From owner-diesel-benz-digest-at-digest.net Tue Mar 2 13:35:22 2004 From: diesel-benz-digest diesel-benz-digest Tuesday, March 2 2004 Volume 01 : Number 1383 Forum for Discussion of Diesel Mercedes Benz Automobiles Derick Amburgey Digest Coordinator Contents: Re: [db] Rube Goldberg [db] fuel prices Re: [db] fuel prices Re: [db] Rube Goldberg Re: [db] Rube Goldberg Re: [db] Rube Goldberg RE: [db] Heat for SVO conversion Re: [db] Heat for SVO conversion RE: [db] Rube Goldberg [db] ahh lovely Diesel Benz Digest Home Page: http://www.digest.net/diesel-benz/ Send submissions to diesel-benz-digest-at-digest.net Send administrative requests to diesel-benz-digest-request-at-digest.net To unsubscribe, include the word unsubscribe by itself in the body of the message, unless you are sending the request from a different address than the one that appears on the list. Include the word help in a message to stag-digest-request to get a list of other majordomo commands. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 14:29:13 -0800 From: Kevin Pekarek Subject: Re: [db] Rube Goldberg On Mon, Mar 01, 2004 at 01:28:04PM -0600, Alec Cordova wrote: > THANK YOU. John's constant harping occasionally grates on me. Granted, he's > run across some particularly sickly examples, but it seems to have become a > bit of a mantra with him, regardless of the elegance of other aspects of the > engineering. I've come to believe that John prefers vehicles with electrical issues and vacuum wonkiness. If it isn't that, then it's somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sort of like me four wheeling in death valley. I have yet to take a trip out there without having a serious fuel leak to deal with when I return home. This past trip, armed with skid plates and more ground clearance, the rear tank of the powerchoke decided to rust out and leak all over the place. Sure, there might be a few woes in vacuum controls (and my 190D randomly decides to lock the doors sometimes for no apparent reason), and I have to worry about fuses doing WEIRD things to the car at times, but I've seen quite a few 190Ds clattering around with over 300k on them. And that's considered LOW mileage for a w123. These cars were built to last, and built to work for a living, and it really shows. And they start in the rain, unlike my coworker's Rolls, so the electrical system can't be THAT bad. And like that particular coworker said when first brought the 190D to work, it's always a good day when you have the pleasure of driving a mercedes. K - -- Kevin Pekarek Redwood City, CA (near San Francisco) and Los Osos, CA (near San Luis Obispo) 85 190D (601, 5spd) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 16:39:17 -0600 From: flash Subject: [db] fuel prices Here is our chance to effect/affect something? dunno, but here it is... Dan ChiTown ========================= I hear we are going to hit close to $3.00 a gallon by the summer. Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea: This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read it and join with us! By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.30 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $1.59 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50- $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace.....not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war. Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do!! Now, don't whimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain simple it is to reach millions of people!! I am sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!! Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am ... so trust me on this one.) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you I didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK. "LAIZZEZ LE BON TEMPS ROULE" "LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 19:18:24 -0500 From: Robert Chase Subject: Re: [db] fuel prices Hmmm, The unfortunate truth is we are completely dependant on fuel because of the poorly setup infastructure of our country. Not buying gas on a certain day might get someone's attention if done on a large enough scale but the simple fact of the matter is without fuel for our cars we can't do anything. Most of us live in suburban areas that are engineered around cars. Without cars we can't get to work. We can't get food into our homes and we cant function in society. We WANT fuel prices to increase. This will make fuel important and expensive and will cause people to think about where they live, how much they drive and what they drive. We certainly don't need a country filled with more V8 powered oversized SUV's sucking massive quantities of fuel to move one person around. If we want to sock it to the oil companies we should be thinking about where we live and how we get to work. Going to work on public transportation can really help reduce the amount of fuel you use. When I worked for CNN (wow those old memories of being a productive member of society and having employment) we had a parking problem at CNN center. I rode the train to work because parking was $12/day at the parking deck there. It actually saved me a lot of money and wear and tear on my car. I drove my car 1 mile a day to the train station and sat and read books on the train when I would be sitting in traffic. CNN had a setup with our public transportation system MARTA and I actually was able to ride the train for free. But as Americans its our right to have huge cars and by god some of us are not going to learn until it hurts us in the pocket book. Such