The AX man cometh!

Well it's been over three weeks and 450 miles but I've finally used up all the diesel that was in the tank of the AX, so now i am able to test the Veg Oil conversion. Fitting was a breeze, the hardest part being to feed a wire through into the cabin for a switch on the dash - it took about 1/2 an hour to do that, and about 1/2 an hour to do the rest of the job.

And the good news is the little AX runs just fine and dandy on veg oil. I flled up with 40 litres of SVO, no diesel at all, and even in the 4 degrees run home at midnight last night she ran sweet. It takes about 30 seconds to warm up the veg for a clean start by which time the main plugs have gone out, so it's switch on, wait 30 seconds, switch off switch on again to reactivate the glow plugs and then start immediately. There is no black smoke, and unless my ears are deceiving me, less clatter.

Now in true banger style the car will be tested rigouously before it does the banger rally later next year. This means it will be my daily driver for work. Already it is proving to be a suitable banger, the passenger side sun visor came off in my hand the other day. And I got my first puncture in 17 years of driving. Cost to repair......... £15. I love thsi car. It's cheap as chips!

Veg Oil Conversion

My package arrived this morning, a VOW2B veg oil heater conversion kit for the AX. Now I have to find the time to fit it. Time is money, but I'm spending money on diesel when I could be saving by using veg oil, therefore time also equals veg oil. Which begs the question if you eat a chip, are you conusming time? Of course you are. And if you eat too many chips and throw up, do you then travel back in time?.............Sorry gone off on one there haven't I?

Anyhow, let sgo fit it and maybe I'll post some pictures to show how easy it is.

New banger and banger rally plans

Right the Ligier has sold. My nine month flirtation with microcars is over for now at least, althoug I still fabcy another one to convert to electric power. I made a small but reasonable profit on the sale of Kermit, and this has gone towards clearing some credit card debt.
I have now acquired hsi replacement ......a 42000 milr from new 1995 Citroen AX diesel for the princely sum of £125. Now the AX needed an OT whic it gained easily enough needing just a CV boot and a headlamp adjuster to pass........well theroetcially that's all it needed. in realtity it also needed a core plug replacing as the MOT testerrefused to carry on the test with a hot shower going on in the background.
So a bil of £200 quid secured the repair and a new MOT, £115 satsified the taxman to alow me to drive on the road and at a sum total of £440 I amon the road in my new daily commuter.
except of course that it has just cost me another £30 to fill the tamk (it had about 8 litres in already) I have the VOW2 uniton order to convert it ready for Veg Oil next week. That should reduce my daily motoring costs again.
Sadly I lost almost 35 litres of fuel when my settling tank burst last week. I now have a very well oiled garage floor, as wel a lots of highly combustable newspaper.

Anyhow, changing gear slightly, to a new topic, I have decied to enter a Banger Rally in 2008. It's something I have had in mind for quite a while. but never got round to. Hopefully ihave my friends Mark and Graeme onboard as team members, and we jut have to choose the event to follow, or make up our own. More tol follow on the banger rally soon.

Now's the time to say goodbye.

Although it's been a fun partnership, it may shortly be time for me to say goodbye to Kermit and allow him to move on to a new owner in that wonderful EBAY auction house in the sky. I have my sights set on something bigger and faster now that I have mastered the art of Diesel/Veg Oil conversion. It seems unfair to deprive a motorcycle licence holder of the chance to replace his ageing Reliant Robin with something much more modern and economical.
I quite fancy a Peugot 206 or 306, maybe a 205 or Reanult Clio or similar for my Veg Oil commuter. But ideally I'd like a pre 1972 diesel engined classic car - or one I can convert to a modern diesel - maybe a Morris Minor, converted using a Metro 100 diesel, then converted to run on Veg Oil. Just imagine - free road tax, free fuel and cheap classic insurance!
Any other suggestions welcome

Problem Rectified

If a problem shared is a problem halved what is a problem rectified?
I don't really know, but I know about problem rectifiers. A rectifier, for those not in the know, and in car terms at least, is this small box about the size of a pack of cigarettes, made of aluminium and with fins for cooling, and inside which witchcraft happens. Somehow, and if I dug out my O level physics notes I could probably explain it much better, an AC electrical current goes in, and a DC current comes out. Clever stuff, if you have say an alternator or dynamo on a car engine and wish to charge a battery with which to start the engine again once it's stopped.

