrow, we will do some more riding around. We'll see if we can't burn up a little of his free corn oil. I had offered to drive my car, but he suggested we take his BIG 78 passenger Ford/Carpenter 19,000 pound school bus... because it will run much cheaper than my little car! Now, if he only had a diesel powered generator to run while he was parked, he could keep his vegetable oil warm so his bus engine would be able to start and run on the waste FREE fuel. Then, he would really have it made! If you have the time to filter your own oil, I have to strongly suggest you consider this system. You have to smell it to believe it! On a sad note, I also sang a couple OLD songs tonight... and Ron took my picture while I was up there. Also, today, we went over Ron's bus with a fine-tooth comb. He has a very nice unit! I found one slightly loose U-joint that most people would have missed, so he can watch it VERY closely, now, and make sure he greases it every time he drives it in the rain, and it should stay tight enough to not have to worry about it for some time to come. We also greased the bus from head to toe and I discovered that the school had NOT been raising the front axle to grease the bus. He pumped all sorts of grease into his lower king pins before getting clean, fresh grease to come out the other end. There was old, packed, dried grease inside there like it had never been jacked up and greased before. Make sure, guys, that you lift the weight up off the front tires before greasing the lower king pins. I also let Ron drive the bus I have with just 23K miles. It is the same Ford look, but it is powered by a naturally-aspirated 8.2L. He noted, instantly, that this V8 had more power than his 6.6L turbo. The 8.2L also gets better mileage than his 6.6. Anyone want to buy his FREE-FUEL bus? If you would make him an offer he couldn't refuse, I could sell him the one I have!:-) He would then start over again. What a day! What an education for me! Greg Ron's school bus was converted to run on used vegetable oil with a kit from the fry guys at http://www.green-trust.org Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/