I collected some oil from a friend who used it to deep fry a turkey and it wasn’t good at all. They used 100% peanut oil. I have never used peanut oil but have heard that it normally works well in a vegcar. The problem I encountered was that the oil was quite gelatinous. I assume that this is due to the presence of turkey fat mixed with the oil.

Please let me know if you have any experience with deep-fried turkey oil – positive or negative. The best way to reach me is here.

I have been a vegetarian for nearly 6 years now, so I missed out on the deep fried turkey craze. It seems to be a very popular way of preparing turkeys now. What that means for us wvo-ers is lot’s of once used oil.

Resourceful people who comb their neighborhoods might come up with a nice batch of oil. Remember, wvo makes great stocking stuffers!

Happy Thanksgiving.

I wanted to share my recent experience on the MercedesShop.com Forum. I made a couple posts on the forum in the “Parts” section of the “Shop Swap Classifieds” that I needed a new front right door striker for my car (mine broke). The part is $37 from autopartswarehouse.com.

Within 12 hours I received 4 offers for the part. Ttwo of those people just wanted $4 or $5 for shipping! It is a great community of Mercedes enthusiasts with many people “parting out” cars.
Please keep in mind that this is a simple part that doesn’t break very often. People are likely not giving away injector pumps and instrument clusters.

In case you are considering a vegcar conversion, check out our fully documented step-by-step conversion.

I have heard rumblings about a soon to be released single-tank conversion for any diesel vehicle. Sound too good to be true? Maybe. But some claim that the solution is just a patent approval away. Stay tuned…

Yesterday a friend and I did a test on the Fattywagons’ injector line heater. We took the cord and attached it to a car battery. The heater wasn’t installed in the car we simply suspended it from a hook. When it heated up it gave off quite a bit of smoke. It seems that this is simply off-gassing of some chemicals that must be in the casing that surrounds the nichrome wire. I wouldn’t recommend inhaling a lot of it. It smells nasty.

I am going to reconnect the power to the heater I installed on the injector lines of in my car. I am hoping that the smoking will only persist for a few minutes, buning off whatever needs to be burned off. At least I know now that the smoking is coming from the heater and not from my car.

It is too bad that Fattywagons isn’t doing business anymore. However, I found a post on a forum where users describe where to get the parts and make your own injector line heaters. You can find that discussion here.

As I wrote below, we now have seven vegcars in our little town. We need more oil. If you have oil available, filtered, unfiltered, used or new, I am interested. We can send a truck to pick it up (preferably in California) and would of course be willing to pay for it. Our nearest city is Fresno.

If you have some, or have a lead on a good source, please let me know.

Thanks, Dan

I have been disappointed so far with the injector line heaters that I purchased from Fattywagons. The product arrived without any instructions or documentation whatsoever. I perused the website and found very little information to help with installation. It isn’t a very complicated product, but took a while to figure out. I managed to install the heater cord on the injector lines and wrap with the special tape included in the package. I wired it up and tested it out.

It heated up nicely when I turned the key to the number 2 position – and when I started the car. I was initially pleased as it got hotter and hotter. But then it started smoking and I got nervous. I disconnected the power to the heater and emailed fattywagons for help. That was a week ago. I have not heard back from them since then. I emailed them multiple times at two different addresses. The following is posted on the Products section of their website:

Due to other business interests Fattywagons has suspended sales. We have left the web site in tact to provide information to other Veg oil enthusiast. Sorry for the inconvenience.

It is disappointing to me as I would like to have this additional heater working as the cold weather approaches. I hope someone else out there might be able to offer some advice on this situation. I think the smoke might be coming from small amounts of grease that got on the heater cord during installation.

Here in California an amazing thing happened on election day. The people voted out 7-term incumbent Republican Richard Pombo. Pombo had been a staunch supporter of Bush and his failed policies.

The people voted in Jerry McNerney. Jerry is an engineer who works on wind power and is committed to ending our dependence on petroleum. His daughter’s name is Windy.

You can see his energy policy statement here.

Living here in a gerrymandered, Republican congressional district in central California, I feel compelled each election cycle to go to a “swing” district and campaign there. This year there are around 60 such districts. So tomorrow morning, I am flying to Philadelphia where I will meet up with a couple of old friends and head to PA-07. We are going to campaign for the Democratic candidate, retired Vice Admiral Joe Sestak. Imagine a vice-admiral calling for the U.S. to get out of Iraq! You can see Joe’s site here.

Joe is running against 10-term incumbent, right-wing-nut, Republican Curt Weldon. Curt is another one of the dozens of Republicans currently being investigated for wrongdoing. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

… the FBI was investigating whether the Delaware County congressman used his influence to help his daughter, a registered lobbyist, win consulting contracts.

Please do something this weekend to end one-party rule of our country. Volunteer for a campaign, make phone calls for moveon.org and by all means, vote (on Tuesday).

I’m cautiously optimistic that the Democrats will retake the House and hopeful that they will retake the Senate as well. The corrupt Republican machine is finally imploding on itself and it is about time!