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The closest thing to automobile immortality

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The closest thing to automobile immortality

Postby tzor on Sun Apr 03, 2016 8:52 pm

I was talking to a person tonight who has a number of old 1980's Mercedes Benz diesels. He runs them on cooking oil. These are cars that last well over a half million miles without feeling the effects of old age. Recently he was at an event where they deep fried a turkey. He called dibs on the oil. He got 100 miles on the Turkey oil.

You never know what is going to come out of his car ... funnel cake ... french fries ... or even turkey.

It is often reported that Diesel designed his engine to run on peanut oil, but this is false. Patent number 608845 describes his engine as being designed to run on pulverulent solid fuel (coal dust). Diesel stated in his published papers, "at the Paris Exhibition in 1900 (Exposition Universelle) there was shown by the Otto Company a small diesel engine, which, at the request of the French Government ran on Arachide (earth-nut or peanut) oil (see biodiesel), and worked so smoothly that only a few people were aware of it. The engine was constructed for using mineral oil, and was then worked on vegetable oil without any alterations being made. The French Government at the time thought of testing the applicability to power production of the Arachide, or earth-nut, which grows in considerable quantities in their African colonies, and can easily be cultivated there." Diesel himself later conducted related tests and appeared supportive of the idea.
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Re: The closest thing to automobile immortality

Postby ADodgeStratus on Mon Apr 04, 2016 11:36 am

Repairs on the little things are really expensive. How much are oil changes on 80s era Mercedes? Usually around $100, right?

Diesel is awesome. Too bad one can get in big trouble with the Feds for getting caught making one's own. They don't really enforce that law until prices go up. Funny thing that.

What are the limitations of the engine though? It can't provide the same performance as gasoline, right? Can we even outrun the zombies on turkey oil?
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Re: The closest thing to automobile immortality

Postby TA1LGUNN3R on Mon Apr 04, 2016 12:16 pm

If you can't change your own oil, you probably deserve to be charged $100 for a change.

-TG
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Re: The closest thing to automobile immortality

Postby riskllama on Mon Apr 04, 2016 1:58 pm

TA1LGUNN3R wrote:If you can't change your own oil, you probably deserve to be charged $100 for a change.

-TG

exactly.
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Re: The closest thing to automobile immortality

Postby tzor on Mon Apr 04, 2016 6:21 pm

TA1LGUNN3R wrote:If you can't change your own oil, you probably deserve to be charged $100 for a change.


I have to look up the instruction book for my Prius, but I generally have the dealership do the overall maintenance on it anyway.

You know I think somewhere in my garage I still have the metal ramps to make it easier to slide under the car to do the oil change. (And I think I have one of those wheeled platforms that allows you to roll back and forth on your back.)
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