Here’s another shot, closer up to the hot end of the hearth. It looks “wet” but it’s vitrified firebrick material–it’s hard and glassy.
Here’s a video walkthrough of the firebrick hearth:
Great looking pictures… can’t wait for your next successes…
You can probably tell from the size of the charcoal in the bottom of the drum, that it’s too big. That’s a standard 55-gallon drum. Crushing smaller is still on the agenda. 
,Very simple , low construction costs !
I like it a lot,
Thanks Patrick
Hi Dan, Looks good. As you note, the air leak between the firebrick and gasifier wall is a problem. You will figure it out. Bottom line is the firebrick box is a good method so long as weight and vibration (bouncing) are not a big issue. Let me make a suggestion that has saved me a lot of time. Take the raw charcoal gas from the generator and run it through a cyclone filter BEFORE putting it through any other filter. The cyclone will take out nearly all of your heavy dust and most of the fine dust. This keeps your final filter cleaner and able to last longer before cleaning out. This means placing the cyclone and final filter on the outside of the generator. But, this also gives you more room for charcoal. Welcome to the “dark side” of driving on wood and thank you for your informative posts!!!
Gary in PA
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Thanks for the video Dan.
I found your blog, you seem to be quite the ambitious guy. Great job on your projects! Definitely a doer
Here’s Dan’s blog
http://www.dansworkshop.com/
Nice work, Dan. I also got to repaint the outside of my charcoal reactor about a year ago when air got to the charcoal via the back side of my ceramic cup that was protecting my steel (wrapped with stainless) input nozzle. I packed ceramic wool insulation around the nozzle at the barrel wall, and closed off that air entry location. I used a glazed ceramic coffee cup with a hole drilled in the bottom. The output end got covered with that same type of glassy slag as you show in the video. Last time I inspected the cup and nozzle, I noticed the cup had developed a nice crack…It wasn’t broken completely, so I re-installed it.
very cool, Dan, thank you so much for the photos! That is a really simple air intake, isn’t it? A few fire bricks stacked to make a dog house, what a simple and effectively way to do it!
Holly cow! Who is this masked man? Dan; you seem to have many interests and have done many many things. My hat is off to youTomC
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Very impressive in its simplicity. What do you think is the working size range for charcoal for your unit? Thanks for sharing this very practical knowledge.
Dan,
Fantastic work… You may win the “most bang for your buck” award. A+++
I second the notion from Gary. Our cyclone filter has EASILY been the most impressive component of our system. It has kept our media filter as clean as a whistle. We are still amazed at the physics behind the darned thing.
If you don’t want to fabricate your own, Stephen Abbadessa sells cyclone filters for wood gassers on his website: Cyclone Dust Filters | Northern Self Reliance
Troy
Dan,
Did you make the metal brackets which hold your steel drum to the base or buy them ready-made? I’ve searched and not found anything like them specifically for drums.
Steve
The brackets are just heavy duty joist hangers that you can get at any lumberyard such as Menards or Home Depot. Of course I drilled the nail-holes bigger to fit 1/4-20 bolts, and the flat part got a hole drilled where they attach to the uni-strut rails. For example: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Simpson-Strong-Tie-2-in-x-6-in-20-Gauge-Face-Mount-Joist-Hanger-LU26/203302254?MERCH=REC--PIPHorizontal1_rr--203302255--203302254--N
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Dan,
Thanks for the source info. I’ll check it out. I’ll like to see an update on your Lumina Minivan project if there is more to reveal.
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Dan,
I gather from the photo that the only modification under the hood was to the engine air intake by replacing the vacuum control with a cable control on an existing valve in the air filter housing, just outside where the air enters the engine air filter. Therefore, your charcoal gas passes through the original engine air filter before going into the engine. Are my observations correct?
That’s correct. it’s not 100% ideal, as it resulted in holes getting burned in the air filter sometimes, due to sparks coming all the way up from the gasifier. Also, since the mixing happened right there at that heat stove butterfly, so there was flammable fuel air mixture from that point, all the way into the engine. This is not ideal, but it worked. Also, I believe that sometimes if the engine backfired a tiny bit, then there was fire inside the air filter for a short time. There’s evidence of that, as the wires to the throttle body injectors are a bit melted. 
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Thanks, Dan. I’m going with the your arrangement on a 1989 Toyota Corolla. I’m concerned about getting enough vacuum at that point. I may have to search out and stop up some leaks. Adding your ideas to Gary Gilmore’s Simple Fire, I’m going to give it a try.
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Dan,
Did you reroute any hoses or tubes such as crankcase breather, which usually goes to the filter housing, in order to maximize the vacuum pulling the gas through the gasifier? My vehicle has a mechanical gas pump and I’m wondering how to control the gas or to try running it exclusively on charcoal gas. Any suggestion on how to deal with that?
Dan,I have been wanting to thank you for your leading the workshop in Missouri a few years back. I never got any feedback from the workshop on how well the charcoal gasifier we (you) assembled worked out with that engine over the long term. Have you had any information related to that project?
Also, are you still driving the lumina van on charcoal?