the slow boat to New Orleans

I left Austin Sunday evening with the bus running perfectly on diesel, an improved coolant wrap on the veggie filter and a broken rib (i think).

I'm going to run on diesel until I get the veggie tank cleaned out and the oil refiltered. I think I've been using poorly filtered oil to often to save time and that may have contributed to the injectors gluing themselves shut.

Friday night MK, Rene & Jim and I went out scamming free beer from the multitude of free parties at the South By SouthWest festival. 12 hours later on the bicycle ride home. MK's chain got tangled in the glow stick now wrapped around her wheel and it broke her derailer. While trying to give her a push from behind so that she could keep rolling down the road... I decided to tackle the concrete. Initially I was very worried about my shoulder which now appears to be fine. My ribs however have gotten more painful each day and today I was gifted a few Vicadins. yeah!

I decided to take a short side trip to hang out with a guy that I owe a lot of sleepful nights to. Marcus was my first DVD club subscriber and kicked in a fair chunk of change to fix my injectors. WHY? Well for 1) he and his significant other are currently on their first RV working road trip because they've been inspired by my travels; and for 2) they think what I'm doing is important... So, I thought I should meet these people. '~)

Filler Up

I'm back in Sildell at BioLiberty filling the tanks with all the oil I can hold. Gordon is packin up the bio diesel plant to move it into New Orleans as part of a larger project so I've got about 500 gallons of fine veggie oil at my disposal.

I'll be heading down to Point au Chene in the deep bayou country where the native indian population has been intentionally left to rot after both Katrina & Gustav. I'll set up the satellite internet for them and try to sort out the reasons they NEVER get any more than an MRE for hurricane relief.

Deliberatly Cut Fuel Line No Match For Smart People

The trip East was delayed a day due to a very fresh slice in a fuel line. Fortunately I found it before moving the bus. Otherwise, we would have stalled in traffic and had the bus impounded... as I suspect was the outcome the person who sliced it would have preferred. We've had tremendous luck collecting oil this week.

All Greased Up

We're finally greased up and ready to roll, thanks the genius who started Rocky Mountain Diesel Max; probably the largest collector of used cooking oil for fuel in the country. Chuck has created a blend of veggie oil and other ingredients that is capable of running a diesel engine WITHOUT adding extra heat to your system, you can put it straight into your regular diesel tank EVEN in winter. At any rate, we won't need to look for oil between Denver and St.Paul and that's a huge relief.

Out of Nebrask and into the Pan

We're out of Nebraska.

Drove about 200 miles today on veggie oil, great drive and the bus ran better'n ever.
BUT
when we pulled in to park for the night we discovered that the diesel return line had melted in 2 on the muffler and we'd left a trail from the exit ramp to the parking spot... we were pouring diesel fuel out of the hoses.
So I have a project for tomorrow...

Turns out the fuel pump was NOT the problem so on top of the $750 labor bill from the 3rd mechanic and 2 weeks down time...
I now have a $350 fuel pump I don't need.

The good news is that Shane at RoverHybrids.com said he'd only charge me 50 bucks if I could get the new one back to him in a week, so we'll be doing that tomorrow too.

We can now also release the stories we were afraid to release while broken down due to fear of reprisal. :)

OFf Grid @ a Sun Dance

The MBN team spent a frutitless day searching for renowned scientist working in Toad Stool National Park, but we got a good hike in and relaxed off line for a day.



We are now at a Horse Sanctuary near Hot Springs, SD totally off grid, running the satellite off of the generator while we await the Sundance next week.

We were also able to score an easy 50 gallons of veggie oil from the Safeway in Chadron, NE before haeding out here. ... yeah oil!

Funnel Clouds and Pumping Oil with a Hangover

We holed up in the Flying J truck stop for showers/laundry and to wait out the potential tornado, which can very close to us. We were evacuated from our dinner to stand in the shower stalls (safest place in the building) shoulder to shoulder with a variety of truckers. After the 1st tornado past us we went out to the bus to check on things and saw a Funnel Cloud siloetted by rapid lightening flashes right across the street from the truck stop. It later turned out to be this tree.


We found some 15 gallons of oil in a little town along the way and 10 more along with some wonderful people in Neligh NE. We closed down the bar that gave us the oil. This morning we left Neligh at 9am with hangovers and stopped on the side of the road to transfer our 25 gallons from the collection barrel to the oil tank. Then in O'Neil we were able to pump 40 more gallons into the collection barrel from 2 very tight back alley dumpsters ... without puking.



Tonight we're in Chadron preparing for a journalism leg of the tour.

Factory Farms and Commercial BioDiesel

Iowa and Nebraska seem ruined for getting used oil by asking. We were about to bite the bullet and burn diesel but my friend Colin @ HighCottonFilms.net spent a few unjaded minutes online an hooked us up with the Omaha Biodiesel Coop. We're meeting in the morning to see how much they can score for us.

NOmadjik got a motor oil tranfusion today, too.

We saw no signs of the horrid weather we feared would strike us other than the lightening show that was many miles away. It didn't even rain on us.

