I was speaking of the weld on the V band. It’s fine but I see struggle. If your heat is set just right you will not have to keep getting in and out of your puddle. I think people get confused about this. I adjusted my thinking about it when I started setting up machine welders to run long passes on Automotive spray booth flood sheets. With them, When the speed of travel and amperage are set right there will be very little ripple in the finished weld. Not that us humans are that precise but it was something I tried to emulate after I saw it.
As long as we are talking about welding I’ll mention that it you can preheat the base metals usually to about a cherry red, then there will be much less thermal shock that may cause a tendency to crack at the edge of the weld and the base metal after the repeated hot and cold cycles one may see in a gasifier reactor. That and the weld will flow in like “butter.” Not something easy to do working alone.
I think a lot of that ripple is from how much I whip the gun side to side with these welds. There was a big step from the 3" pipe to the V Band so I whip stitched it.
I swear I think the only way I can weld is with e71t flux core. Tried to weld some bottoms on the cooling tree (with stainless solid wire and shielding gas)and it’s pinhole city with the water test. I’m just going to gouge it out with the plasma cutter and do it all over with flux core, and paint over it. Starting to think I should have just done this with conduit pipe.
Forgot to take pictures, but a friend gave me two 55 gallon steel big rig diesel tanks from his old International Harvester cabover truck. I’ve cut one to use as my monorator hopper because it’s close in dimension to a 55 gallon drum. Little bit thicker than a drum, but not by too much. I’m going to make a Ben Peterson style lid for the hopper so I’m waiting on the silicone cord to show up in the mail. Not sure if I’m going to go with WK style gutters or use a washing machine basin for a perforated wall. The bottom gutter won’t share a floor with the top of the exiting jacket so I think I won’t have to worry about condensate boiling off.
Monorator is 13" tall so if it had no inner liner or gutters that would be over 20 gallons, on top of the 16 gallons that I think the heated hopper will be. I’ll have to go back and see what those were or re measure it.
Cody sorry I’m so late with this just now getting caught back up with my reading. The electrical problem you mentioned moving some wires by the steering column on my Chevy of that vintage there was a plug and socket in that area where you could loosen a screw and pull a wiring connector or two and remove the cab from the frame. I had that screw come loose and had intermittent electrical problems. Little cleaning and tightening cured alot of problems.
I decided to cut the plates I had welded onto the bottom of the cooling tree, cut some new discs and welded in bolts for mounting. Used 1/2" stainless bolts.
Driver side I had to grind the washer to fit the contour, I didn’t size this tree that well and I didn’t want to cut and weld that again.
They don’t last forever but if they are good enough for caterpillar to use them on the 3406e and c15 industrial diesels with compound turbos they should be ok for woodgas use I would think. But, the more vibration the faster they fail. Will usually crack in the creases of the bellows
That was one concern I had. I don’t know just how much vibration this truck would give it right there. I’d like to think since it won’t be engine exhaust temps it’ll be less strained but that’s wishful thinking probably.
It is also used for turbos and inter coolers. It has high heat resistance and is also very flexible. But I’ve found it does get a bit stiffer when exposed to extreme heat.
You can find it in almost any size, straight or an elbow.
I’ll likely use these on the cooling pipes but I’d be a bit scared of using it right after the cyclone. This gasifier doesn’t have a heat exchanger like a WK so I doubt the external air jacket will cool the gas by much. Won’t know what kind of temps I’ll be seeing.
I know my setup and engine size are somewhat different from what you are planning, but I am now using those silicone elbows to connect straight pieces of stainless steel pipe to go between the cyclone and filter and have not had any problems.
I can give it a try. Maybe the gas will be cool enough at that point after the cyclone, especially since the gas jacket is Imbert style and much taller. Worst case scenario I just weld it together.
I’m finally settling on how exactly I want to route my gas mixture, I’d like the benefit of the most gas flow and since two 2.12" pipes equal into a 3" pipe I think it’ll be very balanced using 2.25" pipe. I’ve read time and time again that this sort of setup of using the fresh air as a venturi will help speed up gas flow. I hope this drawing makes sense. Using a single 3" throttle body for the air adjustment means I could use a single auto controller, I may have my gas cutoff be outside of the cab, I got two 3" throttle bodies on a 2 for 1 sale a few weeks ago on Amazon. As I’m building it I’ll find a place to put some puff valves, either tennis ball style or 1 way rubber valves.
Got the cyclone welded up. Still need to add a clean out in the base of it. I got it as closely lined up as I could, too much junk in the way of my shop to weld it in place so I had to keep taking it to the truck and dry fitting. Hopefully as I tighten it down it’ll seal up.
Nah most of this is stainless exhaust I got on Amazon. The fire extinguishers were 12 years out of date and I asked if I could take them home. Turns out two of them are reusable with regular compressed air. They’re all water based extinguishers. Those tee and elbow connections are Sanitary weld connections.
By the way guys, 2.25" exhaust pipe is a near exact match for the 2" thin wall conduit pipe at the hardware store. These can use the fernco fittings no problem.
I’ve still got some room for a rear condensate tank, what I think I’ll do is put in a small tank and attempt to do a 3" pipe run up to the filter. I’m going to use a hot water tank for the filter body so I could drain any residual water that can’t make it back to the tank.
Since the cooling system and onward is semi WK style, because I’ll eventually have a WK in here but I want to take my time building that, I’m going to have the same blower system. I thought about having my gas outlet for when I’m starting her up to look like a fake tailpipe.
That PBR empty is courtesy of my Dad. I’m a teetotaler. Also how to y’all like my CB whip and the way I’ve got the fuel neck suspended? I’m going to make a Ford style box to hold the fuel neck eventually but this helps hold it up for the time being.
I got the holes through the bed finished, and I set up my tube notcher jig to try and start to get the cooling rails finished.
I forgot how bad those hole saws can buck, I think I twisted my wrist a good two times but I don’t think I actually hurt anything. It’s good to be double jointed. I’ll just cut holes in the verticals and weld them in even if it’s not ideal.
