Veggie Oil (Conversion) Adventure!!

Several weeks ago I sat in my garage with tubing, valves, gauges, wires, and a growing sense that I was in over my head. I was supposed to be installing my new waste vegetable oil (WVO) kit from Golden Fuel Systems into my 97 Ford F250. Shortly thereafter, I removed myself from the confines of my 107 deg garage and plopped down at the keyboard of my computer to ask for help. My plea fell on kind ears and hearts, and soon I was off to Springfield, MO for an "installation sponsorship".

Everyone at Golden Fuel is affable, interesting, and seems to enjoy what they are doing. John and I dove right in and had the truck plumbed by the end of the first day. Halfway through the second day we had things wired and ready to prime. Two things were clear, I had made the right decision not to do the install myself, and things were going way too smoothly. The latter would be remedied soon. We turned the ignition, started the engine, and were greeted with a less than appealing rumble from the engine. We test drove it around the block and were glad we had our seatbelts on since the violent shifting pattern might have launched us from the vehicle.

By 9:30 PM we had exhausted every possible solution. Everyone was tired and dirty and disgruntled. We vowed to return in the morning to resume the fight. By lunch the next day, the truck had revealed itself a formidable foe, and still no solution had been found. The call was made to send me to the local Ford diesel genius, Guy Ferguson. Suzie Ferguson greeted me as I entered and took great compassion on my weary soul. Though they were booked out for the day, Suzie somehow convinced Guy to take a look at it.

Before letting you know how things turned out, it is important to give you a little background on my truck. She is known as "the Beast", as she could eat each of our other trucks for breakfast. I have recently done some genealogical research on her to discover a bit more about her past. Come to find out that she is in fact a polish truck. Full name: Betty Beastinski. This helps to explain why it took an extra day in Springfield, lots of man-hours, frustration, money and a local diesel genius to discover that a 30amp fuse had blown.

I was back on the road shortly thereafter, and running on veggie power!

Many thanks to everyone at Golden Fuel. What a unique bunch of diversely talented people. There have been a few more bugs that have been worked out since the original conversion, and each time, everyone is helpful and supportive. This is more than just a job for everyone there, and though conversions are what they sell...it is top notch customer service that you buy!

Here are some pics of the conversion: