Mr Wayne and ChrisKy great job doing this and posting up the steps and the first learning trip.
All just remember BOTH Wayne and Chris have said it is 75-80% the operator and only 20-25% mechanical.
All the actual Gearheads and “I can Fab anything” guys out there take this to heart and r-e-a-l-l-y listen to the operator pithy advice Wayne and Woody puts up.
Wayne, Woody and now ChrisKY the way to really nail this home is start teaching some of the women here now, and in your lives how to woodgas drive/operate now and have them performance shaming the builder fella’s into listening and hearing this.
My wife, and one of three of my sisters can out shoot me any day, any time as long as there is not any fur on the intended. They do leave the eatin’ shooting to me. One niece though . . . . and she is an excellent woodstove operator too.
That is excellent. you probably saved about a hundred dollars on fuel already! my 91 Dodge with 318 and TBI gets about 15mpg. Hope to get some work done on the gasifier this weekend.What is the farthest you were able to go on a hopper full?
That’s a perfect trip to break things in Chris. About the same from here to Argos … C ya soon … Mike
PS, Hope Wayne can get back to work on HIS new truck now …
My hat’s off to both Wayne and Chris on a job well done. My question is for Chris, have ya been able to get that smile off your face yet? It is just the begining of a wonderful adventure in life. Has to be a great feeling knowing your not sending all your money over seas like the rest of us. Looking forward to learning and then passing it on.
Chris how do you adjust the air for the mixer is it by the choke on the carb.? Then when you add gasoline or run hybrid do you have to change the choke setting? That is one problem with my set up when I add gasoline by turning on the electric fuel pump it starts to accelerate and then it tries to stall.
Since my woodgas goes in under the carb, I have a second throttle and air mixer valve. Choking the carb doesn’t affect the woodgas.
So the gas carb is sitting on a riser, and is ready whenever. I leave it full of gas. It will idle the engine, and under most driving sees no vacuum so uses no fuel. The carb choke only affects the carb, used once in the morning to start up or in situations where I lost my proper AFR.
In order to draw gas to the motor on first light up, I have to open the woodgas throttle, which initially throws off the mixture since it’s mostly air. It helps in this situation to add some carb choke to keep the engine from stalling.
The air is mixed with woodgas through a separate valve in the mixing box. This is on a choke cable into the cab, I usually leave it nearly closed. Once I plug all my leaks I should be able to open it some more.
In order to give it some gas all I do is turn the time back down a little so it won’t knock, and mash the gas pedal.
Chris Franklin is coming by tomorrow to see the new truck and chat a little. Also to get some pipe from the Gate Capitol of the World. I went to the local gate company a few miles away and got him some cheap rusty pipe, lots of it. This is for you ChrisF!
Nice work Wayne & Chris. Just getting back at things from being on vacation for a week. One question I have is in the piping. It may be a dumb one so if you don’t answer I understand. Why on the "T"s under the hood coming up into the ammo box are they positioned the way they are with the “sweep” (for lack of a better way to put it) of the “T” facing the oposite direction of flow? I would just assume you would want to make the gas move through those fittings the same way you would if you were using them for what they were intended for which is waste water. Maybe it don’t matter, but even in vac flow I would think it would. Or maybe there is a special intent? The whole thing looks great though, and I can’t wait to see it come May, and hear more banjo!
Those are known as drip legs. The idea is to capture any particles heavier than air and separate them from the gas flow. The “wrong way” curve accelerates the flow downward and increases the effect.
Hey ChrisKY
Great, great picture set of how to carry 18-20 footers of anything on a standard sized pickup truck!!
That was my point on another topic line here.
What I do a bit differently to save the bodywork on my 94 Ford that my wife thinks is hers is pop off the the tail gate to “save It” and lay a 5 foot long 4x6" wooden bunk in top of the rear step bumper and and quick wire it on with old #9 copper washed soft steel telephone wire (same as current day orchards/vineyard/clothsline wire). Then with a cordless screwgun, some construction screws, bit more wire/baling twine I can tie down near anything.
2x4" board wired across your top cooler tube would do the same thing and save the paint and denting.
With 2/3rds the load wieght low and near 50% over the front axle bet the truck even handled well.
Makes it easy to single man from the ground slide up and slide down load too.
High horizontal load carrying is literally “for the birds”. Top heavy. Hard to load. And I’ve seen dangerous forward load shift sliding with heavy braking.
Regards
Steve Unruh
I am almost ashamed to post this picture, but “it is what it is”. Here is a photo of my quad cab with one section of 20’ pipe on it. I got some paint scratches trying to do this by myself, but I had to see what a 20 footer would look like in an ultra shortbed (with no gassyfire init). The pipe is almost centered on the back of the cab, and it is a 20 degree angle - and really wanted to slide off. I will post more about this on the thread about “coolers for shortbeds”. The later model Dakotas dont even have holes in the top surface of the bed sides for stakes or to put the down pipes through.
Anyways, great work on the trip and gathering and hauling materials. What is the wall thickness of the pipe you are using ?
Hey GaryG
Big difference between a 5 1/2 foot shorty bed and and a standard cab 8 foot bed like ChrisKY was and I have used to haul 20 footers.
I have a pickup truck portable (Ute) New Zealand brand swingsaw mill. Factory tracks are 20 foot aluminum boxed sectioned. Third hand Used; I bought it with these metal thieved gone by-by then operating on 20 foot channel iron made up heavy as sin rails. No way I was going to carry these 275 miles across my state completly through the Urban gut Puget Sound Metro areas on often bumper to bumper 70 MPH freeways. Cut them in half with a hand hacksaw to bring the mill home. Bought a new 40 foot extension ladder using the 20 foot sections as my tracks. These I will county road, state road, freeway haul around because they are 70 pounds each instead of 200+ each, and I look “normal”, “contractor” safe.
Ha! Ha! Up here seasonally in the past you could have just put a net hoop on one end of your test pole, red flag on the other end and called it your smelt ( small annual migratory fish like a herring) catching pole and blend in and been considered a normal fish-hick.
Best not to put more than 150-200 pounds on a cable tailgate. Cables bend weaken open and closing. Will break sooner or later. Puts a big ugly crease across your tailgate from the bumper.
Steve, even with the tailgate down, its only about 7’ 6"… thats still short. It could handle the length better using a headache rack until the load gets too heavy as you have pointed out in other posts. 90% of the time I use the truck as a car or passenger vehicle. Will also be towing a boat and BBQ rig, light stuff though…
Chris, good to see that you are hauling all kinds of stuff even with the gasifier unit. What thickness of tube are you using for the cooling rack ?
Hard to tell for sure, I think it’s about a 14 gauge pipe, 2" O.D. Real easy to weld, even with the HF welder. Works nicely with the 3" square tubing and a 2" hole saw bit.
