The Conversion

No, we're not considering any religious affiliation adjustments. But we did finally convert the Vegginator to run on diesel OR waste vegetable oil. Truthfully, we got Pat and Dave to do it. They're the Green Grease Monkeys, and they are true veggie evangelists, just the guys you need for a convincing conversion.

Kent and I went and met these guys at the Thirsty Scholar in Cambridge so we could prove our worthiness by plying them with stout. By the end of it all, they were either impressed or drunk, so we had some agreement about going forward. To make things more interesting, we arranged to do the conversion as a demonstration project for the advanced classes at the RSTA Automotive Technology Class. RSTA is the Rindge School of Technical Arts, which is the Vocational Education arm of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. Roy, Rob and Steve run a top notch program there, and we were pleased to get an invite.

The conversion went well, and the students seemed to find it interesting. The whole job took all of two class days and a bit of a third, but Pat and Dave typically do it in a day.

This is Pat working on a copper coil as part of the system the heats the veggie oil for better flow and combustion. The wvo system uses an adapted boat fuel tank in the trunk. There's a line from the cooling system that runs back to the tank to preheat the veggie oil, which is then carried forward in a fuel line inside a continuation of the same radiator hose, through a filter, and into the injector system. It's all switched back and forth by a couple of solenoid switches controlled by some snazzy switches on the dashboard.

The next picture here is Kent (rear) pretending to work on the car. He's really just watching Dave. The gloves are for effect.



Can't leave without a picture of some of the students...