Well, charcoal gasifiers as @k_vanlooken makes them are about as easy a way to get started as you will find. This one I made mostly from parts of an old water heater.
Rindert
Hi M_a_t_t,
Reading clear back to your 1st statement post May the 5th and now your subsequent post and responses you seem to be a fellow with too many options.
Maybe I can help you line these out.
The Mercury tracer is actually a Mazda co-production. The very best of the Escort series. This sedan has been woodgas proven once before. Cory? can’t remember his last name. Bumper mounted system. It worked. Then his also rusted car fell apart on him.
I’d scratch woodgasing yours. You’ll end up with a too small of gasifer system to transfer to your larger V-6’s and V-8’s.
Your V-8 is mechanical carbureted. Can be done. Has been done. But duel fueling a carburetor system gets you two throttle pedals complex to operate and you’ll still never have the power and ease of use flexibilities as many have now proven with a Port Fuel Injected system.
So you are down to your 2004 V-6 coolant drinker.
This is a cast iron heads on a cast iron block engine. One of the easier ones to work on.
This era of GM’s V engines suffered much from stupid thick plastic intake “gaskets” time, age and heat shrinking and then leaking intake manifold crossover passage coolant directly down into the cam valley then into the engine oil.
Get a good coolant system pressure tester pump. On a warmed up engine with fresh cheapest oil change pump up the coolant pressure and wait. Re-pressurize as the engine cools down.
Then drain the oil looking for coolant not yet oil circulated and mixed.
Find this. And you just have to intake remove and reseal with the aftermarket thick Metal replacement “gaskets”. Go slow. Clean well with brake clean. Use coolant safe sealer.
Ha! I had to do too many of these.
Hey. It’s just nuts and bolts, man.
Fix the 2004.
Woodgasifiy that with a rear hung external gasifier system. Use your MC trailer to trundle the bagged wood fuel you will need.
Then you will have a gasifer system transferable later to small E.F.I V-8’s when you decide to go for more cruising power and speed.
Regards
Steve Unruh
I actually have 6 cars, so I’m not sure if I will keep the 04. I kind of want the awd van, but it’s definitely lowest on the totem pole. 2 of the ones that I’ve not mentioned could receive the gasifier from the mercury (if it does fall apart on me). I’ve got a 75 civic (1.5 4spd) and a 73 Fiat 124 special (1.4 auto). I also have a KZ1100 that could potentially take the gasifier 
Being that I’ve got so many cars I also have a few too many projects so the gasifier is definitely a few behind in the queue. Research and a plan are free though.
Right.
Three more carbureted be pain-in-the-ass to do in comparison to a nice EFI system.
Read here for the folks done-it, won’t do it again:
then
As you say Research. And far easier to learn from others what not to do, and why.
Regards
Steve unruh
I never found any follow up to Ben Peterson’s Mustang. In the book he used a carbed 289 and used the air cleaner as a plenum. How did that build work out? When I used to have to deal with emissions tests, I failed one, so I ran a hose hooked up to a propane bottle through the air cleaner and to the mouth of the throttle body. Didn’t know if it would work but it got me through the test.
Tom, Matt, think of it this way.
Gasoline IS Delivered to the carburetor or fuel injectors.
Propane IS Delivered (bottle internal pressure build up) to the mixer.
Diesel IS Delivered by an in-tank or near tank “lift” pump to the diesel system pressure pump.
Woodgas and chargas has to be hard sucked by the engine thru the gasifier hearth nozzles, charbed, external cyclone/settling tank, cooler tubes and then at least one stage of filtering.
Like having to hard sucked a too thick milkshake thru a plastic straw.
Why is this done?
Safety primarily. The carbon monoxide fuelgas component in woodgas and especially char gas is a people killer. keeping as much of the system under negative pressure suction keeps the CO for the most part inside and safe.
Second having the vehicle engine suck-draw the producer gas then the gas needs of the engine will more-or-less be match to what the gasifier system is asked to produce.
The practical easy way.
Oh yes, yes pure armchair woodgasser postulate variable speed electric motor gas-sucker and variable demand delivery systems.
Looked at, and seen J.O. recent back side of throttle valve plate soots and deposits building up??
Your fantasized, idealized variable speed and volume electric motor delivery system gets to have it whole insides with use turned into that!!
So the links above list out everyone’s trials and tribulations mixing a gasoline wanting to be delivery fed system; with a gasifier having to to be hard sucked systems.
And as found time and time again, gasoline Port Fuel Injection does this the easiest, with the best results.
Vehicle system widely available for at least the last 30 years.
BenP’s old, old carbureted Mustang?
It was his demonstration vehicle that “I can too gasify a driving vehicle. And do this onside stealthy!” In the State of Washington at that time 20+ year old vehicles were exempt from state emissions inspections. Why he’s back off doing his own Ford F250 big block pick up. Why he passed on doing my Ford F150 small block V-8. Both wonderful SEFI. This old Mustang car was a You do not have to show, ask permissions, tell how and why to officials.
On the Mustang . . .I never saw how he did his underhood. Did not matter to me. His book system WOODgas, not charcoal gas; is designed for stationary use. He’s done big SIX 240 and 300CID Ford industial generator sets.
Much easier challenge. Blend, mix and g at a set speed. They do not have to shift gears. Do not have to Smoothly, Safely, pull way from stops signs, six-way and eight-way traffic intersections. Go from long extended idle to balls-out maximum acceleration. Highway onramps!
The Mustang car may probably had the two floor pedals system with two hand controls for the gas and air mixing.
“Busier that a three handed, monkey, paper hanger.”
Mustang got gasifer system stripped and sold back into the classic car market. Did it’s show-me job. BenP was disappointed many wanted to underhood lookie-loo; none wanted to buy it gasified. Willing to pay his labor expenses to set-up install.
S.U.
Tone can be hard to tell through an online medium, but it seems like you are annoyed.
I appreciate the advice. Try to stay away from carb’d engines for woodgas. I think I would still rather mess with the mercury. If the rust gets away from me I was planning on just buying another escort from down south anyway. Like I said I’m not really into it for function (as far as power and speed), just curiosity and experience. Maybe once I get it going my outlook will change and I will have a go at the awd van.
Hi Matt, would your van have on the back bumper mount gasifer? Or would The gasifer be inside the van with it’s own separate containment sealed off from the rest of the van but open to the outside involvement?
Bob
Good decision actually.
SEFI system.
And these last years Escorts were very well made, With almost no design/workmanship power train problems of the earlier versions.
Much, much better that the first few years follow on replacement Focus vehicles.
Go for it man.
Build. Modify. Use. Learn. Improve and enjoy.
Regards
Steve Unruh
I should add ~40 years ago Kurt Johansson (sp) in Australia made up a rear mounted swing-a-way woodgas system on a Dodge full sized station wagon.
And I’ve seen pictured up at the annual Finnish Woodgas Club/Society meetings a few with rear mounted swing-a-way systems on SW’s too.
And Dutch John a member here on his Volvo sedan rear bumper system intentionally put his cooler and condensate catch out front to best balance some of the systems added weights.
Annoyed? I doubt it but I’ve been know to have a talent for annoyance. Ask a lot of questions like a five year old. I’m popeye. I yam what I yam. What I really want to know about Ben P’s mustang is how well the gasifier worked because if I go ahead with the winter utility vehicle project I need a design. I’m not much of an innovator. Show me a picture or even better some dimension ed drawings and I’m good to go. Really like to find a downdraft charcoal design for it.
Ahhhh. TomH. nobody downdrafts charcoal.
For good reasons.
Updraft, many. For good reasons.
Crossdraft, a few.
Now BenP has/had this friend in Missouri who made for a friend of his a large cross draft rear van mounted charcoal (not woodgas) gasifer. It was a heavily loaded Ford commercial van that already towed a trailer.
And the Missouri designer said he used a Pederick (sp?) cross draft gasifier system.
Pederick was a WWII era Australian vehicle gasifier designer builder.
He solved the charcoal cross drafts nasty habit of across jet blowing out the opposite side by putting in a thick high mass vertical wall for it to blow into.
Jeff Davis here on the DOW was the one putting up the original Pederick publications.
I once help BenP accumulate metal scrap at his original rural farm property. In the steel pile was an unusual made up wood stove with an internal high mass internal rear wall. I’d not read the Pederick info then and did not recognize it for what it was. And this was far earlier than his involvement with the Missouri fellow. Always hard to say who feeds who in wild brain sessions.
Pederick form favors a low horizontal hearth. The height is in how your choose to feed the charcoal into it. Gravity feed would be vertical tall. Auger fed could be lower and horizontal form. Ha! Ask Kristijan about his MB trunk unit.
And the high mass wall serves more than just a burn through barrier. Once heated up, an internal heat flywheel. And a temperature moderator.
Hint. Hint. Hint.
S.U.
https://rushworthmuseum.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/operation-manual-of-pederick-gas-producer/
what is this ?
Steve Bowman once put up an Australian Historical site link where you can PDF down load a copy of a 1942 Pederick system operations manual. Thanks SteveB!
S.U.
Aren’t downdraft gasifiers pretty much charcoal gasifiers anyway? They start out filled with char above the nozzles and the wood above them is being converted to char as it migrates toward the fire tube. What am I missing?
