Hi!

I drive a 2.5 TD wagon from -96 and I've been thinking about driving it on about 50% veggie oil. It has got the Bosch-pump wich I think is suitable for this(?).
But, does the veggie oil harm the seals, should I change to viton seals first?

Anyone here who drives his/her 2.5 XM on such oil?

Greetings from Sweden,
/Veglia

Hi Veglia, i can't answer your question - sorry , but I do have a question for you... I'm going to have to rebuild my Bosch pump and am wondering if you have found a supplier of rebuild kits in Scandinavia since you mention changing to viton seals ?

Thanks, Colin.P

Hi colinxm!

If I needed some new sealings to a pump in a specific material such as viton I'd go for the local machinesuppliers, like here in sweden we've got the Momentum-store wich is a spinof from SKF bearings manufacturers that sells almost anything for the industry such as any kind of sealings, o-rings, bearings of course, cambelts or any darn gizmo you'll need to keep a machine going.
Once I bought a pair of cambelts for a GS there, just handled over the spec's for the belts and I had a pair of green(!) belts that is still in use in the car today. I think he mentioned that those belts where for a electric powered garage door and they happened to have the right specs...

The veggie oil project is quite an awesome one, if I manage to drive my XM on this in a 50% blend I'd be able to save about 1500 € a year on this. Or if the veggie-oil works in summertime on a 100% basis i'd save a lot more. And that's only the money spent aspect. The environmental side of it is even far more interesting.

But if I ruin the pump on this adventure it's of course not worth it...

Greetings!
/Veglia

I have driven my XM2.5TD on veggie oil put straight into the tank followed by a further75% diesel (gasoil). For some months now I have found that veggie is dearer than diesel by a great amount, so have discontinued.
If I ran out of diesel in a town, I expect I would put in a litre or two of pure veggie from the grocery store - it will still run on it!

Hi!

Yes the veggie-oil is more expensive than common diesel now.
I meant use of WVO (waste veg. oil) from the local restaurant, filtering it and de-watering it.

As I've been told on a bio-diesel-forum the bosch equipped citroën's are suiteable for this, so I probably give it a try.
I'ts the lucas-epic pumps that are a big NO for those kind of experiments.

In the same time I'm a bit concerned cause this XM runs like a new car and is that reliable I even took my daugther on a trip to france last autumn in it. It has never missed a beat, so if I start to run it on veg. oil and it starts to develop issues I will feel quite stupid...

Greetings!
/Veglia

Hi Veglia

I have not tried running my 2.5's on veg oil yet but have researched about it. I intend to go 100% processed waste veg oil. As I understand it the Bosch pump on the 2.5 will be fine on veg oil but just incase I have obtained a spare. The problems I expect to have to overcome are from starting in cold weather and fuel filter blockage.

According to reports I have seen no matter how well you process and filter the waste oil it seems that it has enough fines in it to block the fuel filter. This only seems to happen in the early stages of using WVO and it may be that one of the properties of the veg oil is to clean the fuel system and flush out all the muck that has collected through the system over the years. As I intend to go straight to 100% veg oil I am likely to stick in a temporary second bypass filter with an on/off valve just so I can get home despite a blocked filter. If you slowly increase the proportion of veg oil and regularly check/change the fuel filter you may avoid any blockage problems.

Veg oil is thicker and makes starting a little more difficult particularly when it is very cold. In the UK most 2.5's now have the engine oil heater isolated from the feed line due to going porous. I do not think that this engine based heater will actually help starting with veg oil anyway as for the heater to work the engine has to be warm or running. In the final year of XM 2.5 production Citroen changed the design and fitted an electrical heater in the oil filter. I think this is the way to go to solve starting problems with veg oil and would be particularly applicable to very cold winter conditions. I do not want to pay Citroen prices for a heated filter so am looking for a cheaper alternative. Heating the fuel line may not be the only option as I do not think the difficulty is mobility of the fuel oil just its temperature when it is sprayed by the injector. It may be that we can extend the glow plug heating time to get the cylinder temperature up enough to give an easy first time start.

Hope you find this useful. Please keep us updated on how you get on.

John

Hi xmexclusive!

Thanks for posting,
I have the feeling that I will use only 100% WVO in the summer when it's really warm, otherwise I'll stick to the 50% mix.
It's the filtering and dewatering process that's gives me some headache, I've read somewhere that to take away the water you'll have to heat the oil up and then let it settle for some weeks to separate. Others say that it's enough just let is stand without heating for the separating process to take place.

For the filtering issues...
I might just put a extra dieselfilter before the original one.
When filtering the used oil before putting it into the tank I'll find some good specific-micron-cloth-filters, I'll make some investigation on that one.

I'll have a chat with my local lunch-restaurant this week to see if he's keen on giving me his vaste-oil.

/Veglia