It would make a nice condensate tank?
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I feel like 20 gallons would be overkill, and I would rather use a keg or plastic tank.
I’m definitely going to re-use the mounting straps for my condensate though.
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Cody, I would avoid plastic. I works well for a temporary soulution, but when it’s time for tar draining it’s convenient to be able to heat the tank.
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Testing a few things on the old gas tank mounts.
33lb forklift tank is too big in diameter, 1/2 Keg is out of the question because it’s even bigger. I think whatever tank I want to use will have to be less than a 12" diameter, most likely 10" in diameter. A 1/4 Keg is about 11.5" in diameter I think for the slim variants.
I may be able to hunt down a couple old air compressor tanks in the size I need and weld them together into a big condensate tank. I could also roll up my own out of one of the big rig diesel tanks my coworker gave me if it’s flexible enough for the ratchet strap trick. I really don’t want to use the old gasoline tank because it’s so big, and thin material and will rust away sooner.
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Oh also while I was out and about getting bolts for the flatbed I bought a cheap Glasspack Cherry Bomb. The resonator I already had in place was only 12" and this Cherry Bomb is about 18" of resonator surface. Put them in line with each other. I’m way more satisfied with the exhaust sound now. If I didn’t already have that shorty on there I would have bought an extra long Thrush resonator for 10 dollars more.
It’s a little raspy, but I’m okay with that. At least it isn’t Farty like my Mazda engine.
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This Cherry Bomb is about 7 minutes long. 
Also has a nice resonance.
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CAIN’T wait to see your heavy chevy sailing down the roads with the old glass pack mufflers, IT reminds me of my old chevy i think it was a 66 chevy ,it an IMPALA, and was my second vehicle, i drove it waterford michigan too indianopolis indeana, too lincoln tech auto college in 1977. IT had a cherry bomb muffler too.
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I wish my Dad had kept half of the cars he’s had. By far his two favorite cars were his Willys Jeepster and his '57 Bel-Air with a 327 and twin exhaust with cherry bombs. He said he bought that '57 for 90 dollars when he was a teenager in the 60s.
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AIN’T that the truth, I had a 68 Chevelle in the early 80’s all restored and repainted,with a 327 motor, it would be worth a lot more than I sold it for, now days,THATS FOR SHORE.
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Little bit of planning for the bed frame. Since I don’t have rectangular tube I’m going to build the frame all flat, and weld angle iron on the top to hold down the ends and sides of the wood sorta like a utility trailer. Not sure if I want to use wood to metal self tappers to hold my planks down or if it’ll be secure enough to just channel it at the ends. I’d like to bolt in the rear angle iron so I can more easily change out my planks when the need arise. Self tappers sound like a headache of planning and drilling.
Uncle brought his planer to the farm and showed me how it works. I’m going to plane a test board down to dimensional thickness so I can replace it with pressure treated lumber in the future. Hoping I can get the width of the bed just right so I can use 6" planks next time with no filler planks.
Edit: I got the tail lamp connections done and it works, just need to add some white reverse lights separately. Oddly enough all my wires were the same colors as the trailer lights and matched up to their intended spots. Not sure if that’s a universal code thing or what.
Edit 2: Bed width needs to be 83.75" so internal supports will be 80.75" (that’s 23.5" to account for gasifier diameter plus 1/4" flat bar mounts and X2 to make the width even on both sides plus the width of the truck frame) and that’s considering the miter cuts for the end pieces. Luckily my square tube is longer than that. My bed bolts end about 5.25" from hole center to touching the cab, not sure what to do with that gap if I just wanna leave it or weld on a shelf to the bed frame for my cooling rail tree. My tube is just long enough to reach the furthest out bed bolts with some breathing room, 94.5". This flatbed would be a heck of a lot easier if it was built narrow but I’d be kicking myself for not giving myself as much bed capacity as possible.
