It’s a 1999 and looks pretty good for it’s age and miles. My wife drives it most of the time these days though. I drive a long way for work so I beat up our little Blazer and save the $$$ vehicle.
(http://www.pbase.com/jfoster/image/70779801.jpg)
My wife wanted bigger tires too so we put a new set on a couple of weeks ago. The new tires are a lot bigger than the stock tires in the picture. Jon.
Should we call it the FryMaster?
Theres a growing underground group of Biodiesel owners here. They buy old ultra high milage Mercedes Benz dismals for a couple hundred bucks and convert them for veggie oil use and as long as theres a good source for fuel like a Thai resturant or greasy spoon burger hut that they can buy their blackmarket fuel direct from (the also filter themselves), they are happy campers.
Of course they are still driving beat the hell up cars, but they seam happy, one thing is that they have all the acceleration of a snail crossing a buttered plate, so being behind one on a hill is no fun.
BTW thats not a mistake calling it “blackmarket” fuel. According to the AQMD (air quality regulator) here, biofuel owners are only supposed to buy fuel from “approved dealers” who have been “certified” to mix and filter veggie oils from “approved” sources, which makes the stuff almost as expensive as gasoline, some bright idea huh? So these guys are going “underground” locating their own sources of oil, from high veggie oil users like burger joints, thai and mexican resturants, and “buying” to take away their waste oils that they otherwise would have to “pay” someone else to take away, so win-win you for each party you could say…unfortuantly the AQMD views this as a “crime” and have gone so far as to try and attempt to monitor local restaurants for how much veggie oil they are purchasing versus how much they are disposing of. So far they are being refused the necessary warrents for this. Example of bureaucracy in full-on-stupid mode…
This summer I am going to start running my f350 on veggie oil. I got diesel last night and it cost me 115.00 to put 3/4 of a tank in the truck. This is playing heck on my train budget.
Victor, the laws here for the most part boil down to paying tax on what you make. From what I’ve been told you get so many gallons a year “tax” free. Then you need to pay the tax on the fuel. But, there is no law against using additives in your fuel as far as we know of yet. So, as long as you use “road” fuel and pay the tax on it, you can add additives to improve performance as you desire.
I’ve never heard of any greasy spoon joints getting audited for giving away their waste oil either but I’m sure it’s a matter of time before something happens like that around here. The flip side to that is, I can buy deep fryer oil from Sam’s Club or Costco (membership stores) for less than what diesel costs at the pump. Plus I can dump it right into the tank without filtering it and be on my way. Of course it would gel in the winter but that’s where converting it into biodiesel comes in handy. Biodiesel doesn’t gel in low temps any more than a commercial diesel.
As for performance, I don’t know about the older vehicles but trucks like these will smoke most vehicles on the road. High end sports cars or Mustang’s and Corvette’s are about the only challenge they have…
Jon.
Jon,
You mentioned about being audited for disposal of waste oil. Many years ago, this was a rather serious situation because of us working on diesel engines and what did we do with the oil or diesel fuel we took out. Once we put in the waste oil furnace and had records we were hauling off to Safety Clean all products we couldn’t burn, everyone went away. Now this has something to do with us renting the property from the Federal government. Had an EPA guy come by this Spring looking for floor drains in the shop. We didn’t have any and he went away happy.
We were audited once back in the late 80’s after they passed new containment laws. The dealer purchased a double containment tank that we put behind the dealership. The in ground tanks were abandoned after that. Actually, from what I was told several years ago, the property behind our dealer was flagged as unsafe. But the homes were still lived in and they all had shallow wells for their water source. Recently some of the land has been redeveloped into retail store fronts. I wonder how that works?
Jon.
What doesn’t make any sense to me is it cost less to refine diesel than gasoline, so why is it higher than gas?
I call it gouging!
Got rid of my 1 ton GMC crew cab dually diesel two years ago for a new 3/4 Chev crew cab single gasser.
My mileage dropped in half, but I got tired of the diesel prices rising and the smell, and the racket.
jb
John Bouck said:Sulpher removal, at least thats what makes our particular brand of Dismal so pricey
What doesn't make any sense to me is it cost less to refine diesel than gasoline, so why is it higher than gas? I call it gouging! Got rid of my 1 ton GMC crew cab dually diesel two years ago for a new 3/4 Chev crew cab single gasser. My mileage dropped in half, but I got tired of the diesel prices rising and the smell, and the racket. jb
Man, pricing has jumped up again around here…
Jon.