Iowa City

Davenport Iowa sucked the life out of us. Spent most of the day looking for oil. There must be a commercial biodiesel plant nearby because almost all the places we went were getting paid for there oil and didn't want to give it to us. Then there was the places that PAID to have it hauled off who didn't want to upset their contractor! IDIOTS. We were able to find about 60 gallons and nop have enough to get to Ohmaha. Hope it's easier there. Sorry Mike, we forgot to get a picture of your burger joint.

Iowa City is the Austin of Texas. The Morgantown of WV. The Ashville of North Carolina... etc etc.

Iowa

We made it to Iowa this evening but had to drive the last 20 miles on diesel due to a completly clogged grease filter on the engine. I replaced the filter when we landed and we're going to transfer oil from the barrel to the tank in the morning and start looking for more oil.

We spent last night camped out under a gas station awning to prevent hail damage to the satellite. It only hailed for about 20 minutes and they were small but the gusty wind was sending the rain in sideways.

Heading West

After having the easiest oil score ever at Sitar of India in Charleston, WV; we have hit the road and are currently perched a few miles from I-70 in Ohio. We are expecting thunder storms and possible hail to pass over us this evening and give us a 2 day window of clear skies to make it to Ohmaha before the sky falls on the midwest again.

Gator Grease Up

Yesterday we used my new barrel filter system to filter 95 gallons of Gordon's Gator Grease down to 10 microns and pumped it into the bus's oil tank. You can also see in 1 photo that the roof rack is now loaded and strapped down. We are now in final preparations for flight. Please buckle your seat belt and put your seat in the upright position. :)

I Burned Vegetables Today!

The bus has been running great since the new fuel pump.. But NOT At ALL on Vegetable Oil.

When the last fuel pump blew up the mechanics and I agreed to just by pass the veggie fuel lines so skinnychef and I could get to New Orleans on time. I neglected to film or eyeball the fuel selection valve hosing before they dismantled it.

So, I thought I might have hosed the diesel in and the common out .. backwards; when I hosed it after installing the new fuel pump. I called GreaseCar to determine if the bus would run properly on diesel if they were hosed backwards.. they said it would.

Today I flipped the hoses for diesel in and the common out on the valve and
THE VEGGIE SYSTEM RAN PERFECTLY. Problems. Solved. Damnit!

The most important lesson I've learned in the last couple months of bio/diesel mechanic school is to eliminate the simplest possibilities first.

Not so Fast There Slick

The heat issue is NOT the problem with the running the bus on veggie oil. The fuel lines have been insulated and the veggie temp on the relatively short test drive yesterday was quickly up to 160. The bus responded no differently than before... about a minute after switching to veg the engine had slowed to the point of threatening to stop. Switching back to diesel is an almost instant fix.

This NOT
a pump problem,
a heat problem,
a filter problem...

I drained some rather dark (glycerin looking shit) out of the bottom of my veggie filter yesterday...? I suppose my veg line is clogged or there a layer of unburnable stuff in there... but the filter housing was full of great looking Veggie Oil/BioDiesel blend.

Sooo, I've still got about 90 gallons of fuel in my tank that i can't seem to use...

Up an Running

I'm back in Austin, playing catch up.
The FASS pump is working great now. My friend's @ NOBI fixed it. Gordon and I had the pump sharing a relay with some other shit and it needed a dedicated relay and a secondary power source to work properly.

It runs great now; except I'm not getting enough heat to run on veg now that it's colder out and the new pump required adding about 5 feet of fuel line right before it hits the engine. I was only been able to run veg for a minute or 2 at a time on my way from NOLA to Austin. I watched them install a Veg Therm inline fuel heater on another guys bus 2 days ago. If insulating the 5 additional feet of exposed fuel line doesn't keep the temperature up; then I'll probably need one of them too.

Back in NOLA

I risked it on the old pump to drive back to New Orleans. I'm parked on the door step of New Orleans Bio Diesel Initiative until they've got time to reroute the fuel lines and add an additional filter an fuel selector switch. And, yeah, I'll have yet another editing project on my plate when I finally do get back to Austin, NOBI.

Rest Area, Texas

I left T or C running on a 75% veggie 25% meat oil blend.... that's all there was... it worked. However I couldn't trickle enough of it into my tank IN 3 HOURS to make it to Austin.

I've ran out of veggie oil and am now waiting for money to come through so I can buy some diesel. Should be out of here by 7 tonight. I'm trying to use the day in the rest area to catch up on some internet work and maybe some editing. Conspiracy Theorists will say that I "let it happen", that I wanted to get stuck here... they might be right, I have a lot of work to do and it's hard to get these things done when you're on a visit, fix the pump, get oil, fix the bus, visit, fix the pump, get oil.... kinda schedule. I should be in Austin this late evening.

Fuck Harbor Freight

The oil intake pump that has been redesigned and/or fixed several times on this trip has crapped out on me for the last time AND the Rotary Hand Pump I ALSO got from Harbor Freight DIDN"T WORK AT ALL, not even a drop... so Fuck Harbor Freight. Everything in there is made in China anyway; even the US Flags.

I'm still in T or C, hoping to be able to get the oil we found 2 days ago and leave today. Mikey was so inspired by the veggie bus that he bought a Mercedes to convert yesterday. I'll drop him off to pick it up on the way east.