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One thing I could consider for the gasifier, I got this from my old job, it was used to hold shopvacs but clearly it’s overbuilt for that job. Even has heavy duty diamond grate on the bottom like you’d see in a utility trailer. Not entirely sure how I’d implement it with the flat bed frame. I would want it to be bolted to more than just the truck frame. I could maybe make a gasifier frame that is separate but shares the front bed bolts.
A 55 gallon drum fits it perfectly. I’ll have to get further along with the WK to see if it will fit with the crossover. Judging from the ridges I have my doubts.
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Dumb question.
How stupid would I have to be to use plywood for the bed floor?
I have two big stacks of this 3/8" thick, 24" wide x 88.25" long plywood. It would only take roughly 3.5 boards to cover my bed, and I could glue them together to be thicker. I’m clueless when it comes to plywood. All I know is it’s not chipboard and it’s not particle board. Looks like at the very least the outside layers are a solid laminate of wood. I stacked them in a carport on a pallet with 2x4s to support and get them as flat as possible, and covered in tarps.
Never counted how many I got but judging from the two stacks I’ve got maybe 52 boards of it. Don’t know the wood species, boards came from a company called Kenwood in India to line shipping containers. It’s just Heat Treated so it would need to be sealed or given oil treatment to weatherproof.
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NOT much bed after gasifier and filter,heat exchanger. might not last too long, unless it was treated. I would rather use heavy gage sheet metal if I could get some. those look like good shed building board.
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Yeah my bed will be more wide than long unless I extend the bed frame to go over the original bumper.
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If you could really seal it up good it might work, but you have to ask yourself “have I ever seen plywood left outside hold up without coming apart?” I have seen some, but it was only 1-2 years old. Anything older is usually coming apart, like the floor on my flatbed trailer, which I will be replacing with sawn lumber this year.
GC
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I think that would be long enough for me to hunt down some proper decking boards. Maybe gluing a few layers together and then a good soak of motor oil stain?
4 layers would be as thick as pressure treated 2-by lumber.
Edit: looked into the company Kenwood and it seems that they only make hardwood plywood. I’ll have to check the stampings and see if it specifies if it’s higher than their basic treatment.
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I think you could get a few years out of it if you edge banded it and gave it some thick coats of enamel paint top and bottom, but it you don’t have those thing on hand and had to buy them then you are not ahead. The plywood will de laminate from edges pretty rapidly and the oil soak won’t do much to stop that. If I were going to go that route I’d pump a couple tubes of roofing cement in a steel or aluminum J channel and edge band them. You won’t find the channel at a box store. They only do vinyl.
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Good tip. I might save that for the tailgate or something.
I’ve got a few 6" dimensional boards saved, maybe I should just lay down what I have and as I get more from work put them in. If my math is right I need 14 planks and a 2-some-odd" plank filler. I’m going to angle iron channel the ends and maybe the sides if I have enough bed frame angle, and I’m aiming to make the back end be removable via bolts to snug everything up and so I won’t have to cut it up later on.
I tested the 2x3" wood and I don’t think it’ll hold up, plus a lot of it is already badly warped. Fine for a crappy woodshed but I don’t wanna wrestle with it for a flatbed.
If I was smarter I wouldn’t have already made my cooling tree to fit a Fleetside bed and just made a Stepside out of all this. I got it perfect that one time, call me crazy but I don’t trust my eyes to shorten it and catch lightning in a bottle twice.
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I’m sure y’all get tired of all my waffling and flim-flam about getting the bed built. I’m bad about changing my mind at the last minute. I think given the truck is only a Half-Ton and the gasifier will be permanently taking up half of that half ton I should maybe go for a narrow bed. If I need to actually haul anything I’ve got a trailer for that.
Plus I mocked up what the bed would look like and it was bad. More wide than it was long, like someone installed a bed sideways.
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The factory bed on my 65 Chevy was just 3/4 inch thick oak. It lasted 30 years.
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