Well that's the theory anyhow.
Since Kermit's last little tantrum when he threw off his variator and "failed to proceed" his behaviour has been impecabble. (A failure to proceed is a Rolls Royce term, of course a Rolls never, ever breaks down. I have borrowed the term simply because I do not consider this a breakdown. A breakdown by defintion requires a breakdwon truck to recover the vehicle - as i rectified the fault at the roadside this was just a temporary failure to proceed)

Anyhow I digress. The point is that Kermit the small boxy plastic green coloured diesel engine Microcar was performing brilliantly, returning wonderful economy using free waste vegetable oil - oh yes, life was good. Even the stereo sounded good.
Then I noticed, or did I imagine, that the headlamps were getting a little dimmer? And was the car just a little more reluctant to start? And Bugger! had the battery gone flat and left me stranded at work? Well I got a jump off the boss (No smutty comments at the back please!) and got home okay, and put the battery on charge. I figured that maybe usage of the demister, headlamps heater et all along withthe veg oil heater for the first time this autumn might just have pot a strain on the battery, but then thinking back wasnt it a new battery in February? Check those receipts - why yes it was. Surely not a dying battery then. It recharged okay and holds 12.7 volts. With the battery rcharged the car started on it's own, but mysteriulsy the battery light now stayed on! Not charging then. I can only assume that before the battery was so flat it didn;t have enough charge to show it wasn't charging?????

Anyhow a check with the voltmeter showed the alternator kicking out a healthy 17 volts AC.
The Battery was receiving a very unhealthy 0 volts. Now this car has a wiring system that was obviously put together by blind pughs' colour blind apprentice. The colours of the wire may well mean something to the French, but more likely they were chosen for artistic reasons, or equally likely because that colour was nearest the car on the shelf. However I traced the wiring and found out eventually that all was (more or less) as it should be. The last check I made was of the voltage rectifier earth lead - low and behold therin lies the problem. Sorted with a quick rub with wet and dry, and a wonderful 17 volts now reaches the battery at full revs, with about 5 volts on tickover, so an average of about 12volts in daily useage which'll do for me thank you.

The above flat battery does not however constitute a breakdown merely another failure to procedd, so the Ambra remains 100% reliable to date - or not!

Bang! A breakdown but only a small one.

I recently changed the drivebelt on the Ligier. This is the big rubber band that goes aorund the cones that sort of expand apart and pull together to give a continuously variabke transmission (CVT) gearbox, whereby the engine is always at constant revs and thereby at it;s most efficient whilst providing the best power transmission. As the belt wears it stretches, and also narrows, which leads to a "whiplash" effect as the drive is taken up and comes off again. It end sup like a learner driveris in control! An new bel tmakes all the difference, restoring a smoth power take up.
Well I replaced the belt and all was well for about 50 miles. Seems like I forgot to tighten the nut on the drive pulley tot he right torque. I pulled up at traffic lights, waited for the green then accelarated to start off again. What happened? A bloody big bnag that's what. And parts flying every where. The pulley, washer, nuts, cone end, three weights.......... The good news was nthing was damaged. Could you say the same of a conventional drivetrain? I doubt it.
Any how a young man who live neraby came tot he rescue. 10 minutes later, a 30 mm socket and the drive was re-established and I continued my journey.

See? Even repairs are free!

