No testing today. We looked after our grandchildren, twins a boy and a girl just 1 year old. It will probably take several days to recover !

Thanks for the comments Stewart, interesting to note that a bio-chemist advocated olive oil as a substitue for castor and also that the "modification process" is valid.

Why try to find a vegetable oil substitute ? I did a round trip of some 80 miles yesterday to my "local" hobby shop to find that the litre of castor oil I ordered had not been delivered to them !

I can order online but the postage costs bump the price up considerably. I will try a local pharmacy and see if I can get some there.

It is much easier to pop into the local supermarkey and get the olive oil and the ingredients for modifying it straight off the shelf, and it will work out somewhat cheaper as well. I had looked at 2 stroke oils and apart from high cost for a good oil I had no way of determining what an oil had in the way of additives... some mineral oils will cause combustion problems when used in our engines.

I hope to get some testing in but the weather is forecast for rain for the next few days, I will try if I get a break in the rain. In order to facilitate testing of the fuel using olive oil as a lubricant I have made a good size tank out of an old yeast container. This has a push on lid which I can remove to fill the tank while the engine is still running. This way I should be able to put a lot of running time onto the engine with minimum messing about.

Chevy..... your comments about the used oil being well filtered are spot on. My car is going in for an oil change shortly and I may keep the drained oil in case of future need ! I am impressed with the success you are having with your fuel mix. If I was tempted to follow suit, or even if I use non-ether mixes regularly, I would look at a method of easy starting. What about another small fuel tank with a Y connection to the the main fuel feed line and a way of stopping flow from the small tank ? This way the small tank could be filled with an ordinary 30% ether fuel mix, this could be used for starting (hand starting if you prefer) once the engine has run for a few seconds it should then be hot enough to turn off the small tank and let the engine then run on the non-ether mix... saves doing a number of primes and short bursts to get the engine hot....

I remember from years ago fishing boat and tractor engines which ran on TVO... tractor vapourising oil... which I assume was kerosene. The engine was started from a tank containing petrol. Once warmed up and running well the fuel line was switched from the petrol tank to the tank containing the TVO. This method gave easy starting and the ability to then run on a more economical fuel.

A scout around the web shows that there are a number of companys around the world doing research on veggie oil lubricants. They are looking to take advantage of declining oil resources and steadily increasing prices as the oil runs out. There is a site in India which mentions research into coconut oil.... Andy may be just behind them in research

I reckon that over the next few years we will be seeing far more about the use of various vegetable oils and additives for engine lubrication.

I also reckon this series of posts belongs in the diesel forum, if necessary copied to this one as well.

One last comment for Stewart...
I made a batch of olive oil using a 1/2 litre bottle of oil. I added 15 cc's of glycerine and there was a bit of sediment this time. I seem to remember you used 20cc's in a litre of olive oil and there was no sediment. My mix equates to 30cc's in a litre and this would seem to be too much if it is the glycerine dropping out as a sediment. My previous mix, using the same brand of oil but less glycerine didn't have any sediment.... seems like I may have found the limit ! The other thing that occurs to me.... with the cheap cooking oil there was quite a bit of sediment, yet using olive oil and more glycerine and washing up liquid gave no sediment suggesting that more glycerine is utilised when modifying the olive oil. The olive oil is using the glycerine more effectively ?

From what I can find online about olive oil it may be as well to use a cheaper oil. I have used virgin olive oil, which is the most expensive, whereas refined olive oil may well be as good for our purposes.
The virgin oil commands a higher price because of its superior taste. Not intending sucking the exhaust outlet I reckon a less superior taste and cheaper price would be better. The deciding factor will be if the viscosity is the same or not. If this oil works out on long term tests then it will be very nice not having the sticky deposit that castor leaves on everything. I noticed, when testing the olive oil mix a few days ago, that the exhaust was running pretty clean, the cheap veggie oil, and also castor, gave a black exhaust deposit.... the olive oil didn't seem to do this.

From my recent adventures trying to buy some castor I reckon the olive oil will work out cheaper than castor... even without taking into account my fuel costs or postage costs.... and that's if I continue to use only the best virgin olive oil.

Reg