Thanks for stopping in. I decided to use biodiesel in August of 2005 after doing a lot of reading and attending some meetings on it.
The main reason for me wanting to use is it is a good thing to do, just based on the health benefits alone. I could type my little fingers to the bone and not cover all the information as well as it has been covered here.If after you have visited that site and still have questions about biodiesel in any form check the biodieselnow forums and if it has anything to do with biodiesel then it will be covered in the forums. I would advise doing a search first before asking a question because more then likely it has been asked and answered already. If you see a posting by biodog, yep you guessed it that is me. click here to go to biodieselnow forums.

If you didn't go to the links and read about biodiesel this may answer your 1st question. No you don't have to do anything to your diesel engine to use biodiesel. 		   
  Believe me if there was a chance that something was going to happen to my truck I would be pretty hesitant to use it.  
   
     
The first thing is there wasn't a place to get biodiesel in any blend near me. Believe me I go through enough fuel that I need a place near me. I get about 12.5 mpg with my truck which is almost double what I used to get with my old truck of the same size.

I bought a couple of totes to put the biodiesel in and ordered a pump and a meter to set up a way to store the biodiesel at the house and pump it into the truck.

So the next thing to figure out was how to get the biodiesel into the tote's. The local distributors will deliver for a fee. Don't get me wrong I don't have a problem per say of paying the fee but i'm just stubborn and stupid and want to do everything myself.

Read on and watch how I try and hurt myself on a regular basis.
           
I have two trailers, one is a 6x10 hydraulic dump trailer which is rated to carry 6000 lbs. The other trailer is a 5x10 enclosed trailer.
My first idea was to put one tote in the enclosed trailer and go to the distributor and have it filled up and leave it in there till I need the trailer on a job or to haul finished cabinet stuff to a job.
I made a ramp that I could use the pallet jack that I got for $35 and lift the tote. I guess common sense wasn't working that day because a little math would had told me that a full tote of 275 gallons of biodiesel would weight about 2,200lbs. With that kind of weight and a ramp of any height i would have been pushed into next week and squashed like a bug.

So I came up with this idea wrap a chain around the tote and lift with shop crane (engine hoist). Here is your first look at a tote picture a 4' cube.

On the right i'm testing getting it out of the enclosed trailer.

  
   
     

So it finally comes to me that the enclosed trailer will not support the weight. So now I plan on using the dump trailer but how am i going to get it out of the trailer.

Remember the tote full will weight about 2,200lbs and the bottom of the trailer is about 26" in the air.

 
So here is the first load of biodiesel in the dump trailer.
I made a platform for the shop crane to sit on and will back the trailer into the hoist and then lift the tote.		  
 

So you can see I lifted it out of the trailer and it is now sitting on the platform.
A couple of steps that I left out. After I realized that the enclosed trailer wouldn't work I thought it would be a good idea to put it in the container. After much testing I realized that it would take up to much room. I can't afford to loose anymore room in my shop.
The other thing that showed up in the testing. Just wrapping the chain around the tote would make it squeeze in and distort. I tried stiffing the tote with a rebar cage, that didn't work.
What I came up with is putting steel "beams" under the totes and form a loop of chain on each end of the tote. If you look carefully at the pictures above you can see the ends of the "beams" sticking out buy the back of the trailer. The picture with the shop hoist you can see that I made a "beam" to lift the tote evenly and safely.

I did all my testing with filling the tote with and watching carefully. The hoist worked really well.
So now that I'm not going to store the tote in the container I decided that I would put the tote on the side of the container which I could expand the size to both totes if needed.
To get the totes from where you see it to the side of the container I brought in 4 yards of gravel and compacted it all down.
Next purchased a all terrain pallet jack. The jack was rated for the weight but it needed help to carry the outside edge, see the picture on the right above the wheel thing leaning against the container.

   
Here it is on the all terrain jack and is being moved. I had to put plywood down for the center wheel to ride on.
In the left side of the photo you can see the pump and hose mounted on the container. 		 
   

So this the set up. You can see that i'm now using both totes. People started to hear that I had biodiesel in the area and would make an appointment to get some from me.
Remember there isn't a place near to purchase biodiesel.
The state of Washington has the highest number of user ers using high blends.

I'm going through about 500 gallons a month now with the other people getting some from me.

It was taking me to long to load the totes and unload them in the trailer. Plus it was pretty hard to push the totes to the back weighing 2,200lbs.
So I bought an old horse trailer. I pulled out all the shelves and dividers so the totes will fit.
To get the trailer where you see it I had to make the gate a little bigger. As you can see in the picture I need to bring in some more gravel. The trailer sank to the axle.
   

I mounted the pump and totes in the trailer.
Now when I need to refill I just hook on to the trailer with the truck and go.
This is the view through the front door.
Both totes are in there and are full.
The great thing about the trailer is that it is enclosed and not too big.
The trailer is also rated for 5,000lbs, with both totes full I will have about 4,400lbs.

I did rewire the lights and brakes.

  
  I made a hose reel for the 40' of hose currently coiled up on the floor. I'm waiting for the swivels to come before I can install it.