Monday, August 06, 2007

new car

saturday we packed up the car and drove to cleveland, where we purchased another 300 mercedes to convert to run on waste vegetable oil. this is the same car we already own basically, same year too (1982) but this one is black, is a CD instead of just a D (just a slightly different body), and is a 2-door. ergo, it is david's and the 4-door blue one is mine/the family car. whatever though, everything is everyone's. our vanity plates for my car got approved (VEGY CAR) but the plates havnt shipped yet.



so david and auggie drove the black one and olive and i drove in the blue (which you can see in the photo if you look closely) and a funny (but not funny at the time) thing happened on the way home. so there is a switch on the center console which you flip to engage that veggie oil tank. there are three settings - 1. running on diesel (center/normal setting) 2. running on vegetable oil (up) 3. purging the vegetable oil (down). the purge setting is necessary because the viscosity isn't what it needs to be to run efficiently, which is why you have to let the car run a little on diesel to warm up the veggie tank. if you dont purge it (meaning run the lines backwards) the oil that is in the lines will get weird. anyways so the switch used to run horizontal but david installed a more exact temperature gage next to it so now it runs vertical. this is the first time i had driven the car since the shifting around of the switch ill add. so after about 15 minutes or so on the highway i start loosing power and i flash my lights to david and pull over. apparently i had been running on "purge" the entire time instead of on vegetable oil and was forcing the diesel backward through the lines and flooding our trunk basically. the loss of power was because i had dumped the entire tank down the highway as i was driving and it was now empty. thankfully there was enough left to get it restarted and get it going on the veggie oil (which was now completely mixed with diesel in the reserve tank...). the point is we made it home and david still loves me even though i make mistakes.


we finally finished our basement this weekend and WOW what a drastic improvement in living space! before, literally, it was cinder block walls and now it is a full on room. we have moved the tv and all of the kiddos toys down there that does double duty to free up our living room from said toys and also banishes the tv off of the primary living floor so we watch less of it (i hope). this project wouldn't have been possible without the help of my in-laws and i am SO grateful for their love and help (and ice cream, which they brought over to celebrate with yesterday).



baby clevage




*sigh* if only animals and humans could marry. this is maggie and austin's cat sophie.

2 comments:

Maria. said...

Good to hear about the newest addition to the veggie car! I saw a car last night with the plate: VEGAN and I thought of you guys. How funny that would be as a plate name too! I know not all the vegy oil you get is only for veggies but the thought was funny to me. I am glad that your basement is done! I talked to Ken last night and he said that he was glad to have helped you all out! Love you girl!

Olive said...

ive heard you've been blessed with a sweet new ride too!!