Another day in the life of......the GOG

Those of you who have viewed my website will know that for the last 10 months or so I have been running a very small plastic and aluminium car with a 505 cc diesel engine and automatic gearbox with CVT driven by a rubber band sort of system. This small two seater has been used to commute to and from work and for short local journeys such as taking my daughter into the next village for dance class etc.
It acheives 80 to 90 miles per gallon running on standard diesel. Of course I have a proper car, a people carriewr for when I have to take the whole family anywhere, but that wil only do an average of 40 mpg.
So the little Ligier is pressed into service whenever possible to keep running costs down.
Like all of us, I hate paying taxes to a Government which is only interested in shafting us and lining it;s own pockets. Don;t get me wrong, I'm not some sort of anarchist. Bit I'd really like to see some socialreform. like those of us who pay tax beneift from it for a change, and those who have never paid into the pot keep their sticky mits out. Why should I pay taxes for the idle and lazy to benefit from it? Example? The NHS. I pay stamp duty, income tax. VAT etc etc to support the NHS. Then when i want denatl treatment - guess what? I pay again! Doctors prescription? Yup! pay again! Idkle dole scroungers who didn;t pay in the first place? Oh. yeah you can have it for free.
So to reduce the amount of tax I pay I now run the Ligier on Vegetable oil. This is availabel (duty free and VAT free) from wholesalers from about 49 pence per litre. Compare that with diesel at about 98 pence per litre and that is half price motoring. (or if you prefer the cost equivalent of about 160 to 180 miles per gallon)
But wait it gets better!
A local Cafe throws away used vegetable oil, and will very soon have to PAY the local authority to take it away as commercial waste. Instead I take it away from them for free. Well actually for each 20 litres I take i give them £1 towards a charitabe casue, the Cafe owners grand daughter wasborn with the unbilcal cord around her throat and starved of oxygen so she sufferred some brain damage as a result of oxygen starvation. Any how I digress. £1 for 20 litres of fuel is 5pence per litre. This has to be filtered before use, so allowing fo the cost of a filter being maybe another 50 pence, that makes the fuel about 7.5 pence per litre. Or if you prefer a cost equivalent of about 950 miles per gallon.
Well it's not quite as siple as that. In the summer I could and did use pure Waste vegetablke Oil to run the car in with no ill effect. That was fine right up until last week when the temperature dropped to about 6 degrees and the fuel started to "wax." Veg oil is thivker than diesel and waxes so much sooner. Solution? Mix 25% diesel with 75% veg oil. This makes my running costs a whole £4 a month. That's about 300 niles for £4, and even cheaper once the weather warms up again. So stick that tax man!

The future is Golden Yellow or possible mucky brown coloured

The future, according to Orange, is Orange. Well no it isn;t Mr Smarty Pants. The future is a yellowy colour, or possibly mucky brown, depending on whether you use SVO or WVO. Allow me to explain.
Some people rely on dead dinosaurs to provide the fuel for their cars. This is a very flawed decision, as Dinosaurs, apart from being dead, are not very good at making Petrol or Diesel, other than by dying in the first place, being compressed and decaying for millios of years, then being dug up and sold by Arabs.
Alternative fuels are the future. Whilst in the ideal world we wouls all be flying around in electrically powered rocket cars, that is a bit of a dream. Electricity, by and large is produced by burning dead dinosaurs, which will one day run out. Unless we find more dead dinosaurs we are in trouble.
SVO, (Straight Vegetable Oil) is a viable alternative to diesel which is available now. Any diesel engine can be easily and cheaply converted to burn Vegetable Oil, or a blend of Veg and diesel, which would reduce our dependance on fossil fuels. It is produced from Biomass like Rape Seed and is carbon neutral, the emmisions created in buring it beng absorbed by the next crop that grows......this makes sense to me. I'm sure I recall basic physics saying that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, it can only change forms. So we change potential pollution into chemical energy to promote growth of the very fuel that created the pollution in the first place - neat solution.
Apart from the green credentials SVO is only around 36 to 46 pence per litre, compared with about 99 pence per litre for diesel fuel - in other words half price running costs, or less. Customs and Excise used to want a share of the savings in the form of fuel duty, however, since 1st July they are no longer interested in small volume users, so if you use less than 2500 litres per year, you don't have to declare it or register to pay duty. RESULT FOR THE GREEN CAMPAIGNERS!
Duty was about 28 pence per litre, but with that gone anyone using SVO can now fully benefit from chepaer fuel costs. The average driver covering 10,000 miles per year at 20 to the gallon or more will fall outside of those requirements - most of us could now use SVO instead of diesel, without paying duty and supported by the law.
I for example use a Lifgier Ambra microcar capable already of 80 miles per gallon of diesel. I have converted it to run on 100% vegetable oil, meaing that therotically, ona pure price comparison against diesel I am now achieving the equivalent of 150 to 21 miles per gallon.
But even better than that, I am now planning on using WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil) supplied by a locla Cafe. The proprietor of the said Cafe uses Vegatble Oil to provide greasy Breakfasts and Fish and Chips to truckers, then throws away the used oil. In some parts of the country he would have to pay someone to tske away this "Industrial Waste"
I will happily take it away from him for free, as filtered it will run just as readily in my car as SVO would. Okay, it's a little messy and time consuming to prepare, but it is free fuel. All it costs me is the cost of a storage tank, some filters and a pump. I now have y own little filling station in my driveway. Remember the fuel crisis a few years ago? I can;t wait for the next one. I will have 1000 litres of fuel in my storage facility, enough to last over two years at the current useage rate.
The future is definetly mucky brown for me.