is life. Have fun filling up the tank when the bill comes to $80. Robert Chase flash wrote: >Here is our chance to effect/affect something? >dunno, but here it is... >Dan ChiTown >========================= >I hear we are going to hit close to $3.00 a gallon by the summer. Want gasoline prices to >come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth offered this >good idea: This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that >was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew >we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an >inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has >come up with a plan that can really work. Please read it and join with us! By now you're >probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.30 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $1.59 >for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have >conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50- $1.75, we need >to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace.....not sellers. >With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The >only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the >pocketbook by not purchasing their gas And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? >Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on >gas prices if we all act together to force a price war. Here's the idea: For the rest of >this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), >EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their >prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to >have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's >really simple to do!! Now, don't whimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain >simple it is to reach millions of people!! I am sending this note to about thirty people. If >each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least >ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation >of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get >excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been >contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!! >Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If you don't understand how >we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's >face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am ... so trust me on this one.) How long >would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten more people within one day of >receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! >I'll bet you I didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we >can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. PLEASE HOLD >OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK. >"LAIZZEZ LE BON TEMPS ROULE" > "LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 18:06:25 -0800 From: Greg Fiorentino Subject: Re: [db] Rube Goldberg At 02:29 PM 3/1/04 , Kevin Pekarek wrote: >And they start in the rain, unlike my >coworker's Rolls, so the electrical system can't be THAT bad. At least the electrical system is not like the vintage Brit vehicles....Lucas, Prince of Darkness. I have always wondered why a system engineered for a climate similar to ours would always crap out in damp weather! Greg Fiorentino Vancouver USA gfior-at-dslnorthwest.net '86 300SDL Turbo '84 300D Turbo '79 300TD '85 F-350 6.9 crew cab ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 03:04:02 +0000 From: dieseljohn-at-comcast.net Subject: Re: [db] Rube Goldberg sheesh, I can't even go to Arizona without causing a stir... ;) Rube Goldberg appeared to ONLY be involved with the climate control, cruise control and the vacuum actuated door locks. There were some real good engineers working on the suspension, brakes, steering and chassis... :) Finally made it down to Ft. Huachuca... headquarters of USACC. It was in my chain of command for 6 out of the 8 years I was in the Army... now I'm down here teaching a Solaris class, with a little bit of Linux thrown in for good measure. :) later, john > Hmmm, > > John may complain about the "Rube Goldberg" design in Mercedes Benz > cars. I just got done doing a brake job on my car and I am completely > amazed at the engineering of the car. My car appeared to have original > 22 year old factory installed calipers on it. Both of my front calipers > had jammed pistons (in fact one of the pistons had a big chunk missing > out of it) but due to the double piston design of the Mercedes calipers > I was able to "limp home" for quite some time on the other piston. If I > had not needed to change the brake pads I probably would have never even > known I had a problem for several years to come. While climate control > and accessory issues are always annoying Mercedes seemed to get it right > on the most important parts. > > Robert Chase ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 22:45:46 -0500 From: Robert Chase Subject: Re: [db] Rube Goldberg You know.... I had an MG that was a reliable little car..... Never any problems with anything on the car..... Then again it was because the car was so darn simple...... Robert Chase Greg Fiorentino wrote: > At 02:29 PM 3/1/04 , Kevin Pekarek wrote: > >> And they start in the rain, unlike my >> coworker's Rolls, so the electrical system can't be THAT bad. > > > > At least the electrical system is not like the vintage Brit > vehicles....Lucas, Prince of Darkness. I have always wondered why a > system engineered for a climate similar to ours would always crap out > in damp weather! > > > Greg Fiorentino > Vancouver USA > gfior-at-dslnorthwest.net > > '86 300SDL Turbo > '84 300D Turbo > '79 300TD > '85 F-350 6.9 crew cab ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 23:54:50 -0600 From: "Sam Williams" <1sam-at-io.com> Subject: RE: [db] Heat for SVO conversion Eric, I don't know the flash point for veggie oil or temperatures the exhaust system can reach at different points along its length but cannot imagine it being a good heat source for your fuel. If you must heat, using the car's coolant has a big advantage. It is thermostatically controlled so you can depend on a constant temperature, soon after the engine starts, that is ideal to keep WVO happy (60-70-80, who cares, it's less than the oil saw in the fryer, warm enough to keep it liquid). All you must do is run plumbing from engine compartment to tank (ideally, along the fuel line). You could patch into heater connections; MBs from late 70s have a pump that keeps coolant (warmant?) flowing through the heater core even when car is at slow idle. Exhaust temperatures rise steadily from the time an engine is started, to a point very likely above the flash point of WVO at the manifold and, after running for some time, perhaps at rear resonator, too. Crafting a heat exchanger around exhaust pipe (that can be removed/reinstalled if you ever must replace the muffler)--and transferring an appropriate amount of the heat captured to the tank might be more difficult than piping coolant from the engine compartment. Neither exhaust nor coolant will heat the wvo when the car isn't running. To use unprocessed WVO in cold weather, you must install an additional (heated) tank, associated fuel line plumbing and some mechanism to switch between them. The cost advantage of modifying the car over running filtered wvo in summer, processed bio-diesel or wvo thinned with dino-diesel in winter could take years to realize--not to mention the hassle and destruction of trunk space. WVO remains liquid and does not require heating much of the year except in cool climates. Mixing with diesel or kerosene can further lower the gel point at minimal cost in money and emissions. You can process the WVO into bio-diesel which will not require heating at ambient temperatures that support dino-diesel. It's messy but you're already working with waste oil, its not much messier than the filtering you must do anyway. I avoid the chemical factory in back yard syndrome by not running wvo in cold weather. If fuel does get as expensive as some predict, I might re-consider. But then, restaurants will be charging for their wvo, too. Why not run half filtered wvo/half dino-diesel until you get it figured out? That brings fuel down to $1/gal and summer's just around the corner. Sam - -----Original Message----- From: owner-diesel-benz-at-digest.net [mailto:owner-diesel-benz-at-digest.net] On Behalf Of Eric Ditwiler Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 1:47 PM To: 'Diesel Benz' Subject: [db] Heat for SVO conversion While most SVO conversions use heat from the coolant to heat the SVO, it occurs to me that there is one more source of heat that already runs from the engine to the rear of the car: the exhaust pipe. Does anyone know how hot the exhaust system gets? I imagine the further away from the engine the cooler it is. Would it work to wrap a metal tube around the exhaust pipe? How close could one come to the turbo before moving the oil tube away? Anyone know the flash point for veggie oil? Or how much it would expand? The literature says it is supposed to be heated to 70 degrees Celsius. My Car runs at 60 unless it is hot outside and I have the (pathetic) AC on and then it might see 80. With $1.99 diesel I gotta figure something out! thanks! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 07:09:08 -0600 From: "Vernon Tuck" Subject: Re: [db] Heat for SVO conversion Sam, That was a stunning nugget of logic. Are you already running WVO??? VT ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 10:28:18 -0600 From: "Alec Cordova" Subject: RE: [db] Rube Goldberg My wife drove a 77 MG Midget Special throughout high school, and she also had very few problems with it. The other plus was that in the event you ever did get stranded, the car was very easy for one person to push. ;-) Alec > -----Original Message----- > > You know.... > > I had an MG that was a reliable little car..... Never any problems with > anything on the car..... Then again it was because the car was so darn > simple...... > > Robert Chase > > > Greg Fiorentino wrote: > > > At 02:29 PM 3/1/04 , Kevin Pekarek wrote: > > > >> And they start in the rain, unlike my > >> coworker's Rolls, so the electrical system can't be THAT bad. > > > > > > > > At least the electrical system is not like the vintage Brit > > vehicles....Lucas, Prince of Darkness. I have always wondered why a > > system engineered for a climate similar to ours would always crap out > > in damp weather! > > > > > > Greg Fiorentino > > Vancouver USA > > gfior-at-dslnorthwest.net > > > > '86 300SDL Turbo > > '84 300D Turbo > > '79 300TD > > '85 F-350 6.9 crew cab ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 14:08:57 -0500 From: "S.D.Byers" Subject: [db] ahh lovely just drove to work on almost pure SVO, no heating required, a little leftover diesel in the tank, life is good. Smells great. I fill from jerry cans stored in the basement. I am looking forward to the 3USD gallon, assuming I can keep up the supply of oil from the morrocan restaurant I get it from. SDB ------------------------------ End of diesel-benz-digest V1 #1383 **********************************