4.50 a gallon for diesel now.
I’m thinking about getting a supercar and selling the truck. That way I can buy the cheep primum gas for it.
Please some one tell me how a by produck (diesel) is worth more then gas?
Please feel free to come visit with us over here, and hire a car or van…
We live somewhat out in the rurals, and our nearest gas station is about three miles away - prices there this morning are -
Regular unleaded - £1.13 per litre - $9.04 per USG
Super unleaded - £1.17 per litre - $9.36
Diesel - £1.19.5 per litre - $9.56
West London prices last tuesday were as follows -
Regular unleaded - £1.41 per litre - $11.28
Super unleaded - £1.55 per litre - $12.40
Diesel - £1.58 per litre - $12.64
tac the Griper
Terry, thanks for the perspective.
Here it’s walk more, drive less. Regular C$ 1.23/L (but I haven’t gone anywhere for two days so it could be more … or it could be less :lol:)
tac, indeed, you read those kind of prices and you begin to understand why Europe produced cars like this
Small motors, high milage to squeeze the most out of its fuel source. My motto is “Drive what you like, like what you drive”, but if you insist on driving something like this as your daily commuter…
(http://www.frittsfleet.com/F650/F650%20pic%20FrittsFord.jpg)
…that gets 3 mgp going downhill with a tailwind, just do me one simple favor, when your filling it at the gas station watching your kids college fund dissappear into that gas tank, please dont be like the gold-plated idiot I encountered at one gas station filling up something like this. Just shut up, shut the hell up, put a cork in the piehole, dont whine and groan about how wrong and unfair it is that it cost you over a $100 twice a week to fill your Humungousmobile, just suck it up, be a man and take it in the pants or do something about it. I get so sick and tired of hearing the groaning crying manbabies over here who gnash their teeth because they can no longer afford to fill their bling-bling-mobiles and pay the bills at the same time. Geez, if its that big a hardship, trade the pig in, get at least the Bluebook value for it and get something more reasonable, there are plenty of choices out there that have plenty of room and still get reasonable milage. When I suggest that, I usually get: “But, but, there so uncool…” or “I cant impress people with that…” morons. I traded in my Nissan Frontier crewcab 2 years ago, when gas first hit $3.50+ a gallon and I was spending $60+ to fill it, and got my Scion Xb which has more interior cab room than the truck did and a much better ride to boot! Sure I cant carry the same things, but I never used my truck for work anyway, so I didnt have a real legitamite business reason for owning a pickup, nor do I own a boat or a large trailer which would necessitate the need for a towing vehicle, I know there are legitiamte reasons these vehicles are made but 80% of large vehicle owners out here fall into the bling-bling impress the neighbors crowd. Whatever I can’t stuff into the Scion, I can always have delivered, may cost a little but nowhere near as much as the day to day cost of the truck was. This is third year gas prices have regularly been over $3 a gallon, so its not like they havent been warned that the “cheap gas” days that fueled the giant SUV party, are over.
I’m athinkin I might get one of those little chevy HHR’s.
28 MPG on the highway, with 23 in town.
They’re kinda ugly at first glance, but grow on you.
At least you could put a few trains in them as compared to, say, a Mini Cooper.
(That’s what my wifey wants.)
Get a bicycle.
Went to town … regular gas now at C$1.259/L
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:. As I said, get a bicycle... Or stay out of town. ;) :D :lol:
Went to town .... regular gas now at C$1.259/L
Steve I would pay to see you try and carry a Bachmann K27 and three J&S passenger cars on your bike 
I nearly put myself into the hospital one time trying use my bike to pick up and carry back to my house a new car battery when my car died.
Steve Featherkile said:Hey Healer,Hans-Joerg Mueller said:. As I said, get a bicycle... Or stay out of town. ;) :D :lol:
Went to town .... regular gas now at C$1.259/L
I’ve got three bicycles, a road bike, a mountain bike and one for the windload trainer. Any suggestions whatelse I could need? 
Oh yeah, did you know the cycling is the perfect complimentary sport to XC skiing?
(http://www.macktrucks.com/assets/mack/imagedownload/mediumpageimage/275x275_PN_70H_Wht_Van_Leas.jpg)
well, you can always drive one of these. 4.5- 6.5 MPG depending on the load. I usually fill the tank when it’s about half full and that runs about $700. So to put it in perspective, $60 a fill up for my little Dakota is a peice a cake…
