Several years ago a friend of mine convinced me I could run any diesel engine on used French fry grease. This was about 2006 or so. Gas and diesel prices doubled within a few months. People got to getting creative with ways to buy or make fuel for cars, tractors and lawnmowers.
My friend Shawn was far more computer savvy than I was. He was in a couple of chat groups that talked about alternative energy and what not. Shawn was also a super tightwad. He wouldn’t even buy the good lunch meat when he went shopping. So when the fuel prices went up, Shawn went to searching for a way to save a buck or two.
He baled hay every year. He had an old 4020 John Deere and an old Gehl round baler. So he got to reading about “biodiesel.” He figured out if he filtered the used vegetable oil (French fry oil) from the convenience store with coffee filters three times he could mix half French fry grease and half diesel and get by just fine. The price of fuel had doubled, so he figured out how to cut his cost back to the old price.
Everyone that baled hay for people went up on how much they charged, so did Shawn. He figured he would make an extra $1000-$1500 because of his French fry grease fuel. I will never forget he calculated the exact cost of making the French fry grease fuel down to the penny. He had nine cents a gallon in his French fry fuel. I remember I told someone he had ten cents a gallon in his French fry fuel and Shawn corrected me and said no it’s only nine cents a gallon.
Towards the end of summer an older gentleman put a 1986 Mercedes 300 turbo diesel car for sale on side of the road. He was asking $2000 for it. I had hung around Shawn enough to know that particular diesel engine was the best one at running on French fry fuel. So I bought it with some extra money I’d made by selling a brush hog I’d traded for. The day I bought that Mercedes my wife took me up there so I could drive it home. The old man told me the turbo doesn’t kick in until the car got to going about eighty miles an hour.
When I drove it home I put five gallons of diesel in it at the truck stop. I added five gallons of French fry fuel as soon as I got home. It didn’t take long and I could tell the car sounded different, it actually sounded better on the French fry fuel.
I took off down the highway and tried to stick my foot through the floorboard. That danged car felt like it was floating on air. It rode and drove like a dream. Sure enough when the speedometer hit eighty, the turbo kicked in and that car buried the speedometer. I chickened out when it hit a hundred miles an hour. It still had plenty of run of in it. I don’t know how fast that old Mercedes diesel would have ran, but it would do way over a hundred miles an hour, way over, maybe one hundred fifty.
I’ve ran tractors on French fry fuel for years. I never did run just straight diesel in that old Mercedes. I finally sold it to someone. I wish I still had it, because it was fun to drive. Shoot it had little windshield wipers for the headlights. I felt uptown driving that thing around. Remember those old Grey Poupon mustard commercials? I felt like that dude.
I put a hundred dollars worth of farm fuel in my big tractor the other day, it might last two days. I may start up the French fry refinery if fuel prices don’t come down soon. A guy’s got to get creative to stay afloat these days. I haven’t seen Shawn in an about ten years. I wonder if he still buys that nasty lunch meat.
James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses.
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