Fuel Tank and Heating it

Howdy folks! (for those of you taking the time to visit) Sorry it's been so long since I last posted but life as parent of two toddlers is challenging. What free time there is is usually spent catching up on sleep!

So when I last left off I had explained and compared the two methods of carrying and heating WVO to the engine. Today I'll discuss the fuel tank for the WVO. As you will notice there is a recurring theme here with preheating in the system.

There seems to be quite a few methods that people are using to preheat their WVO while in the tank. Some are actually going to the extent of heating the entire WVO tank to aid in it's pickup and flow through the system. This method seems to widely used in larger installations like in pickup trucks with 40+ gallons of WVO. While this can be done it does take time and if your a city dweller may not be the most practical. The other drawback to this method requires quite a bit of work in bending and placing tubing in the tank.

The other method is quite a bit easier and works just as well and that is to have a heated pickup system. That is rather than heat the entire tank and WVO just heat the WVO around the fuel pickup and as it travels through the system it gets the rest of the heat it needs. To create such a device is rather easy and can be done with off the shelf copper pipe. This method also allows for a variety of fuel tank choices ranging from the plactic cubes the WVO comes in to the plastic marine fuel tanks. I personally have created a system using a 12 gallon Tempo marine fuel tank. I'll post some pictures and diagrams on this soon.

Take care!