Agnes the Mule

Myself and Amanda working on the chassis.

For the last few days we've been taking the chisels and hammers to the chassis of the mitsubishi fuso the farm purchased a few months ago. Preparing the surface of the steel is a good first step towards preserving the truck we've bought. KTM came over Monday night and we rerouted the diesel fuel system in the first step of the vegetable-oil conversion process. We're installing a parallel fuel system that's plumbed with our coolant system to heat the vegetable oil. If we lived in the tropics we'd be all set and could just have one fuel system and put veggie oil in it. Because it gets cold and the hydrogenated fats in the oil congeal into a butter-like substance, we T into our coolant system and heat the veggie filter, the veggie fuel line and the veggie tank. Two solenoid switches control the fuel and return selection between the two parallel fuel systems.

Pretty simple. $350 dollars worth of parts (excluding tank) and you can run on recycled waste vegetable oil straight from the fryolaters of your local restaurants. We got our entire kit donated by Wise Guy's Auto Supplies in Plymouth. Tonight (Wednesday) KTM returns to help install some of the coolant tubing etc. I've got to get back out in the garage and whiz wheel/hammer this frame for the rest of the day. We're treating the chassis with a rust prevention and sealer treatment called POR-15, which we've been waiting to apply because the humidity has been too high in the rains we had from Saturday night on thru this morning. The sun is shining now, a gorgeous morning in the New Hampshire mountains.

PS. Agnes the mule is the current name for the truck. It incorporates a female name, Agnes, from the granting agency the Agnes M. Lindsay Trust, which donated $2500 dollars to purchase the Fuso. The animal name, the mule, refers probably to the load the truck will carry. Someone just blurted it all out Monday night when we were getting tired.

Hope everyone else enjoys the day. Morgan