Adventures in Coverting my truck to run on veggie oil

In late 2006 I purchased a 1995 Chevrolet Suburban 6.5L Turbo Diesel. We had a new baby and needed a little more room than our Mitsubishi convertible provided, especially with the trips we make between our respective homesteads in Western Illinois and Oklahoma.

The reason that I purchased a diesel was solely with the purpose of having it converted to run on waste vegetable oil. Just in case you get this confused with bio-diesel, this is not bio-diesel which can be created from vegetable oil and has the same viscosity as diesel fuel.

So I went up to Springfield, Missouri to Golden Fuel Systems and bought one of their systems and had them build a custom tank that would sit in the very back of the Suburban and hold the oil. We installed it over two days time. It consists of a valve or port that in this case sits on top of the engine and switches between the two fuels. With this kind of system, you start the engine on diesel and then let it warm up. The engine coolant is circulated through a set of hoses that are bundled with the veggie oil fuel line back to the veggie tank which has a chamber built into the bottom of the tank. The hot coolant warms the tank and hence the fuel. This allows the system to heat up in it's entirety within just a few miles of driving and then you can switch to running on veggie oil.

I have had several issues with the overall system. First of all it is very important to understand quite a bit about the diesel system that you are going to buy. First, the heart of contemporary diesel engines is the fuel injection system including the injection pump and injectors. It is very important to know the lifecycle of these components. Most truck diesel engines have a life of 300k or so. Some injector pumps have a life of 150k. Injectors can be changed in as little at 100k miles. I ended up making all of these repairs within the first year of owning the vehicle.