Bought an old frybrid and an old greasecar kit what should I upgrade?
September 18, 2011 - 1:24am
Hey so I am trying to do a quick but good 2 tank wvo conversion on my 1981 rabbit truck and found a kit for sale that was on an old Mercedes so I bought it for $200. Think it might be an old frybrid as it has one of the metal coils that has the fuel line running through it. It also came with a davco 234 heated filter with an electric heater on it, an aluminum tank with a gauge sender and a vdo gas gauge and a couple of 3 way pollock valves.
Then a couple of days later I bought a frybrid kit as I wanted the spare tire tank. Got it for $400 with a 24" spare tire tank with the copper coil inside of it and the fittings that I would need to do their hih setup along with a filter head, copper coil to put the filter inside, a 6 way pollock valve, a 3 way pollock valve, a gas gauge with a broken sender and a few switches.
So I am wanting to upgrade some of the components and when I'm done and running I will sell the remaining parts and kit. The davco filter is huge for my little truck so I will probably just use the frybrid filter head inside of the copper coil for now. Maybe I will buy a heated filter head in the future.
I don't really like the copper coil inside of the tank or how they have the hih termination inside of the tank. Seams like its asking for a coolant leak inside of the tank. Greasecar seams almost anti aluminum tubing as well using copper and pex most of the time. I would feel better with aluminum because of the polymerization issues with copper. They seam to say that it fatigues and cracks easily. What do you guys think of this? I'm thinking about making a new smaller in tank heat exchanger out of aluminum tubing and seeing what I can do to have everything terminate outside of the tank. I'll have to drill some new holes and such but I'd feel better about not having to worry as much about coolant mixing with my wvo.
Then they run a pex fuel line? I don't really like how the little bit of pex inside of my tank looks so I will probably make an aluminum hih. Anybody have any problems with this setup?
Then I was wanting a final heat exchanger so I was going to use the frybrid coil but I just read that the inner coil is copper and It seams like it would be best to stay away from copper so I might be buying a fphe now. What do you recommend for those? Seams like a lot are copper brazed, are there any issues with those? Or what is the best ones that can be bought?
Thanks ahead of time for your help I've been researching this stuff for a while now and am finally about to get it all installed and done. The tank is going under my bed and I am working on getting it mounted now. I thought about getting another fuel door to put behind the rear axle but for now I will probably just cut an access plate in my bed to access the filler cap. I'm not sure where I will run my hih setup yet as my truck is pretty low so I can't just run it below the cab. Might see if I can use the same tunnel that the exhaust is in and just get rid of the center muffler and run a better muffler in the back. Its either that or run them through the cab. I was thinking at first of welding a steel channel to the bottom of the truck but I don't like that idea so much anymore. Also on these old vw 1.6 diesels how do you normally tap into the coolant lines? In parallel or in a series? Then if you run it in a series do you tap into it before or after the heater core?
Thanks again for your help.
Carpenter
September 18, 2011 - 9:49pm
#2
Yeah I might just leave the HE in the tank for now. Ehh not really sure though. I just want to make sure to not have anything after my filter like a copper heat exchanger. The guy I bought this from had ran it for only a few thousand miles in his tdi jetta before it fried his injection pump so its still a pretty new kit minus the sticky stuff in the tank that he thought was polymerization. I think he probably just didn't dewater and filter his wvo good enough though and thats what fried his injection pump.
September 25, 2011 - 8:38pm
#3
Your Valves are probably going to be the first things to give you problems. Frybrid never sold a kit with Pollock valves. I have used aluminum inside aluminum tanks. My tank builder built my first tank 6 years ago and has made atleast twenty since then. All have good aluminum tube inside the tank and never a failure. If you really want to remove the copper coil from the inside of the tank. Get a good piece of aluminum and bend it similarly to the greasecar and mount it in the coppers place. I really do not think that is needed.
I am a big fan of pex line. I use it as fuel line also. My Mercedes has it shrink fitted into place for over a year and 35-40k miles. It is non reactive and is somewhat flexible and the seal is incredible. But the aluminum fuel line will work. It will also seal as good or better than the PEx line inside the tank.I like FPHE but I would not get rid of a HE to buy a FPHE. I think a good upgrade is to put a Mercedes Plastic fuel filter just before the Injection Pump and not only can you see the fuel flowing inside, it will catch debris also.
If you have the greasecar copper wrapped fuel filter use it. But also use a HE after it. Tap the water out of the engine block and return into the waterpump. If you have a local U-Pull-it junkyard find a Mercedes (gas or diesel) and pull out a working coolant circulator pump and mount it into your system. It is easy to see if they work just bring a cordless drill and test it with the battery.
Hope that helps, not hinders.
January 11, 2012 - 7:41pm
#4
This is somewhat late but in case others are having same problem I must say following. Before using original PEX tubing please check o-ring seal area for diameter reduction. Best way is to provide some support inside the PEX, a 3/4" piece of brass tubing 7/32" od works for me. You can get it at a hobby shop that has scale model supplies - a 12" piece for $1.50 is enough to make 16 repairs! You then can use a brass ferrule instead of an o-ring which allows a tighter connection which will not loosen up / leak like the PEX / o-ring. That's how we do it in nuclear power plants so probably good for greasers.
Dick
February 3, 2012 - 12:36pm
#5
IMHO some upgrade suggestions:
1) Change out the corrigated in-tank HE - this walled alluminum. Make one using 3/8" aluminum tubing wrapped around a #10 can, terminate with compression fittings into female threaded 90s elbow, use female hose barbed brass fittings or purchase a manufactued HE.
2) Change out the PEX - use aluminum for best heat exchange to VO - Use nylon ferrels
(3 Use 3/4" Goodyear radiator hose
(4 Soak solenoids in HEATED Purple Power - rinse with diesel
(5 Eckes Heat Exchanger for these reasons:
(a) Faster VO heat exchange (b) easier and cleaner VO replacement (c) Eckes use the VW fuel filter - cheaper to purchase
(d) add a "Tee" and small 1/4" ball valve to the INPUT of the FPHE to bleed off air when filling the new VO fuel filter - need an electric fuel pump for this
(6 Purchase a NEW MB aux water pump - a used pump is a waste of money - I bought 2 used - both failed within 6 months
February 3, 2012 - 7:47pm
#6
NEW MB aux water pump..
where do you buy yours?
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I've had HiH copper for YEARS with zero issues and thousands and thousands of miles.
You gotta figure if you have any polymerization on the copper what's it going to do? Worst case scenario is that at some point a big chunk of it may peel off and stick in your line or in your filter. I've not had this happen. I can see some obvious polymerization on the coils in my fuel tank and I really don't care that it's there. Everything works fine.
There's theory, which I don't dispute, and then there's real life scenarios. I take real life every time.