Waste oil heater (ver.2.0)

I’m working on improving my drip style waste oil heater I built to make it more automated and ensure safe operation… This has been an interesting journey with a lot of lessons learned. Once it’s finished, I’ll post a video series to the YouTube channel, but here are some pictures taken along the way.

I took a large Horizontal air compressor tank that I got for free. It was very old and no longer safe as a pressure vessel, but perfect to stand up vertically and use for a waste oil heater. I mounted it in my car body rotisserie so I can spin it around and work on it easily.

I need to cut it into three sections so I rigged up a means to mark it accurately around for cutting.

The original radiant design worked well, but it was difficult to heat the shop evenly. So I’m going to plumb a heat exchanger into my existing heat pump duct work. We rigged up the rotisserie to wind a coil out of type “K” hard copper tubing. We were really sore after winding nearly 100 feet of this stuff into a coil!

I securely mounted the finished coil into the large center section of the heater body.

I want the heater to be easy to maintain, so the bottom section that will house the burner is on wheels so it can be easily rolled out from under the center section for work or cleaning.

I ordered a 24 × 24 inch heat exchanger core from Amazon to add in to the current heat pump duct work. When I’m running the heater, I can use just the blower to circulate the heat evenly around my 30 × 50 foot workshop.

It was easy to fabricate some ductwork and add the exchanger into the air path.

I have the heat exchanger plumbed up with a circulating pump and reservoir upstairs. The draft blower will also be located upstairs to reduce noise as I film my YouTube videos in the shop. You can see the control box with gauges for temperature monitoring in various locations like the burner, heat exchanger, stack temperature etc. as well as a gauge to monitor the level of waste oil in the 250 gallon storage tank located outside the shop on the other side of the wall. Now I have a basic, yet flexible platform I can use to perfect my burner design.

Learn how to replace the front wheel hub on a 2019 RAM 1500 4wd.

I fix some seriously stripped engine oil drain plug threads on a friends 1986 Honda TRX 250 4 wheeler

In part 2 of this video series, I tear this transmission down and try to find the smoking gun. Watch to see if I find what I’m looking for.

We pull a 4L60E transmission out of my Son’s 2003 Chevrolet Silverado top find out why it built up a bunch of clutch material in the pan after just a few hundred miles since we checked it over. Where did we go wrong?

We completed our resurrection of the Morphous scooter and it came out looking fabulous!

Back on the Yamaha Morphous scooter, I get the motor out and clean the frame up. I tried to polish up the plastic, some of it looked really good, but both sides have road rash from being crashed at some point in it’s past so I will have to come up with a plan to make this scooter look really good when we are done with it.

I finally get to the bottom of this drivability issue by fabricating a test rig to fire the injectors and view the spray pattern. I find a mix of old and new style injectors, and the old ones, while eventually cleaning up, still exhibited some sketchy behavior so I replaced them. Now she runs smooth as silk and the throttle response is instantaneous!

Still working on this 1976 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special Brougham, we work our way through a drivability issue where the car is hard to start, runs very rich and performs poorly.

I want to extend my sincerest gratitude to Bruce Roe from the “Cadillac & Lasalle Club” for guiding me through diagnosing the issues. He is without a doubt, THE authority when it comes to this rare, old analog fuel injection system used on these cars.

In this video, I give a shoutout to fellow YouTuber “Eldorado George” He is one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to working on or restoring these old Caddys!

You can check out his channel here;

https://www.youtube.com/@EldoradoGeorge

In part 3 of this series, I show how to properly aim the headlamps using just painters tape and a Phillips head screwdriver!

In part 2 of this series, we repair some damage we found and complete repairing the headlight buckets.

In part 1 of this video series, we repair the headlight buckets so that they can be aimed properly and upgrade the original incandescent bulbs with new Sylvania halogen lamps.

In this video, we replace the aging muffler and resonator with new Walker replacements and quiet that big 500 cubic inch monster down!

I posted this for the benefit of a friend to show howmy videos are made in the workshop.

I had the privilege of working on a beautiful 1976 Cadillac Series 60 Fleetwood Brougham to track down a mysterious coolant leak, and as a bonus, got to learn some neat history about its owner.

I rebuild an axle half shaft for one of my customers project car, a 1982 Nissan 280ZX.

I designed and built a forced draft, drip style waste oil heater for the workshop.

This is part 2 of the two part series where I install a TransGo shift kit in my bosses 2000 Ford Mustang GT.

At the end is the tire chirping road test!

This is part 1 of a 2 part series where I install a TransGo shift kit in my bosses souped up 2000 Ford Mustang GT.

We have a lot going on at the workshop this weekend! Stay tuned as we install a TransGo shift kit in a friends highly modified 2000 Ford Mustang GT.

Check out the video from our visit to the Simpson County Animal Shelter!

Check out the Simpson County Animal Shelter from our latest video!

SERVICES

Basic Maintenance including Oil Changes, Brakes, Tune-Ups etc.)
Advanced repair with full computer diagnostic capabilities for that pesky check engine light!
Electrical
AC repair
Manual and automatic transmission repairs and service
Basic maintenance including oil\filter changes, tune-ups, belts, and hydraulic hoses.
Major Maintenance including clutch\transmission repairs, engine overhaul etc.
We can weld darn near anything!
Do you have a unique situation or project in mind? Most of the time we can help!

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Who is “MacGyver”?

“MacGyver” was a TV show back in the 80’s about a man who was extremely clever and resourceful, and could find a solution to any situation he found himself in using whatever was available around him at the time. People started giving me that nickname and it stuck! I worked in the field of Information Technology for 30 years, and my workshop was my hobby. In 2009, a friend talked me into starting a YouTube channel and making videos of our projects. Word got around that I was a “gearhead” and accomplished mechanic, then people started reaching out to me when they had been to multiple other shops that still hadn’t fixed their problems. The rest as they say, is history!

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Frame from a recent video shoot at the workshop.