Makin' Fuel

Hey, welcome to trucks.

You know, one of the biggest issues facing the gear head today

is the price of fuel. It's getting bad. 253 bucks a gallon.

What do you do? You gotta have it. Can't make it yourself.

You're kind of stuck.

Wouldn't it be cool if you could make it yourself? You know,

brew it up in the garage, like a bunch of moonshine and

never have to pay at the pump again.

Of course, you know, that's impossible.

Or is it

not if you're driving a diesel? And since this show is all about how to do stuff today, I'm gonna show you how to mix up your own biodiesel fuel

that will outperform what you get at the pump

is better on your engine

is a whole lot cheaper

and it's something that you can legally do in your garage. I know you're thinking,

what are you talking about?

What does all that have to do with a bunch of French fries?

You're gonna find out.

I, I'm done here.

Ok. The first thing we need to clear up is just what exactly is biodiesel?

Well, basically it's fuel made out of vegetable oil as opposed to petroleum.

And not only is it completely compatible with your existing fuel system,

it's actually superior in almost every way from performance to lubrication to emissions. Heck, the first

diesel engine ever made ran on peanut oil. So,

if it's that good,

why don't we use it

all? Simple petroleum as a base has always been a lot cheaper than vegetable oil. Not anymore.

Now, you can make your own biodiesel fuel and your oil source is literally as close as your local restaurant.

Ok. What I've got here is about 30 gallons of waste, cooking oil

that I got for free down at a local restaurant. Now, any place that fries foods is gonna have something like this

and most of them will be overjoyed for you to come and just get it off the property.

Now, I know a lot of you are thinking, oh,

oh, wait a minute.

You're gonna make fuel out of nasty rancid french fry oil. Forget it. It'll never happen.

Yes, it will. And you are gonna be amazed how well it works.

All right, to make your own biodiesel fuel. The first thing you need to do is make a call to a place called Freedom Fuel America.

Pick up one of these units. Now they call it the fuel meister,

but I'm gonna call it the tire fryer. You're gonna find out why here in just a minute.

Now, basically it's tanks, hardware pumps, everything that you're gonna need to

turn old cooking oil into top grade biodiesel fuel.

Now, the ingredients, obviously, you've got your old cooking oil

and you want vegetable oil here, not grease like lard or animal fat.

Then as a catalyst, you need pure lye, you can pick this up at a hardware store

in your drain cleaner section.

And then the final ingredient is racing methanol and you can pick this up at a race shop or at a race track cost you about two bucks, 250 a gallon. Now, there you have it three simple ingredients.

This is what you gotta do to put them in your fuel tank

first. We're gonna fill the main reaction tank with oil.

The kit comes with an electric pump. So it's just a matter of filling it to the proper level.

In this case, we're gonna make a batch of 20 gallons.

Once the tank is full, we're gonna let it recirculate for about 10 minutes to mix it up really good.

All right. Now, we need to do a titration test to see how nasty that old oil really is. This will determine how much lie we need to add to it to bring it back to life. Now, don't get nervous on me here. I know it looks like I'm gonna take you back to chemistry class.

It's really pretty simple and freedom. Fuel America includes everything that you're gonna need to pull this off successfully. We're gonna show you how to do it after the break, man. Does anybody want French fries?

Hey, welcome back to trucks. And we have a cool project going today

because I'm showing you how to make your own biodiesel fuel using old nasty left over cooking oil. And that is the machine we're doing it with.

All right, we've got the oil in the tank. Now, we need to do a titration test to see how much catalyst we need to add.

We'll start with a small sample of oil here in the center.

Then here is some methanol

that over here is our tran, which is basically a combination of lye and distilled water.

Now, we'll take a measured amount of methanol

and add it to the oil

and then mix it up

until it's kind of a milky white.

Next, we'll take the ph indicator solution that comes with the kit

and add three drops

and mix it together.

Now notice the color change here according to the color chart, this is acidic.

So

we'll take a measured amount of the tran

and slowly mix it into the sample cup

until the color indicates a ph of around eight or nine kind of a bluish green.

The amount of tiran

you used is then compared to the chart for the size of batch you're gonna make

and that gives you the amount of lye that you're gonna need to use with this oil. See,

that's pretty simple.

Now, all you have to do is measure out the amount of lye

and then mix it with the methanol in the premix tank.

Now, make sure all of the lie is dissolved in the methanol

or you'll just end up making a big mess and have to start over.

Ok. Now, it's just a matter of mixing this all together and to do that,

just open the valves

and start the pump.

The premix will be drawn into the main tank as the oil recirculates.

Now, once the two components are blended together, it all needs to mix for an hour. So just reset your valves,

set the timer

and take a break.

Basically, what's happening here is the lie will break apart the oil molecules.

Then the hydrocarbon chains from the oil molecules float over and bond to the floating methanol molecules and form biodiesel.

Then the lion Glycerin also bond together

and they form a goo

that sinks to the bottom

and that

we'll just throw away.

All right, once everything is properly mixed,

you just let it sit for a few hours that allows all the glycerine to settle to the bottom. Now, obviously, you don't want that fuel. So all you have to do

is drained it out.

Now notice how dark and thick and gooey the glycerin is,

you can actually make soap out of this stuff if you want to.

Now just keep draining until the light amber biodiesel comes out

and that is it. Now believe it or not,

you can pour this stuff right out of here into your fuel tank or

you can take this process one step further

and water, wash your fuel to make it super clean. And this machine has got all the hook ups to do that,

but either way

you're looking at about 20 gallons of biodiesel. Now, come on,

just how good is this stuff? Is that really gonna run an engine or

did we just create some sort of fast food bio sludge? It's gonna clog everything up.

