I received a LOT of information today. First of all, the township approved my production of biodiesel. Despite being a little nervous about the outcome, I'm glad I went this route and validated things through the township.
Craig,
This sounds more like a home occupation than anything else. Home occupations are allowed by right. The only thing the Township will be involved in is the installation of the hot water heater, permitting and inspections are required for this installation. As a homeowner you can take out the permit and do the installation, when complete you will call for an electrical inspection and plumbing inspection.
The Township is not going to concern itself with this use as long as it is limited to your personal use, if you decide to use this process to manufacture and produce biodiesel for distribution to those who are not residents of this property that is another matter which will trigger additional concerns and regulations.
To the matter of environmental concern. No Allendale Charter Township department currently has any authority over any ground environmental issues that arise as a result of the biodiesel manufacture process. Such issues are handled through the Department of Environmental Quality by the State of Michigan.
I believe this satisfies your inquires at this time.
That being said, I have also been doing more research on WVO conversion systems, primarily as a back-up plan in case things didn't work out with the township. I ended up talking on the phone today with Chris from
Frybrid. Frybrid & Greasecar seem to have the best WVO systems available, with the Frybrid system having slightly better reviews, and a more advanced WVO heating system. Chris was knowledgeable, and extremely entertaining...he's a fun guy to talk with. He said he could build me a custom tank for no extra charge, assuming it's a basic (non-complex shape) with about the same amount of welding as a "production" tank. Very cool! So, I have to hash through the pros & cons of each system with my wife, and make a decision from there. I'll have an update on the decision shortly.
EDIT: My wife is leaning toward the WVO setup.
I'm also making progress (slowly) on my motor mount plates (see below). Instead of just hacking some plate into rough-cut pieces, I once again took the slow, anal-retentive approach and I'm carefully cutting/grinding the plates to match the contours of the frame. There's no CNC-cut stuff here...just some old-school 4 1/2" Milwaukee grinder action. I had to carefully cut the pinion snubber bracket off the frame, and will re-weld it on the new motor mount plates. Note that these mounts will be located ~9" forward of the stock 258 I-6 motor mounts.
I also bought one of these Warn PullzAlls from work. I have used it once to hoist a 10' steel I-beam about 10' up in my pole barn (it'll be located above my pole barn door, along with a dolly/caster setup for hoisting motors/transmissions and other misc. items). The PullzAll is rated for 1000 lbs., and has a built-in load limiter. So far, I'm impressed with the functionality. Using it in conjunction with my motor hoist, it'll come in handy for fine-tuning the motor positioning when I build the bracketry for the motor mounts using additional pieces of 3/16" plate, and the M.O.R.E. Bomb-Proof motor mount bracketry/bushings I purchased recently.
Finally, a semi-local guy hooked me up with a couple FJ-40 jump seats for the rear. These fold up, and will allow me to retain (most of) my cargo space in the rear of the Jeep 95% of the time. These seats aren't exactly ideal for adult passengers (limited headroom, and kind of tight), but they'll be perfect for toting around kids' friends when needed. I'll have to make brackets similar to jscherb's to mount them; it'll be a fairly straightforward install.
That's all for now. More to come...
Craig
