The Grease Beast and other Beasts…

So, yea, we’ve had some “car trouble.” Nothing we couldn’t handle, though. Well, let me (Amy) start from my first day of work in early October, when the truck wouldn’t start. I awoke early to prepare for my 45 minute commute to a babysitting position I had accepted, and found snow covering the ground everywhere. It was a beautiful sight, but when the truck didn’t start and we discovered there would be too little energy from the solar panel system to support us plugging in the giant diesel, I knew I had to act fast. I quickly called a neighbor, who told me our other neighbors hadn’t left for work yet and were heading our way. Since they had no phone, I proceeded to put on a jacket and I ran. I ran up our driveway, I ran underneath the maple canopy along the road, and then down the long path to their cabin.

Eugene, Oregon

Totally last minute, we wrote to couchsurfers in Eugene, OR the day we were leaving Melissa’s. On our way there, we received a phone call from one of the couchsurfers girlfriend saying his place was full, but she could host us still. We got there late, which she had generously said would be fine with her, and met up at her place. We hung out chatting for a bit with Holly and Richey, and they were rad.

Got Grease?

We were warned a few times that it would be hard to find unclaimed grease throughout California, and gas prices are usually much higher there. So, a couple of weeks before our arrival in San Diego we sent an email thru fillup4free to a person who stated there was a network of grease car owners in the SD area who may have extra WVO to give away for free. After corresponding with Frank, he sent out a mass email to a few other grease car owners and WVO collectors in the area. Then I received a call from Ned who said he could give us enough to fill our tank, so we arranged to meet with him. It was great to see fillup4free work like it did, and just like the couchsurfing network, it will be very fulfilling to give back to the cause once we settle down.

The Beast Rides On

When it rains, it pours. Before getting to Clearwater, we had been having some issues with loosing coolant in the truck. We replaced a gasket that perhaps caused the leak, but still the “low coolant” light came on again… and again… and … again. We also noticed the car was surging (hesitating) while we were running the veggie oil so we figured it was time to change the fuel filter. We had to continue the rest of the trip down on diesel. boo
When we got to Clearwater, we asked around for a mechanic, and finally just decided to take it into a Midas. Before taking it in, we changed the filter and decided to test it out on our way to Midas. So, we click over to grease… and… we stall out in the middle of the road. Luckily, we were able to get over to the right lane and click on the hazards. CRAP!

The Beast Needs Grease

Ironocally when we arrived in Athens, our host Abby had been working on this great drawling of Kali and her roomate John was writing a report on her… Anyway, the black beast has been running pretty well. We seemed to be loosing a little coolant somewhere so a rather easy DIY gasket placement in the thermostat housing seemed to do the trick (thanks Kearin for spotting that for us). We have been running on grease from Philadelphia to Charlottesville to Asheville, Athens and about halfway to the meditation center in Jesup, GA. Unfortunately in Asheville, Blue Ridge Bio-Diesel has the waste veggie oil market monopolized, so no luck collecting there, and only a few gallons discovered in Athens. Luckily diesel prices seemed to have dropped to about 2.25 a gallon down here. I think our best luck is going to be in more populated suburban areas and hopefully we can stock up in Florida.

Then There Were Two

Bart, the Ford Focus is no longer with us. Bart was a good man and will be missed. PS – Were not selling the scooter!

Buckets of Grease

Saturday, while making a run to the health food store Amy and I decide to stop into the Thai restaurant in the same shopping center to see what they can offer us in grease. First we went out back to check their grease barrel and all looked good. Out of curiosity we also checked a couple of other barrels from other restaurants in the same center. There was a dumpster from a pretty popular franchise stakehouse, which will remain nameless. Oh man, gross… first off there was some kind of piece of animal carcass sitting right on top and as you open the lid there was globs of gross grille grease and other various animal parts sitting on the screen. I peered into the dumpster and there was a tan foam floating on the surface of the grease. This is exactly the type of grease we have to avoid.

We Struck Gold! (eh, sort-of)

After a day or two of me hitting up a few places around the neighborhood and having no luck, I took Amy out with me to see if she could do some smoothing to get us some fuel. We hit up all Asian restaurant, most of them told us that they have a person that picks up their oil already. We explained that we we’re looking to take just a little to use in our truck and that we would take it for free, whatever they could offer. Still no luck, just confused faces when explaining that our truck runs on their used, dirty kitchen grease. So just as were heading back home, we decide to check out a place that I asked a couple of days before. This time we went out back, there were some folks from the kitchen hanging around. When we inquired about there grease they said “Go right ahead!” So… we’re like “awesome!”

Now again this is our first time collecting and using the filtration system so we had a couple of slight set backs…

Converted!

Just got our truck back from our good friend Pat who helped us out bigtime with installing our greasecar kit. As you can see we added the greasecar on-board filtration pump. Now all we need is some GREASE! See more photos HERE.