You're gonna find out after the break.

Hey, welcome back to trucks. And one of the craziest shows we have ever done

because I have just taken old nasty, used cooking oil

and supposedly turned it into usable diesel fuel with this machine that we got from freedom fuel, America. But now the moment of truth

is cooking oil, a real alternative fuel source or is this just a bunch of hogwash? You know, an urban legend.

Well,

there's only one way to find out.

We need to put this in a truck

but not just any truck. No, it needs to be a real truck. That truck. Yeah, this is a 2001 Dodge Ram. And it's got all the good stuff. It's got the edge power module for extra power. Killer K MC, aluminum diesel wheels and big fat NTO tires. Yeah, this is a nice rig.

Now, I know you're thinking, wait a minute. You're gonna fill that truck with this bunch of bio

goo and expect it to run.

Oh,

yeah. Matter of fact, I have completely drained the tank. So the only thing in here is gonna be this bio

goo

because the point here is to show you how good biodiesel is and if it'll perform

running down the road, the truck sounds and feels the same,

but it doesn't smell the same

and we're getting noticeably less smoke out of the tailpipe

in stop and go traffic. The rig is just as pep and responsive as with petroleum fuel.

And when it comes to full on performance,

bio

diesel will fry the tires with the best of them. Yeah, that's right.

You don't have to sacrifice power and performance.

The truck is actually running better.

Matter of fact, the only real difference is cost

the biodiesel that this truck is burning

only costs us about 70 cents a gallon to make

70 cents

a

now, guys, guys,

are you grasping this? I'm talking about low price performance and reliability and the best part is,

it smells like a big French rice cooker going down the road. This is awesome.

But if you wanna take advantage of all that free oil out there,

you gotta go to freedom fuel, america.com and pick up one of those machines, then you can make your own biodiesel. Now, since we're talking about doing your own home brew,

this is something I know you're gonna like

in the automotive and racing world, cars and trucks are usually dominant in different areas.

If you wanna go drag racing or road racing,

the vehicle of choice is usually a car

if you want to go off roading.

Mhm.

Trail Ring

or even rock crawling. Some sort of truck is almost always the first choice.

But there was a time in history where the car and the truck were a team

man, they complimented each other like salt and pepper.

But to find out when that was, oh, you gotta go back in time, way back. Keep going to a small town in Georgia

called Dawsonville

and the beginnings of a sport that we now call NASCAR.

Yeah, they had cars and trucks

and these

little jugs of moonshine.

However, back in the day,

the idea was not only to get a load of illegal booze to town,

it was also the thrill of outrunning the federal agents or revenues.

Of course, the car was the vehicle of choice for the speedy runs down old highway nine

because it was much faster and handled better than a truck.

But

you'll see how the truck fits in after the break.

Don't document you.

Welcome back to trucks and our story of moons shining.

Now we've already established how important a fast car was to get away from the law.

The 40 Ford coupe was especially popular because it had a big trunk and a V8.

However,

up at the still the truck or the Jeep was King

because it could not only carry all the ingredients for that

special brew.

It could also carry the still itself and

a truck could carry far more moonshine than a car ever could. And that is where the two became a team,

a superfast hot rotted car with a

hotshot driver would run interference for the truck which was loaded with moonshine. And what this did was serve as a decoy to pull the law away from the truck.

Some of the exploits of those drivers have become legendary

if you think they rub and bump each other. Now,

you should hear what they did back then. Uh One time

I had a load of liquor in a 53 Ford convertible

and

I've drunk as hell

and I have come to Cataloochee.

I had 48 gallon in the trunk of the old car

and it, it was souped up like one of these hot rod

race cars you see out here with often ha

to her head and two strong

begs on it and all that

nice trying to straighten them turns out

I have coming downhill

in second year just

and had it to the floor and you can imagine how fast it was going. I don't have no idea,

but I didn't make that damn turn. I hit a big old tree about the size of a tractor trailer tower

and I can show you that today that den is still in that tree.

And when I hit that tree, it knocked six of my upper teeth out.

I swallowed them down teeth, I

teeth

for a damn week.

And that ain't no lie. That's truth. I've ever told it

as the story spread of these crazy hillbillies and their incredible driving ability and their blindingly fast cars.

It wasn't long before people wanted to see which one of these whiskey runners was the best.

If you make a trip to Dawsonville, Georgia today,

there are two things that you need to do. If you are a NASCAR fan,

one is go by the Thunder Road Museum.

The other is go see Gordon at the pool room and have a bully burger.

Better yet.

Go to the moonshine festival in October.

You'll not only be able to drool over some of the coolest cars and trucks on the planet,

you'll also be able to experience some awesome southern hospitality

and

learn all about a really unique chapter in this country's history.

And who knows if you meet the right people,

you might be able to bring home a little bit of that history yourself

for medicinal purposes. Of course.

Oh man,

when it comes to adding some serious power to your truck,

most people realize that putting on a turbo is one of the best ways to do that.

And generally the turbo is mounted up under the hood with the rest of the engine. Right.

Well, sts turbo systems is about to blow your mind because they have a turbo kit

that mounts the turbo charger in place of your muffler. That's right up underneath, all hidden out of the way, sneaky. Like now take a look at this. The exhaust comes in here, spins the turbo exits out the tailpipe.

Your boost comes out here runs through all this tubing

up into your intake. Then you have an auxiliary oil pump for lubrication

and all the hookups and hardware to put this thing in, in about five hours. And they've got these kits for most late model trucks.

The end result about

80 to 100 extra horsepower. Yeah.

Not bad. And sts turbo systems only place on the planet you can get this.