JO's gasified 92 Volvo

Thanks for the ride JO, it seems to go really well.
Did you have a wool blanket with hay as a filter?

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Yes, I stitched a piece of a wollen blankett into kind of a pillow case. I stuffed it with planer shavings at first, but it seems it got too tight. Only hay in it now.

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Do you have the inlet on the outside, and spaces between the blanket and the bucket?
Where did you buy the vacuum meter?
Do you think it would work with a meter from -1- 0 bar?

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Very very cool, if I do a wagon and can miniature the system like you did I think it can be hidden in the trunk pretty easily. What kind of range do you guesstimate with this short wide hopper? I would imagine with the smaller engine and single feed line that it will be using less wood at slower speeds yet still pulling hard enough to produce clean fuel

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Bump!
Tom, what’s happening in Crivitz? You’ve been quiet for a while. Snowed in or busy mowing the lawn? Maybe welding secretly? (which is forbidden)
Tom Collins’ Gasifier - Projects - Drive On Wood!


:rofl:

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What is that? I’ve not heard that expression before.

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Really nice ride JO. As the charbed settles in and ashes find spots where they are supposed to be, it will run better and better with the WK gasifer. When going down the road it looks like you are hauling some piping for a home project, but the people not knowing that the project is done on the roof of the car working fine.
Thanks for the wonderful ride.
Bob

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Thanks for the ride in your Sunday car JO :smile: Seems to be running GREAT!

After your char bed gets established more you will start reading a little more vacuum resistance in the system and your hesitation after deceleration will correct itself .

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WOW. Sweet ride! Thanks for sharing, reminds me of this song → Hot Rod Lincoln - Jim Varney (feat. Ricky Skaggs) - YouTube

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The 110mm plastic is the condensation tank, from there 2" into the bottom of the bucket. 2" outlet on top of the bucket. Pillow stuffed inside. I may need to add some spacing on top of it. The flow likes to pull the pillow case towards the outlet.

Same place (and same type) as the Mazda guages. Svenska manometerfabriken i Leksand.

That’s at least 10 times too much. Mine are -0.1 bar (-100 mbar)

The best results I’ve seen with the Mazda with an Imbert-ish heart but an identical hopper, is 50 miles. I expect to end up thereabout eventually.

Wayne showed us his slingshot a couple weeks ago. It’s a condensation/debrie trap down low on the plumbing, right before gas climbs up to be mixed with air. I didn’t clamp my slingshot plug and it popped out.

Good to know, Bob and Wayne. The tiny hearts I’ve been running so far I’ve been able to correct in 5 minutes. This is more of a 5 hopper thing :smile:

Thanks Mart! I hope I will be able to keep the Volvo in slightly better shape :smile:

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JO, l enjoyed the ride wery much. Seems to me once the gasifier is worked in it will be a rocket of a ride.

However, l hate to be the carryer of bad news, but l found my self in the video. I tryed preety much every possyble gasifier style on my cars, there was not one that wuldnt experiance the hasitation you noticed. Thermal mass is a factor, sure. But more thain that l think is the fact you dont have a big volume filter on this build. Whatever gas you produce is preety much instantly in the engine. There are three things you can do about that.

  • Live with it and re-learn the DOW rutine.
  • install a hopper gas extractor as Joni has, this way even at idle there is a inflow of air trugh the nozzles to keep the gasflow up. Not realy a option for you or me…
  • or add some charcoal to the fuel. It will keep the temp up and buffer hopper gas production at low demand.

I hasitated to type this, thinking it might be too soon. But its just l saw my self in the video and the endless experimentation l did (unsucsessfully) over the years.
But if you figure it out l am first in line to know!

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You’re probably right, Kristijan! A big hayfilter smoothing the transitions between quality of gas out. I expect the hesitation symphtomes to get better over time though - with ash cone buildup and such.

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Kristijan and JO there is a fourth thing you can do. you can increase the air filter volume area but not in the filter area. Just add more cooling tubes on the roof of the car, like double the volume or after the cooling tubes add larger storage tubes for the gases on top of the roof. You already have tubes on the roof so a couple of large ones for gas storage shouldn’t hurt air flow over the car.
You are not running in the stealth mode on this gasifer build. It is so cool that you can register this vehicle under woodgas vehicle in your country. I have thought about seeing if it could be done here. But the RED TAPE of paper work and bureaucratic BS. and monies
to do would be not worth it. Just DOW and keep my mouth shut.
Bob

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JO, do you have a pop off tennis ball valves under the engine hood comparment?
I think I heard the pop after reviewing the video when you pulled into the parking lot. I have not popped my caps off or piping apart on water trap, after adding them. I just make sure I keep my tennis balls greased up for a good vaccum seal.
Bob

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Funny you mention this right now Bob, because this is today’s story:

Drove the Mazda to work and back. Feels uncomfortable now. And low power. OMG what a difference.
Had some food coming home and after a while wife started talking about groseries we needed. I volunteered right away and fired the Volvo up. Aaa, what a smooth ride :smile:
I dropped wife outside the store a took the Volvo for spin on the big road. Wonderful! I reached 110 km/h (68 mph) in no time. Felt like I could easily run even faster, but traffic ahead slowed me down.
On our way home, only half a mile to go, another pop - just after slowing down into a curve. Stopped at the road side and walked back 200 yards before I found the plug.
Put the plug back right away, but even with the help of gasoline I was unable get a vacuum reading.
Back home I crawled under the car to see if any piping slipped. Nope! Next - airmix valve. Bingo! My plastic butterfly was broken. 95% gone. Further investigation showed same thing happened to the woodgas valve :thinking:
Hmm…I’ve been DOWing just about every day for 5 years using same type valves with no problem. The Volvo seems to be a different beast. Time to install tennisballs, but first time to hit the hay. Gnight!

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Problems found easily are always nice. And be back on the road in no time, just channel your inner Kristijan and you will achieve light speed!

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That is exactly what happened to the valves you gave me. Actually I made some out of a tin can and it would bend every time I had a pop and I had to get out and straiten it. I changed that one now

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That’s one reason why I’ve been squirreling away the dead electric throttle body’s at work. Nice brass butterfly blade. Just waiting until I find the right sizes.

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It seems that you succeeded very well with your build, now I am far behind again hmm.
What size do you have on the restrictor, nozzles and fire tube?
How much do you think you lose in hp, between gas and petrol?
I’m still thinking of doing something for Illern.

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I’m sorry about that Jacob. Since I never had a pop on either Rabbit or Mazda, I never realized the butterflies could brake.

Jan, the firetube is 12". With heatshields and nozzles I meassured 10 inches between nozzle tips. I have ten 8mm nozzles, 4" restriction and 14" from nozzles to grate. I utilized the full length of the P11 propane tank for firetube and shortened the larger P19 for air-void/nozzle manifold.
Power is hard to estimate, but it feels like maybe 80% gasoline power. The Mazda feels like 50% or less. My guess is both motor and gasifier are to blame.
The old Volvo has 9.8:1 compression ratio, longer stroke than bore and max tourqe at 2,500 rpm on gasoline, which I belive makes it a fairly good woodgas candidate.

Oh, and messing with the valves up front yesterday I found nothing but a few drops of clear condensation. Piping and throttle body are completly clean. Don’t know why. I expected to find the same tar coating as in the filter bucket area.

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