Loaded up with 40 gallons of biodiesel at the oasis and headed off for the second time on Tuesday evening last week. Once again Cornfuelio pulled through like a champ. It was nice to be out there with air conditioning when it was needed. Finally cleaned out the car and put the seats back in last night. Got some more parts from diesel giant dot com for the second Mercedes to come into the fleet. This one is a '82 300cd turbodiesel. It needs a lot of minor repairs but runs great.

Couldn't resist the pull of a low priced 300CD Turbo. One more cylinder and the turbo make for a much faster diesel. This one has a sunroof and is two door. It needs some lovin' but I hope to have it converted before I head up to the playa next week. Pictures will be up soon.

After a valve job and diesel purge I took Cornfuelio to the playa for some early set up fun. Just in time for early burn the trip went great. It seemed to use a bit too much fuel, 30 gallons for round trip. I would expect around 30 mpg but only averaged 23 mpg. I'm planning on another diesel purge.

Eastbound up the Sierras the 240D pulled about 55mph in the steepest grades which is pretty good for a 4 cyl with 252000 miles.

The dust this year is crazy but the only damage it caused was a... read more

Got the Trooper back from the mechanic yesterday and he gave it the OK to journey across the country. Tyler is trying to arrange with a couple friends to drive the Trooper across country. Sounds like hilarity or disaster (three 20 year olds stuck in a truck for several days driving across the country)

Any way he is stoked.

I changed the fuel filters the other day which is one of the first things to do when switching from dinodiesel to biodiesel. Petroleum based diesel yields fine particles of sludge in the fuel system and biodiesel is a great cleaner so fuel filters must be maintained during the transition period.

I'll post a picture soon but the dinodiesel was black in the old filter and the new batch of bio from the potato chip oil is clear. After only a few days black crud is clearly visible in the in-lin... read more