A few days ago I posted about tracking our personal finances as a way to decide whether we were going to jump into a diesel vehicle running on waste vegetable oil. While driving back from Kamloops today I noticed that gas was $1.29.9 a litre! Suddenly my round trips to Kamloops were costing a lot more!
We’ve been stepping up our efforts at education and have been looking at the easiest vehicles to convert to run on waste vegetable oil and trying to figure out how to make this project happen.
We happened across a vehicle called a Mutsubishi Delica; a truck chassis with a van body. It’s Japanese (of course) and…right hand drive. These vehicles are imported and are often 1994-1996 models with about 80,000 to 100,000 kms on them. We’ve seen them listed at dealers throughout BC for $8,000-$12,000. There’s even one for sale privately in Clearwater, just 32 km north of us!
I’ve contacted our friend Ed Beggs of Plant Drive and peppered him with questions regarding this particular vehicle. He owned one himself and spoke highly of them in terms of conversion. In fact, in all the reading we’ve done, almost without exception, reliable WVO conversion is noted as one of the postive attributes of this vehicle. Ed noted that the conversion kit for this vehicle would be in the neighbourhood of $600-$900 depending on how we do it. Conversion takes a handy, somewhat skilled person 2-4 days.
Interestingly, I spoke to my cousin Gerald R this evening and unbeknownst to me, he owned one himself, so I was able to pick his brain! He also owned a diesel Mercedes wagon, which, I believe is also a good candidate for conversion.
I’ve been reading up on what constitutes good waste oil, as we have a fast food restaurant in Barriere and I’d like to know we have a good source locally. It doesn’t appear to be difficult to filter the oil to be dumped in the vehicle and Canola oil is one of the best oils for WVO vehicles. Ed’s site has great information on how to approach restaurants to convince them to give you their used oil. He has found that since restaurants have to pay to have used oil removed, they are often very open to giving it away. And like most people, they think it’s neat, too.
We are thinking of selling the 2003 Frontier to fund this new/used vehicle purchase We only use this vehicle April to October and it is our least fuel efficient vehicle. We are tracking our fuel expenses monthly and it seems to be anywhere from $250 to $400…that doesn’t count March when I’ve been driving to Kamloops 2-3 times a week. $4800 in fuel in a year seems like good justification to keep pursuing this idea!!!
As always, we’ll keep you posted!
Hey guys.
I’ve been following your blog since shortly after you started it and am a big fan. You guys are the most influential blog in Canada for self made Earthships in my opinion. Great work.
I’ve been obsessed with Earthships for about 6 years now, own most of the books on the subject, and follow anything there is to follow online for Canadian builds. You guys are living my dream in more ways then you guys will ever know.
As for the Delica. These have been a passion of mine as well for many a year, I just can’t convince wife to buy a RHD vehicle. If you haven’t already done so, I highly suggest going to http://www.delica.ca and immersing yourselves into their forum. You can learn basically all there is to know on the subject from perusing there.
As for purchasing one, I highly recommend keeping an eye on http://www.terra2imports.ca. He does a lot of importing and can also source you them directly from Japan with his contacts there. Keep in mind I’m not sure how things have changed since Japan’s Earthquake/Nuclear for the company but they were definitely a leader in importation before.
Keep in mind the different models and in my opinion you’re looking for a L300 model with 1993 being their last production year, for the most part. After that they have several different trim packages and differing styles. a P25 model is a low roof, a P35 is a high roof, a P45 is a long wheel base model, etc. Here is a forum topic that could aid you in your research.
http://www.mdocuk.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20060
Good luck.
Thank you for the tips and the kind words! Our mission was always to document every part of our project in hopes that it would make things a little easier for the next folks…whether it’s the construction process or the emotional ups and downs of living life while doing something different. On the vehicle issue, we had actually been told to go for the L400 because there was some modification to the engine that eliminated some problems that were occuring in the L300. Chris might remember more of this conversation. We have yet to sell our CR-V (we’ve been too busy to really flog it) but we may simply jump in with both feet before selling it. Thanks again for the information!
May I suggest something I’ve been wanting to do for time now. Depending on your ability and tools, use normal 1/2 ton pickup/suv remove the original gas engine and install in it’s place a Hino 4cyl diesel with a veg oil conversion. The advantages are that most of the parts are readily available, Fords are available with duel tanks, Hinos are very reliable and you don’t have to get used to a right hand drive.