Green or Mean?

For some time now I have owned a very small and some would say stupid car; a Ligier Ambra.
It is green in colour, and as it only has a small 505cc diesel engine, i would argue it is also green by nature. It takes up less than half the space of say a Ford Escort, and is recycleable, it also achieves almost 80 miles per gallon.
The drawbacks of a maximum speed of 40 mph and space for only one passenger pale when you realise this is only used for commutting - my journey is 10 miles each way and only I travel, so my 7 seater stays home and I use this pod. The people carrier costs about 12 pence per mile in fuel costs, the pod costs just 6 pence per mile. Enough said.
However, it's not green enough and is costsing too much money to run! I took out the spare wheel to save weight. If I get a flat I will have a maximum of five miles to walk either to work or back home. Big deal I can cope with a five mile stroll once in a while. Still costing too much though.
But not any more. Now i have converted it to run on Vegetable oil. The parts to convert cost £40, which means in a months time i will have paid the conversion cost and start saving. Diesel is 95 pence a litre, Vegetable oil is 49 pence a litre - almost half the price, or if you prefer about 2.8 pence per mile. Now that is seriously cheap motoring. Even better, I'm going to buy some filters then it's downto the chippy to beg their used oil. That'll be seriously FREE fuel.

Shower or bath?

That's the big question isn't it? Some would say bath is best, as yiu get to relax and soak, read a book, have a glass of wine etc. Others say a bath is unhygenic, as you sit in your own dirt, and that an invigorating shower is the only way to start or end the day.
Then of course there is the green arguement. A shower takes less water - unless you spend a long time in the shower or bath in only an inch of water, like my wife. I think she's afraid of drowning or something.
But key to the question is space. no not space as in the final frontier, but available space in the bathroom. Modern houses tend to have a "family" bathroom, with the master bedroom if you are lucky, having an ensuite. My own home built in the 1990's has one of those so called family bathrooms. Why it is termed a family bathrrom is beyond me. Yes the entire family use it, but not all at once. Anyway I digress. The room has a standard suite of a close coupled toilet pan and cistern, a sink which is larger than it needs to be - who uses it for anything other than washing their hands and brushing their teeth? and a bath. The bath is 1.7 metres long, which means internally it is about 1.5 metres. I am six foot two, and whilst I donl;t know what that is in new fangled metres, what I do know is that I can't lie down in the bath easily. So I desire a shower.
Some idiot of an architect obviously decided that I would not be allowed a shower, and in order to prevent me fitting one he took the step of fitting the door exactly in the middle of one wall. Standard sizes of shower trays appear to be about 1000mm - whilst a bath is 800. Available space either side of the door? 820mm. Room in theory for a bath either side of the door, but no room for a shower. Not that I would want a bath either side of the door you understand, just one bath is enough, but I'd like a shower too. Okay, so I shopped aroud and found smaller shower trays, one which would fit behind the door if I stripped off the plaster and chiselled out some of the breeze block wall.
That worked fine for ten years, except it leaked and never really sealed, and I used to bang my elbows getting in and out through the corner entry. So now it's time to bite the bullet and go fgor one of those modern shower bath suites, which promise the perfect compromise for those who desire a shower but don't have the room. Now some would scoff at the idea and just fit a shower over a standard bath and have a shower curtain. It was good enough for mum and dad after all.
But no, I want the B & Q Barcelona suite which is 850 mm wide, exactly 30 mm wider than the space available.
Damned architect wins again - or does he? Right, as I see it, "all" I need to do is move the door at least 30mm to the right, right? And rewire the socket that has to me noved to facilitate this, and reposition the lightswitch for the landing light, oh yeah, and the pull cord for the bathroom light. Rip off the old tiles, replace with new. Install the new flooring, new suite, replumb, new lighting, portion of Mr Kiplings, yes?
Well the door has moved almost two foot to the right as that was the nearest stud upright and kept things fairly simple. As I type I now have an open plan bathroom, which technically does have a door, although it doesn't close (needs shaving) but the door is pointless as it has no walls, just a lot of timber framing, allowing a perfect view into the hallway and landing area - not the best image for a bathroom, I'm sure you'll agree. Watch this space, things can only get better as the project continues.