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.

The following email is from reader DG.

Hi i am buying a 85mb 300sd tomorrow just to use as a veg car, my question is if i live in n.c. where we don’t have long extremely cold winters, is a conversion needed or can i just increase the petrodiesl during winter? and if so where do i find a list of parts needed to do it myself instead of paying top dollar for a “kit”. thanks gas prices are nearly killing my small family in an already hard economic time for us, we are barely getting by now! i work in a restaurant so this would be a lifesaver for me!! thanks

I would strongly advise against putting vegetable oil in your fuel tank without installing at least a filter and better would be a heater/filter. There are two reasons for this:

1. When you put wvo (waste veg oil) in your tank it actually loosens particles of debris from the inside of your tank and fuel lines. These will end up in your injectors unless you have a filter installed to catch them.
2. Even if your weather isn’t too cold, vegetable oil burns a lot better if it is heated up. You may have noticed when cooking with veg oil that when it is heated it becomes less viscous (more watery).

I would advise doing the conversion yourself. You can do a single-tank conversion (no additional fuel tank). I would recommend buying the parts from Lovecraft Biofuels. I, and several friends, got the parts from this company and they have worked very well. It is a simple installation taking only about 4 hours for a beginner. I have step-by-step instructions on how we did it right here on the blog. The kit sells for $595.

If that is too steep, you can buy a Davco 234 filter/heater, hoses and other parts from your local auto parts store and do it that way. The Davco will cost you around $250 I think plus $16 each for the Fleetguard filter inserts.

If that is too steep, I saw a conversion recently that was really simple. They tapped into the coolant line and ran the coolant through a coiled copper tube. The coil surrounded a stock filter (truck filter I think) and that was it.

Basically, you are trying to heat the oil and filter it before it gets into the injectors.

SeQuential Biofuels has stations throughout Oregon selling B5, B20 and B100 biodiesel and E10 and E85 bioethanol. Their station in Eugene is solar powered and features many other sustainable design elements.

From Treehugger:

Approaching the site, the dominant features are the 244 solar panels that cover the fueling islands and the 4800 plants installed in five inches of soil on the roof of the convenience store. The 33kW solar array will provide 30% to 50% of the electrical power that the station will require annually. The “living roof” will help to control rainwater runoff on the site and will help cool the convenience store during the summer.
[...]
The fuel station also includes a convenience store that carries top-shelf natural foods and beverages, many of which are produced by regional companies. The store also houses an annex of Sweet Life Patisserie, an established local coffee and pastry shop renowned for its premium coffees, baked goods and savories, complete with wireless internet and an inviting seating area. Local farmers will stock a seasonal fresh produce stand also located at the station.

I have discovered one risk of vegcars. This is a big deal coming from me, a vegcar evangelist. I am heading to Yosemite tonight for a hike up Half-Dome tomorrow. I thought about the warnings in the park about not leaving anything in your car that even looks like it might contain food. Well, how about a car that smells like a fry-o-lator?

I posted last year about my friend who had bio-diesel in his truck and a bear chewed (and destroyed) his fuel line. I weighed the pros and cons and I’m going to drive my gasoline powered pickup to the park. I know! I’ll be supporting Exxon, Chevron, Bush, Cheney, Saudi Arabia, et. al. But I just don’t want this to happen!

The 100+ degree heat would have been bad enough but WITH HUMIDITY! Down in Fresno it is currently 112 degrees! Here in the foothills we are certainly accustomed to heat but summer humidity is an oxymoron. In the afternoons, like right now, I am hot, sweaty and lethargic. I have discovered at least one advantage to the oppressive heat. It is absolutely wonderful for pre-filtering wvo.

My filtering setup includes two 55-gallon drums, each with a sock filter hanging inside. The filters hold between 5 and 8 gallons of oil. When recently cleaned the oil flows fairly quickly but after filtering 10 gallons or so, the flow slows down considerably. What I normally do is to fill up the filters once in a while on my way to work and once in a while when I come home. That way I keep up with my useage.

Yesterday I collected 55 gallons of oil from my favorite source – a Chinese restaurant. I had another 25 gallons of unfiltered wvo standing by. After putting 15 gallons through the filter I realized that it was flowing through nearly as fast as I filled. When the oil level neared the top, I started filling the other filter. After only 15 minutes or so I had filtered 80 gallons of wvo, a personal record.

After my filtering challenges last winter, I have set out to stockpile enough filtered wvo to carry me through the winter months.

Well, this is what you expect when you buy a 21 year old car with 200,000 miles on it. When driving, it sounded as if someone was underneath the car, banging on it with a large wrench. Turns out the rear right axle needs replacing.

The bummer is that after dropping the car off at my mechanic one evening last week, the car got broken into. One side window smashed and the stereo taken. So much for removable faceplates. The really don’t do you any good when you leave them in the car. Duh.

One $250 deductible and the $400 axle repair later and the Benz should be back on the road. The only consolation is that I have already saved nearly $400 on fuel. It is distasteful now driving my Chevy S10 pickup, running on… on… uh… gasoline.