My Torpedo Heater Running On Waste Motor Oil 

I made some modifications and another video. I moved the convection heater parts to the inside of an old propane tank. Easier to fill and larger capacity

I was going towards compressed air too. I have another video here using an old propane tank I modified using this heaters parts in and could seal it up to allow it to be filled with air. Didn't get that far before we moved to a house with attached garage and didn't want this fumes making it in the house. Definitely would have been safer connecting the output to a heat exchanger and dumping the exhaust outside.

@OverRevvedRacing , ok update, I bought a diesel heater off Amazon for 100bucks, it has a combustion chamber with fins, intake and exhaust down through the floor of my trailer mounted under the queen bed in front, impeller in the back of the motor creates high air flow over the fins... 20 mins the trailer is 80 degrees and I gotta shut her down. Need to wire thermostat for running. My point being converting waiste oil to a more purified diesel is the direction I think is best for my trailer as it is my home and free energy is what I am after. Local mechanic shop will give me 100 gallons of oil every 2 weeks.. no way I will process that.. but so far(and I just started researching this) basically you build a alcohol still and the end product is deisel.. run it again for gas.. years ago I watched a guy who lived on a deserted island make gas for his boat and diesel for his generator just using a still using plastic bottles that washed up on shore. This inside of your torpedo uses the same nozzle I use in my home made oil burner.. you are using compressed air already.. within the unit there is a fuel line that runs to the nozzle and another that runs to the air box, the only advantage to using the air compressor is that if you get a quiet compressor with large volume.. I added 2 small compressor air tanks to my compressor adding volume keeping it from running to long... also helping with noise.. anyway it allows you to dial the fuel air mix back to a fraction of the fuel you consume with the large torpedo. The diesel heater I run now takes 2 gallons per 24hours of running hot as she can.. I run it high or off.. keep from buildup.... but ultimately waste oil is its future.. just cleaner waste oil.. I'm not sure if taking the oil and making it diesel will create more fuel or less.. but I will let you know when the still is built.

Those diesel heaters are absolutely the way to go!! I have had my eye on those for a while. I got rid of the torpedo heater when we moved because our garage in our new house is attached and I wanted a indirect heater (like the heater you got or a standard furnace) so the burnt air wouldn't get into the house. I actually have the Beckette burner from an oil furnace that I was going to convert to burning waste oil. However with the prices of those diesel hearers being SO cheap now I'm going to go the same route as you.

@OverRevvedRacing love the thing, should keep you warm for sure, im trying to build a drip feed oil stove for our shop. As far as buying the diesel heater and running waste oil, 1 problem I'm have to solve is cleaning the oil so I don't have to clean the diesel heater out. A stove is easy to clean out, but not the diesel heaters, not to say that you don't have to clean them out anyway but few tips. Make sure the heater exhaust is able to drain water, either its running on high or its off( going to attach a thermostat to it so I don't have to be it anymore)this keeps cleaning to a minimum, and add your own filter, supplied filter is a screen.

@HirschCustoms Filtering is something I looked into a lot when I made the modification to the torpedo heater. I didn't want to risk nozzle issues so I did a bunch of research. I actually modified a centrifugal juicer to use as a centrifugal filter and planned on running one of the bag filters that you can get from McMaster (the kind that look like a 3' tall tube sock with handles on them). I wish I made a video on the centrifugal filter but I was busy working on the LSx swap on the KIA Sorento back then which was my real priority. I played around with the drip feed burner too with a hot water tank as a chamber. It didnt work all that great because I was only using a 3" exhaust and it had a lot of pulsing reverb to it. The diesel heater definitely is the easiest way to go though since its all one package and they are really cheap. I was thinking that a preheater would help with that too. Thinking an aluminum block with one of the ceramic heating rods and the fuel line clamped together in the block. Hope you post a video of your setup if you do any modifications to it or if you do build a drip feeder.

Mix 25% gas to oil, let it vent, then it’s good to go. 25% is close to 50% dsl to oil.

Thank you! If you check out my other videos i actually stripped down the radiant heater and put the parts into an old emptied and purged propane tank. Works MUCH better and can hold MUCH more oil.... That video is on my channel: ru-vid.com

Jordan Bronson If you check out my other videos I actually stole the heating element out of this and repurposed it inside an old propane tank to heat the oil.

+OverRevvedRacing - LOL, you know Home Depot have Heating Element for like $8.00 and a $2.00 Snap Disc... Incorporate that into a Propane Tank and you should be all set. :D.

+Jordan Bronson Not sure what size element or temperature range you get from the elements your talking about from Home Depot. I haven't honestly looked for them there. However, this one was free and it's quite large. About 12" long. Plus it can get hot enough to steam off any water in the oil which is a serious bonus.

