What is the easiest and cheapest way to heat the fuel in the tank?

Here is my situation:

I make my own biodiesel at home on the weekends then drive about 2.5 hours to school and stay there for a few weeks depending on homework and amount of fuel I have. What I want to do is add warm biodiesel to the warm truck at home and not have worry about it freezing on the ride back to school. Once I get into town I will dilute with regular to get a proper ratio that won’t freeze in the given conditions.

This isn’t about biodiesel, we know it freezes. I want to hear what you guys have for tricks or other ways to keep the tank at 30 to 40 degrees minimum, just until I get the fuel diluted.


It will be a lot more comforting to know that if the truck is at operating temperature that the fuel won’t start to gel.


Let me know what you guys think.

 

i too have experience with the miracle restraunt brews, although my mix is more of an SVO. anyways, you might have seens the 55gallons drum band heaters. like these
http://www.morsemfgco.com/products/drum-heater.htm

i'm sure that would work if you could secure it good and wire it into your electrical. Maybe bolt an inverter to the underside of your truck and put a shroud around it to shield it from wetness

 

If You want to heat the entire aux tank while You drive somewhere else You can either use a 12v heat element (I use one and works perfect), if You want to heat what You are using before You start the engine You need some sort of tank heater there are a few that comes on strap like style and You turn it ON during the night so You have warm fuel when You wake up. Also if this is more of a steady thing You can get coolant lines running through the tank and get it to a higher temp while You drive. There a lots of things You can do it just depends on what You want to use it for, there are also heat exchanger and hose in a hose You can use that use the hot coolant from the engine to warm up the fuel. Hope this helps.

 

A coil of tubing in the tank with coolant running through it would do the trick.

 

Btw if You use any kind of coil inside the tank make sure it is stainless steel, save Yourself the headache.

 

What does this look like? Is it in your tank or does the fuel run through something with it in it? how much power is that pulling?


I was thinking of the coolant coil in the tank like Dave suggests but wasn't sure of the best way to plumb it in.


I dont need to heat the fuel tank before I go, If the truck freezes in the yard then I can wait for warmer weather or put it in the shop. but if the truck freezes up on the interstate then I'm looking at an afterhour$ tow and I loose all the money saved for running the biodiesel.


So what is the best way to get a coolant coil in the tank?

 

Through the sender hole in the top. Doesn't have to be a coil, I think a long "U" shaped piece of tubing (longest you can slide through the hole on a diagonal) lying on the bottom of the tank would be the most effective setup. It could be connected by flexible (diesel fuel rated) hoses to bulkhead fittings in the top of the tank.

Best suggestion I can think of anyway.

 

You can use a SS coil in the tank but also add a heat exchanger before the fuel filter.

 

I am in the process of getting my truck ready for my own bio brew and my plan is the following:

1. Add ramcharger tank with arctic fox in-tank heated pickup. They are expensive($200) but all stainless and no fittings inside the tank to leak water. Then just route the fuel and water lines "bundled" together for a HOH setup. This by itself should provide more than enough heat to keep from waxing your filter, once running and up to temp.

I would say that for your purposes that would be all you need. One thing I just thought of is you may want to add a valve on your water line so that when you are not running bio you can turn the heat off. Have to add that myself.

I am also going to add a "vegtherm" inline electric heater just before my filters to make sure the fuel is up to temp at the filters.

I am also going to get one of those "indoor/out door" thermometers with the out door sensor attached to the outlet of my filters to verify the temperature of the fuel. This way I can either turn off the electric heater or just adjust the system accordingly.

So far thats my plan, just waiting for the time to execute.

Aaron

 

Well I have been thinking.... how about an oil fired hot water heater in the bed?

this is an entire different approach and the system would be run on 100% biodiesel all the time, ( probably best with a two tank system and keep #1 in the fuel tank for the real cold nights to swap fuels.)

The heater could run on the biodiesel right out of the fuel tank, and would be hooked into the engine coolant system.

the coolant could be heated and a small pump could send warm coolant to the insulated aux. tank in the bed then follow the fuel lines to the engine where it would be plumbed through the engine block and back to the the water heater.

the engine and lines would stay warm and the injectors and pump wouldn't freeze. Add some heat tape just incase it gets too cold then cover up the lines with some insulation and insulate under the hood with the foil stuff.

I wouldn't think that it would take too much to keep the system above freezing, especially if there was enough coolant capacity to hold the heat from driving.

the coolant would always be warm.. so no wait for heat in the mornings. On cold nights I could run out and make a few trips around town to bring the coolant up to temp and help the system out.

the hardest part would be insulating under the hood or around the engine to trap that heat, and figuring out a way to power the pump and oil burner without killing the battery.

What do you guys think about this? I kind of like the idea of a heater in back of the truck, I'd even put a chrome stack on it

 

Apparently you've never heard of these:

http://www.espar.com/

hold on to your shorts when you see the price though.

 

How about something really simple like this ;

Find a couple large transmission coolers and mount them to the bottom of the fuel tank with some kind of strap arrangement sandwiched between a layer of sheetmetal on the top (to keep from chafing the tank and to distribute the heat more evenly) and a layer of insulation and sheetmetal on the bottom (to keep the heat in and protect them from road debris). Plumb them into the coolant system with shutoff valves (so you're not heating you fuel when you don't need to). It also wouldn't hurt to wrap as much of the tank as you can with some kind of insulation to keep the cold air off it while you're driving down the road.

Another way to do it would be to get an auxiliary fuel pump and a filter housing with a heating element in it and plumb it into your fuel system before the lift pump with a return style pressure regulator. Turn it on when the truck sits and let it continuously warm and circulate the fuel. You'd probably want to have a separate battery on an isolator for this and you'd probably want to hook a battery charger to it if you leave it for long periods.

Neither of these are as elegant as an in tank heater, but also wouldn't require dropping the tank to install. There are lots of variations on these themes that you could employ, too. Just apply a little out of the box thinking.

 

the only problem would be the pump and lines to the injectors would freeze up.


thats why i was thinking of heating the engine coolant and engine.

the trans. coolers are a good idea for the original problem though.