Here is a nother one. Tell the inspector the holes in the floor are for your legs to help kicking the car down the road in case you get constipated 
make them scrach their head 
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Guess what´s wrong.
Leaving home for work today everything was normal. Good power, 4:1 vacuum ratio and a normal 300F outof the cyclone after a couple of miles.
Suddenly I lost power and my first instinct was to richen the mixture, but power was still almost zero. After looking at the guages I discovered the vacuum ratio was down to 2:1 or maybe even a bit worse. I leaned the mixture out but couldn´t find power anywhere. A quick glance at the temp guage showed the cyclone temp had suddenly increased to 650 F (higher than I´ve ever seen). By now I was almost almost out of momentum and close to a standstill. I shut the valves and flipped the gasoline switch. At the next exit I stopped to get out of the car and take a look.
So, what had happened?
Clue: The hopper got a good cleanout the other day and I´ve driven about 50 miles since then, without any maintenance.
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Hi JO, did the hopper drain connection to your water/tar container come loose, and started to leak air into the Hopper?
Or you had a loose connection from the hopper to your cyclone filter, letting air in a causing the hot gas to turn your clycone into a furnace to heat it up.
Bob
Hello JO
When something goes wrong with my gasifier it is usually operator error 
If you had reported that the hopper temp also shot up I would think you had run out of wood.
If the post gasifier temps went high, the air flow resistance at the char bed fell and the hopper temp stayed normal I would think you had a fuel bridging problem or after you clean out the gasifier you didn’t add back enough char .
If your condensate happen to flow over into the fire tube it could also make the temps jump high from the steam and loosen the char bed. .
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I didn’t think of the possible over flow of water into the hopper causing steam and loosening the char bed. VERY INTERESTING. I was thinking he had weak gas and heat in the cyclone area being air/gas mixing and burning.
Bob
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I’m not very good at this game, but I’ll take a kick at the cat. ( if I did win the cigar, I don’t smoke soo) You “re-mentioned” that you had cleaned the hopper 50 miles before. From that I think you are hinting that the problem was in and/or around the hopper… The theory about loosing the char bed doesn’t sound right or the vacuum in the hopper would have gone up. The time element doesn’t help my theory, but I am going with the simplest theory---- ash lid on the cyclone came loose causing an air leak.TomC
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Okay I got one more JO, you said you cleaned the hopper and drove 50 miles and no maintenance. I see in your pictures above you did not disconnect you cyclone from the gasifier.
So developing a leak there is not to likely. One more, Did you dump your ash out of the cyclone and did not get the ash dump lid sealed correctly?
Bob
Yup, this is what happened.
After cleaning crust/tar from the hopper’s lower regions circulation improved a lot. I now collect about 2-3 times the amount of condensation.
I was in a hurry and in the back of my mind I felt like I could go at least one more trip to work and back before emtying the condensation can. I didn’t even check (operator error).
But the can was probably about full when I left, and by the time things started to thaw and also putting some vacuum on the system the plastic can was squeezed enough to overflow the gutter. The amount of steam down the charbed was enough to cool the char below gas making temps.
Also the can was so heavy the connection to the hopper drain let go at some point in the process.
So, I guess Wayne won the gold medal here. Silver to Bob with a partially right answer and @TomC as the lucky looser with a bronze medal without being close to the truth
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Sad and teary-eyed but relived at same time.
The Rabbit is gone.
Ha, after displaying the ad for 10 min on the internet last week a guy 400 miles away bought the Rabbit and transfered the money right away. Today he showed up with a full size truck, trailer and ramp.
I new there would probably not be a problem selling it but I never thought it would be this easy. Also I got the same amount I payed for it two years ago.
I almost regret selling it. The engine runs so smoth, like a sawing mashine. It runs even better now after 12,000 miles on woodgas. It will be missed.
However, its gasifier sits in my shop. Who knows, maybe it’ll feed another beast in the future…
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Why didn’t you sell him the gasifier too and spread the love? 
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Haha, I haven’t yet been able to put together a good enough manual for someone else to operate it
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A Manual? What is that?
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Welcome back on track, Kristijan!
You’re right, it really doesn’t feel like 10 years. Also, it doesn’t feel like close to 7 years since we last met.
I really hope we will see more of you here again. Every now and then I think about you and wonder what you have been up to.
I wish you all the best - and of course looking forward to updates 
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Not going to lie, this information stung a litle bit:smile: feels like l still got some of Lisas gravy on my lip 
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It’s kinda crazy it has been that long ago!
That does kinda sting.
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When you are 15 and waiting a year to get a drivers license then time is a snail crawling up a long board. When you are 78, a day is a 45 degree plunge down a 50 foot hill on a waxed toboggan. Relativity.
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Time. Yes, a slippery thing. It should be a solid value one minute to the next. One year to the next. But as is said . . . it is not.
With the foreign exchange students the last two years I get to observe especially at the sports games a lot of 14 up to 18 year olds.
Watched sports playing, interacting, socializing by a lot by us oldsters in our late 60’s to even early 90’s.
With the young they want to hurry up time to be able to Live things possible at, yes 16. Then 18. Here in the U.S., then 21. Then decades thinking any mistakes can be recovered from with the seeming “inexhaustible” years ahead.
Us oldsters have well learned the need for patience to let time-things come along and mature.
But always the recognition that that time spent waiting is now valuable, diminishing and will for us come to and ending much sooner versus the youthful later, someday.
The best time measure in those years 21 to the mid-late 60’s is raising children. As, they grow and change before your eyes. No denying then the march onward of time.
Steve Unruh
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I haven’t even turned 60, but what starts to feel a bit depressing is the feeling of “no point”. All the pojects you have planned - no point - won’t be able to enjoy the result for very long and previous projects increasingly need maintence.
Locking back on earlier ashivments - building extension for the kids - those rooms have been sitting empty for the past 10-15 years. The “new” 25 yo glassed porch - not used a lot nowdays but starting to require maintence.The 23 yo “new” boiler setup - still enjoying the result very much, but the clock is ticking. The “new” 20 yo garage/shop - starting to need maintence.
Just a few examples, and if enjoying future projects turn out to be as shortlived, and basic maths tells you they certainly will, what’s the point?
On top of that you learn about that vaxed sled syndrome…
Well, I guess it’s about tough priorities from now on - what’s the most fun.
Maybe I’m just spoiled.
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JO, you are so right. At our age (really, any age for that matter) it is best to lay up treasures in heaven. One advantage, of many, is that they don’t require maintenance.
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I am just living one day at a time now at 73 Years old. Yes time has been fly by ever since I have decovered DOW. One wood or charcoal gas project after another with maintenance on going all in between them. The goal is now for me, is not to create any more threads topics I have enough on this site. I just need to add to the ones I already have created. Lol.
The best part is getting to meet some of you, and to get to know all of you here on this site. Thank you.
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