Steve, I love your sense of humor. Thanks for helping all of us newbies out, it’s Great. If I live to be 150 years old, I might have by then the knowledge you have now. I said might.
Bob
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Yes, black hand flu is a serius desease. A cronical indeed.
Once you discover the power and potential of charcoal its hard to resist it.
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Charcoal is a wormhole in this carbon-based energy-intensive world. Besides engine fuel this stuff is good for cooking fuel, improved crop yield, medicine, batteries, carbon arc heat and light, smelting, forging, ecological sanitation, cleaning, water treatment, gas filtering, refrigeration, insulation, art, etc.
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Well. Well.
We have seemed to drift of of the practicalities of making a gasifier system usable in sub-freezing conditions.
That is Idealism’s for you. Always spinning too far out into Left field.
Now MY favorite use of wood charcoal is in gun powders. Very traditional. Flash-bang proof of charcoals reactivity.
Tech-capabilities escalations is so very inner-geek rewarding. Result. Weapons making from charcoals has deforested good portions of forested continents.
My firearms powders cartridges loading brewing for the last 33 yeas has taught me solid fuels characteristics well.
Why is seems to come easy for me. Years learning pressure curves and energy releases rates.
And actually out killing gods creatures with charcoal power. . . . eventually . . . if you can . . . you learn ethics and morals too. Learn some humanity.
A quote from a recent book I’ve been reading:
“Often, a Shootist can be defined not by what he does, but by what he doesn’t do. The Shootist doesn’t:
Believe he is the best at anything
Believe he cannot improve
Project any sort of elitist attitude
Believe there is only one way
The Shootist maneuvers through life with the attitude of, ‘I’m just a Joe Nobody,’ keeping his head low and his eyes high . . . .”
None is so blind as he who cannot see.
See . . . the inevitable end results of his spin-out idealism’s, musings and “experiments”.
Never call me an Edison, a Ford as I will be gravely insulted.
Just another Joe Nobody, steve unruh
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What is the book Steve? Humble and virtually invisible, sounds good to me.
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Steve, Thanks for the Flash-bang philosophy. Made me smile. Hard to believe that I left gun powder out of my left field rant. I have a flintlock pistol, a 45 caliber percussion rifle and a 1-1/2" bore cannon.
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I like my 50 caliber. Got to pull the hammer down on a 61 caliber. Could hardy hold the barrow up. It just gave me a big shove, no kick at all. I love the smell of black power burning.
Bob
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Steve, such words culd (and shuld) be sayd on more fiealds of life.
As for blackpowder, l make a few baches every year. We are not allowed to shoot blackpowder firearms here, but it is s old tradition to light mortars and cannons on every 1. of May and Easter. We have 3 mortars and they burn a few pounds of the black magic every year.
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Hi guys,
We had -4c this morning and l started to see a first problem.
The engine did start right away on petrol (thanks god) and l lit the gasifier with no problems (with the sucking fan), drove for ~5 miles on wood (good power) and then it suddanly dyed, wuldnt eaven hybrid well. I stopped to see if the gasifier air inlet non return valve wuld be stuck again, it was ok.
The coolingrail still had frozen droplets on it! So this means the gas wasnt eaven warm enough to thaw any potential ice.
Sat back in and the power was back. So, my theory is s peace of ice from the cooling rail or the gss suply hose has stuch somewhere. We will se what else winter brings.
Ps: after that the power was realy good with that dence, dry gas.
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Kristijan!
What cooler area do you have now ? (only the cooler)
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The aluminium tubes have a surface of 0.6m2. Together with the rest (the supporting platform) its just at sbout 1m2 alltogether.
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Kristijan, maybe this is where preheated air going into the gasifier would help as everything is getting thawed out and heating the gasifier up for normal operation. Or the gasifier might need a little more time on starting it up, before going down the road to warm up. If there are places where water could freeze in a low spot causing blockage, can you put a valve or plug in to drain the water off on shut down. This is what I have done. It’s Not cold enough here yet to freeze hard, getting closer.
Bob
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I think its both. Allso, everything on the system is small so it gets blocked quickly.
The whole sistem is designed to take advantige of the high speed air from under the car, this way l compensate with small cooling area in warm months.
Ill try to fix things, but a plan B is already prooven. Mixing a litle bit of charcoal with the wood. Just dont tell it to SteveU and some other guys 
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The part that worries me the most is the hayfilter. I’ve driven for a few days now in -10 C (14 F) temps and no problem. We’re back to above freezing now, but what happens when long term cold hits us? I expect to see a gradual ice build-up on the hayfilter inner walls, especially running lot’s of short trips.
Well, still better off than WW2 woodgasers. Just think about it, 6V systems, no gasoline at all and no electric heaters to their engines. I know some used to empty their oil and coolant in the evening and heat it on the stove in the morning before startup. My alarm usually screames at 4.30 working am. I don’t want to think about what time to set the alarm if I would have to start with oil changes and stuff each morning 
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This doesent seem pleasant. I remembered about reading about the worlds coldest settlement, a Siberian vilage. Only the wealthy people have cars, not becouse the rest culdnt afford it, but becouse they have to idle (or have a heated garage) all winter long so the engine is always warm. Perhaps wood gas might just be a solution for them 
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Kristijan, it sounds like all you need to do then is a little insulation around the cooling tubes. Helping to be less effective on cooling, maybe just half on each tube. Maybe insulate between the cooling tubes and the gasifier bottom.
Bob
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Now that winter and its snow storms are almost over for the Northerners and being the first day of spring, I want thank all of you for the input on this thread and the other threads. It has given me some good ideas on how to improve my southern build truck. It did very well the few times I drove it in the cold weather conditions. Like I have said before it’s not a snow truck, next year I will have to put studdedsnow tires on the truck just to drive it around up here.
If any of you have any more ideas from your winter driving to improve your gasifiers, or any new procedural steps in running and shutting the gasifier’s down in cold freezing weather, I would like to hear from you.
This is the best Wood Gasifier site on the earth, and it is because of all you, who have put your input and time into it that has made it the best. DOW
Bob
Bob, last fall I was a bit hesitant to whether DOW would be possible during winter. I read about the downside with wet filtering, condensation freezing and everything else related to cold weather problems.
The truth is I haven’t had any woodgas related problems during winter and I’ve been DOW just about every day. I voted for wifes car one single day going to work. I wasn’t sure the pickup would start even on gasoline since I don’t have a block heater in it.
Only one thing might be a problem. When I first started to DOW I put a plastic can with a rubber connection on the hopper drain. It was supposed to be temporary. Now I see no other way I could empty the tar other then having a can you can bring inside. If I’m in a hurry I put it in a bucket of hot water for a little while and the tar will flow. The hopper juice doesn’t freeze until way below freezing and is usually not a problem.
Just remember to drain while the system is hot.
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Thanks Jan-Ola, you sure have been the winter inspiration for us on DOW. For all the winter snow driving every day to work and to town to shop or a pleasure drive in the country side. My hat is off to you. Good job on showing the way to snowy winter driving in a woodgasifier truck.
Bob
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Jan-ola you are correct about draining the tar.
I used to wait on draining thinking I could collect more condensate during the cool down. After the 1" drain pluged a couple of times with tar and having to melt it out with a torch. I now drain ASAP while the tar is still mollasses thick instead of asphalt.
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