another topic entirely

a few photos from kilimanjaro and kenya (sept-oct 05)

uhuru

sun rising over mawenzi

frankie the porter at baranco camp

sunrise, lamu, kenya

giraffe, hell's gate np, kenya

syke's monkey, gede ruins, kenya

running on veggie oil

it was a bit of a challenge once the new fuel system was installed to get the biggreentruck running. it seems that once air gets into a powerstroke engine, it is very difficult to remove. the short version: once the air compressor was used to force fuel from the diesel tank back into the engine, the truck ran beautifully. the lesson: don't ever run out of fuel.

by then rush hour was approaching but we headed into seattle anyway to pick up about 15 gals of wvo that had been left at a biodiesel shop that 'doesn't do wvo.' i filtered it as i poured it into the veggie tank (that was a messy process but when i got back to gig harbor the dog didn't mind that i spilled veggie oil on my shirt), listened for the air bubbles to purge from the veggie lines and flipped the switch. a few minutes later, the smell coming from biggreentruck's exhaust changed from icky diesel to something akin to french fries. success!

the very next morning we departed the haven at gig harbor and headed south. first stop, portland, oregon, where we picked up 40 gals of prefiltered wvo from expert veg driver 'basshopper' (thank you!). it was lunch time when we hit corvallis and topped off the tank and a cubie at enviofuels (thanks ryan!).

by noon yesterday, biggreentruck rolled into fresno, ca, to meet up with the NAL crew and still had enough wvo to pull the hill to kings canyon np. 900 miles on roughly 9 gals of diesel doesn't seem too bad for a first trip.

getting personal with the biggreentruck