+OverRevvedRacing - Hahahahaha, it doesn't really matter in the Element Size... You control " THEM" with a $2.00 " SNAP DISC "..., aka the Temperature Disc. Example: Lets say you want your Oil to be around 95 Degree Fahrenheit. You hook up the Element with a 95 Snap Disc. Once the Oil gets to 95 Degree, it shut off the Element and so on and so on and so on.... LOL... Hope that makes a bit more sense.

+Jordan Bronson Oh I totally gotcha man. I'm not hating on ya mate. Don't take it the wrong way. I'm all about us garage inventors combining our heads! I am using the variable thermostat from the heater. Which is basically a snap disc with a tensioning arm to cause the snap action to have to overcome it in order to shut the unit down. I was just saying that the repurposed radiant oil heater's heat element is a great option due to its size because it will more evenly heat the oil in the tank because it reaches across practically the whole tank. Rather then a shorter element having to heat via convection from a smaller area. This can put a larger strain on a smaller heater and introduce more convection losses and such. Ya know? Plus... Who can argue with free parts right?

This was just a proof of concept. I have another video testing out a propane tank that I modified by installing the element into. This allows the tank to be pressurized for better flow and to have filled without dropping that pressure via a 2nd tank on top with a ball valve between them. I didn't want to make any permanent changes to the heater since I wasn't planning on using it like this past experimentation.

It was mostly just an experiment to see if I COULD get it to run like this. I have another video on my channel where I modified an old propane tank to use as a preheater unit. That worked much better for preheating the oil. It worked pretty well but I wouldn't suggest using it as an open flame unit (like torpedo heaters are designed for) because all of the "junk" that's in the oil (metals, chemicals etc) that it puts into the air. Would probably be horrible for you to breath in. I actually had gotten a 55 gallon drum and pushed the torpedo heater output into a hole I cut in it. It worked pretty well and got the drum super hot. It work have worked even better with air tubes ran through the drum. However, my exhaust stack for it was way too small (single 3" exhaust pipe) so it would pulse and howl really bad. Perhaps with a real exhaust flue it would have worked better. After seeing that it worked I really never used it much again after that. I DID aquire a "Beckett Blower" from a friend. It's the style blower/flame unit used in fuel oil furnaces. I may do some work with that to make it run on waste oil. It's significantly easier to use those because you can buy different size nozzles for them for better atomization of the oil.

brett rowland Not good ones I'm sure. Probably bad for your health. This was just a test to see how it would work. I am planning on modifying it to heat indirectly so I don't have to breathe the fumes. If you check out the other videos I made some different changes to the pre-heating setup.

I'm seeing this 2 years later and wondering how it worked out. I'm in the process of doing something similar.

In an open flame burner, honestly none would be safe to breathe. Too many toxins and heavy metals could be in the oil. I've run waste motor oil that I filtered with an industrial "sock filter" in my diesel truck and a "becket style" oil furnace but this was just a test. The plan was to blow the heat into a drum heat exchanger then out the flue. So fumes wouldn't be an issue.

@@OverRevvedRacing yeah didn't think of that. Ok I'll just stick to kerosene and diesel then

Throw some gas in the oil to thin out a little. I ran my 7.3 idi on 25% mix gas to oil all summer March-August. It started better, more power, used less fuel & was wayyy cheaper to get & make. Dsls pre-1994 only! Never use Veg oil it’ll clog it up. Nearly killed the injectors on my old previous 7.3 PSD.

@@michaelbenoit248 Funny I just dumped some waste oil and fuel in mine and it seems to work.

I am not sure what the ignition temperature of veggie oil is. You may have to start the system on diesel then switch over to WVO once it has warmed up. You would DEFINITELY have to make sure its thoroughly strained because the nozzle holes on the siphon systems are very small. It would also need to be pre-heated to a high enough temperature to flow like diesel fuel. Due to the "weight" of the oil the transfer container (where pre-heat system feeds the syphon system) may need to be raised up so they siphon system can draw the heavier "fuel"

+OverRevvedRacing - Veggie Oil is NOT worth it.... :((( You get sticky residue all over the place and they are hard to clean. I have experimenting with them and HATE them :(((. Stick with Waste Used Oil, easier to clean and less time consuming as well.

That's good to add the safety precaution on it. I got the one I have to work it took a few times to get the oil to the correct temperature so it would flow easy but other then that it was easy. I had a hard time with the oil because I have a 250 gallon tank with all different types of oil and oil additives and even gear oil are in it from other people's car but after finding that out it made my day...

I got about the same one you do. I leave my garage doors open when I use is that way there is less of a chance carbon dioxide poisoning I just had a friend that had that happen to him he was in his shop working one of his kids closed the door not knowing just trying to keep there dad warm it about killed him luck his wife seen the door was not open and she called him a few time he did not pick up so she went to see what was wrong and he was awake but did not know who he was or who she was it was bad. So yes if anyone reads this be safe and vent where you use any propane kerosene diesel or oil heat it will kill you before you know it's killing you.