Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival of Music & Dance - Sunday


Click here for photos. I'll probably write more about Shakori Hills later. (It was awesome!) It has been a long 3 days and nights since the festival ended, and I am tired.

It all started with 100% pure biodiesel for sale at the festival...

2 comments:

  1. Never have heard the story about the biodiesel

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  2. Now...that was a pretty interesting story! (Painful and exhausting, but interesting.)

    At the festival, a local vendor was selling biodiesel. It was priced a bit higher than diesel, but I decided to have them fill my truck's regular tank (which I had used only for diesel fuel; the waste vegetable oil -- WVO -- was in the auxiliary tanks) because I wanted to support the biodiesel industry.

    Tonya and Marcus came to the festival that day. Marcus left early, so late Sunday evening I took Tonya home (to Graham) on my way back to Wilkesboro, which is 104 miles from Graham. (I had to be in Wilkesboro Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings for my MerleFest volunteer shifts.) Before we reached Tonya's house, the Powerstroke started losing power. By the time we got to Tonya's it would hardy run. So...Tonya let me use her car to drive back to Wilkesboro.

    At some point over the next 3 days (that was 8 years ago, so I don't recall exactly) I took Tonya's car back to Graham and got the truck running. But, within 10 miles the truck lost power again. I pulled into a truck stop to find out what it would cost me to have 28 gallons of fuel pumped out of my regular tank. It was pricey, so switched over to the WVO tanks and headed back down the highway, switching to the regular tank (biodiesel) until the power dropped, then back to WVO until the engine was running fine, then back to the regular tank, etc. By the time I reached Wilkesboro the engine was running fine on the biodiesel.

    The best I could determine, the biodiesel (an extremely good solvent) broke "junk" loose from the fuel system that the WVO had deposited there. (I never was quite good enough at keeping moisture and particulates out of the WVO.) After 100 miles of switching between biodiesel and WVO, the fuel system must have been much cleaner.

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