Also I am having a little trouble understanding wood gas fuel delivery. If in a small generator type engine where you are feeding gas to the mouth of a carb the larger the piping to that point the better. Apparently in a one to one fuel/air ratio fuel like wood gas, volume is the main consideration. An Injector in a MPFI system is designed to work with high pressure to atomize a small charge of fuel on demand. It opens and closed quickly. How is any volume of gas being provided to the cylinder in the small volume of the injector body and the short duration of it delivery. I know it works, I just can’t figure out how. I understand that gasoline in a MPFI system is fed into the intake manifold just above the intake valves and that pictures of builds I’ve seen still seem to be feeding from the filter to a plenum at the throttle body so how is the injector brought into play?
This is probably where the dumb guy gets annoying.
I was annoying about this too. 
Producer gas is actually a gas. Gasoline, as it comes out of the injector, is a liquid in droplet form. It is NOT truly in single atom size particles. This ‘atomized’ liquid occupies far less space than do truly individual molecules of producer gas. So an engine running on an atomized liquid fuel such as gasoline can draw more air into the cylinder and produce more power in each combustion event.
Rindert
Charcoal gasifers have no tars and very little moisture to deal with. That is why they can use water drip to control the heat by the nozzles and make Hydrogen gas also. In a wood gasifer you need to deal with the tars and moisture coming out of the wood as it is being cooked down or pyrolysis of the wood.
If you would just add charcoal to a wood gasifer it would probably work if it was built correctly to handle the heat. @KristijanL has built a down draft but it failed on a internal weld joint. It worked great, it was very compact and fit in the trunk of his car.
Bob
TomH this is what I think of as a set of quality questions.
Your first has been answered by BobMac.
Your second answered by Rindert.
Let me nail in a few more nails.
A charcoal fueled gasifer gets too damn hot. Putting 8-16% engine CO2 exhaust uses up some of that excessive heat for a purpose. Make more CO fuel gas. OR, water drip use up some of that excessive heat to make a bit’o more CO and H2 fuel gasses. Add your molecules up and the hot char freely, willingly gives up some of its heat energized C’s to do this. Mugging, stealing H2O’s oxygen molecule.
It Is because a wood fueled gasifier has to deal with the wood moistures and sap/volatiles released oxygens that it runs too easily out of the char section extra heat. Runs so deficit that the wood has to be put in super pre-dry. That’s the easiest way. Or you have to build in wood released excessive moisture condensers and catch troughs (gutter rings). So the excessive moisture will not overload and cool the lower hot char section.
Oh, yes, Charcoal-tiers love to tease us raw wood gasifier as taking the hard way.
And we tease right back that we go from tree to fueled working engine without all of their extra, dirty, dusty cough-cough, labor steps.
Ha! Ha! I’ve never had anyone want to steal my woodchunks. Cured, dried, stacked Cord wood, yes.
Made wood charcoal, double yes!! My BBQing wife will steal every spec of wood charcoal I can make.
S.H.T.F. add charcoal to your BBB everyone will want to steal. True. Africa. Asia. South America.
You are dual fueling with liquid gasoline turned to mist droplets AND gaseous woodgas fuels. Can do the same with propane or natural gas and woodgas.
You are misting the gasoline whether at the head of the manifold as in a carburetor or throttle body fuel injection. Or deep inside the manifold pressurized Port Injection misted directly at the back side of the intake valve. Or one of the newer Gasoline Direct (into the combustion chamber) Injection.
Enough woodgas for the power you need , you taper off the gasoline/propane/methane.
Need more instant power. Turn the gasoline back on.
Ha! Ha! You want advanced. Talk to FrancoisP. about the Brandt based systems he works with, and builds. A woodgasfier section feeding into a charcoal gasifer section.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Now my newbie, could not understand question was: how is the open combustion “space” maintained inside the gasifier hearth?
I’d only ever thought that I’d seen open space flame combustion. I was wrong. Someone back-when said to me, “Steve, you ever burnt up a big limb pile?” Sure. “Looked down into the pile cone of hot glowing wood charcoal?” Sure. How you cook your hot-dog wienies. Not in the flame. In the char glow.
“Then you’ve seen gasification taking place inside that stack of chunks.”
You could of knocked me over with a feather.
Yep. And debris pile burning I’d felt the most intense energy release WAS from the burnt down to hot burning charcoal too.
S.U.
LOL. Someone told me that back when he was a kid his dad a had put one end of an aluminum tent pole down into the campfire so that smoke came out the other end. Then he lit the smoke with a cigarette liter. So it was like a torch. But I had to go home and do it myself before I really got it.
Rindert
