MAYBELLE THE GREASE PROPELLED BEAUTY

maybelle is our 1980 240d (now upgraded to 300d) WVO project. she cost us 300 american to bring home and honestly, in the begining, i was not feeling it.  the first 40 mi trip to get her was a no go, it was cold and don't ever waste your time on those shitty magnetic block heaters and your 're not supposed to use starting fluid with these diesels and i should've worn more of anything.  next trip was a go but i was scared on the way home.  i again had the option to swap time for money and we fixed her up slowly but surely. millions of hours later she is still going and if you were one of the unfortunates who got stuck behind us when she was a four cylinder...i'm sorry.  but she's such a sweetie! her odometer was stopped at 264,000 when we got her and started working with this latest remod. which was done by the mecum over there at "order of disrepair repairers." he switched out the engine, tranny and exhaust from a donor we bought, as well as the designing and implementing the grease conversion we now enjoy.  we've ran nearly 10k miles on grease!

above is a shot of our filling station, the large black cylinder is a fancy wind-break so's i can heat up the wvo with a turkey fryer. i heat to around 120 degrees F for filtering.  failure to heat up the wvo means quick failure in filter. very quick failure.  the pump we use is from REDLINE pumps, it has been great.  pricey but worth every greasy penny.  our system is a two-tank set-up, using an 18 gal plastic boat fuel tank plumbed internally with copper pipe heating element.  hot fluid from the radiator is used to heat the wvo to agreeable temps.  plastic bubbly foil insulation helps to retain that good heat.  after the "grease" is heated up it is pumped  to



the engine compartment where a pair of three-way solenoid valves divert the grease and diesel to there respective places.  before the grease goes into the engine it is heated and filtered a second time by filter/heater coil combo you see in the lower left of above pic.  we usually only have to run about three miles before the grease is hot enough to be switched over.

MAYBELLE UPDATE: we sold dear Maybelle after her transmission went SOUTH.  The New Owner has had guru of all things mechanical, Jason Mecum to convert her to a MANUAL TRANSMISSION!  A 4sp manual now propels her through the mountains of NC.  You may recal that Jason converted her to WVO power as well as swapping her original 4 cylinder to a 5 cylinder!



1966 SPLIT WINDOW (HAS ALSO BEEN SOLD)

Heres after sandblasting and ospho on bottom portion.