I bought my 1984 300D almost 4 years ago. I bought the car with 198,000 miles on the odometer. A few months later, the odometer stopped working at around 204,000 miles. It worked intermittently before stopping completely.

Last week I had the odometer repaired. The mechanic gave me a tip that I want to share with everyone. He said that I should never hit the reset button on the trip odometer, when the car is moving. I had done this many times, especially when the odemeter worked some of the time. He said that when you hold the reset button in, it can strip the plastic gears.

This site has a very good and detailed, step-by-step process for diagnosing glow plug problems.

I am reposting this post from July 26, 2006…

For a long time I have wanted to determine definitively how much cleaner svo (straight vegetable oil) burns compared to diesel and compared to gasoline. In a post on the lovecraftbiofuels website forum, Stephen Blackburn posts the results from having his car smogged. Remember, in California diesel vehicles are exempt from smog inspections (brilliant idea, eh?).

The results are impressive and confirm what many of us have believed all along, namely that using vegetable oil as a fuel reduces dangerous emissions significantly, even compared to many late model gasoline powered cars.

Here are the highlights:

1. HC (Hydrocarbons) – 8 ppm (parts per million)
   • new cars are allowed 40 ppm
2. CO% (Carbon Monoxide per gallon of fuel burned): 0.03%
   • new cars are allowed 0.9%
3. CO2% (Carbon Dioxide per gal. fuel burned) 14.3
   • Average is 14-15%. NOTE: the carbon removed from the air while growing the plants is greater than that released when it is burned. Therefore, airborne carbon is reduced with svo as a fuel.

Read the post for more details. One of these days I’ll get my car smogged to see how it rates on these emission measures. If anyone else out there has had their vegcar smogged, please send me the results.

I recently came across a new blog you might want to check out. It is called GreaseDrive. It seems this person has a 1984 300D also, though with a two-tank conversion.

Hello GreaseDrive! Welcome to the blogosphere.

I currently have three and have had as many as five mercedes vege oil cars. Three have been 300SD’s two are 300D’s and my newest acquisition is an unbelievably cherry 240D 4cyl 4 spd manual trans creampuff. By the way, the 300SD’s and the 300D turbo diesels all share the same 5cyl power plant, no difference in these engines, none, interchangeable.

I’ve had both one tank and two tank conversions, one of the two tanks I drove 40K on veg oil and it just kept getting better.

The bogging problem can be pretty annoying and I would not attribute it as much to the model (although the sd’s are heavier and more sluggish than the smaller lighter 300D’s). I would look to the fuel screen inside the fuel tank. Since these cars are of the one tank variety, it is likely that there may be some residue in the tank that the veg oil has dislodged and it tends to settle over the screen inside the tank. Remove it and it will probably be coated with the stuff. If so, it might be a good idea to get the tank cleaned so the problem doesn’t reoccur. When this screen clogs it can restrict the flow from the tank to the injector pump and “bogging” will be the outcome. [Read more →]

Reader TD sent me the following:

We’re pursuing another grease mobile! This one is a (interesting name for a grease car!) and it’s been meticulously converted and maintained by a mechanic who runs a grease conversion and distribution company. Thought you’d like to hear! I’m a little leery of spending lots of $$ on something made by Jeep, and the consumer reports review on the thing is not sparkling, but it may be the right decision….
Any thoughts?

I just did a web search to see what the thing looked like. I found the photo below. The fuel efficiency is listed at 21 miles per gallon, not terrible for a 4WD but way lower than it should/could be. My 1984 Mercedes 300D only gets 24 or 25 so who am I to talk?

I have had this discussion many times. When buying a car to run on veg oil is it “okay” to get an SUV? On one hand you are taking one petroleum burning SUV off the road (and replacing it with a WVO burning one). On the other hand you are supporting the demand for these low mileage, higher polluting vehicles. Also, I don’t have kids and don’t need a large vehicle as many people do. But even with a few kids, do you really need something that big? My mom schlepped 3-6 kids around in a Pontiac station wagon back in the 1970s. I don’t think there is a simple answer.

Anyone out there have any thoughts that might be helpful? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Is there a difference between 300D’s and 300SD’s in how they handle wvo?

I love the 300D. Aesthetically, I think it is the better looking of the 300 series cars. That, of course, is completely subjective. I also love the way my 300D handles wvo. My 1984 300D has performed remarkably well for the two-and-a-half years I have owned it. It is a has  a single-tank conversion using the Davco 234 heater/filter. Here in the Sierra foothills, the temperature gets down into the 20’s and 30’s and occasionally dips to the teens. I occasionally mix in about 20% diesel in the winter but run almost exclusively on wvo. The wvo my friends and I purchased from Sphere Energy was filtered down to 5 microns but does get creamy in the winter. On the coldest days, when I have 100% wvo in the tank, I do experience bogging, especially going up long hills. But on days like today, when the weather is in the high 30’s, my car started right up and didn’t bog at all.

Two of my friends, let’s call them Josh and Barry, have ‘84 and ‘85 300SD’s that have had bogging problems especially in winter. We are using the same wvo from Sphere. Even mixed with some diesel, they have more severe bogging problems than I do. So my question is this:

Are 300D’s better suited to running on wvo than 300SD’s?

I don’t know what the differences are in the engines. Maybe my sample size is too small and this simply reflects the characteristics of these particular cars. I would love to hear from y’all…

My friend just procured a 300D to add to the growing fleet in our little town. We are going to convert it soon. I recommended (and we ordered) the parts from Lovecraft Biofuels. I am so impressed by the performance of their heater/filter, the heat exchanger and the booster pump.

Today I installed a 12-volt, inline booster pump in my vegcar. The pump pulls the fuel into the engine compartment from the fuel tank. It then pushes the fuel into the Davco heater/filter. The idea is to relieve my car’s fuel pump and injector pump as much as possible from the effort required to move the vegetable oil – especially when it is cold and thick.

I got the pump from Lovecraft Biofuels. Another side benefit, is when changing the filter in the Davco, one has to pump the little hand pump to purge air and draw fuel into the injector lines. In the new configuration, the pump will fill the Davco when the key is in the #2 position. I’ll let you know how this works the next time I change my Davco filter.

I’ll post some photos when I have a chance.

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…