Pay attention to vacuum readings when installing flame arrestors or ember screens. I was surprised by how much a poorly designed screen restricted my gas flow and affected engine performance.
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I was thinking of just making little caps out of the 1/4" hardware cloth mesh.
Or out of the expanded sheet metal. Or maybe use one of my copper choreboy scrubbers I have laying around.
Also need to elevate my drip tank and make a window to witness how fast my drips are.
Right now I have old fuel hose connected to what used to be a stainless steel thermocouple probe that I trimmed down.
Really just an SS Straw.
I started a grass fire once when glowing charcoal escaped my air inlet. Here was my solution and below that is Eddy Ramos’ solution.
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Both are really great designs, we can not afford to ever start any fires with wood or charcoal gasification. It wood give those who are in power to ban it. Always be safe with DOW or DOC.
Bob
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I think once I get the remote controls put in and used to the motions of DOW I’ll start on my downdraft. Since my Sierra has a plastic intake cover I might transplant the charcoal updraft over to that just to make cleanup easier or try to prevent dust as much as possible.
The Mazda really lends itself to DOW much more than the Sierra since I have a metal intake and adjustable ignition timing. No Confuser(read Computer) or Automagical trickery involved with the old girl.
But for right now this updraft flute will be my training wheels.
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Here’s what I have squirreled away for the potential downdraft reactor.
I have these two big brake drums that I can bolt together LaRosa style, weld to the car rim.
I also have a propane tank prepped and will fit just right to the hole I cut in the car rim.
I’m leaning towards the drums since I would have a lot of steel mass to act as a heat flywheel, and I could insulate them even further by either casting refractory around it or wrapping with ceramic wool and containing the wool with hardware cloth.
The propane tank would give me more volume below the nozzles but I’m not sure if that’s such an advantage if I can’t successfully build heat exchangers.
The car rim fits exactly square with the 20 gallon drum, so I probably have about ~22 gallons of hopper space just like that.
Not sure how to make that work into a monorator/condensing hopper unless I made a shorty 55 gallon drum hopper extension with the 20 gallon slightly recessed into that as a Tar gutter.
The drums measurements are 5 inches deep by 9 inches inside diameter, with the center opening being 5 inches in diameter.
I want my nozzles to be removable so I will get 1/2" NPT couplers, the non cast iron variety, and make my nozzles by either tapping those wrist pins to 1/2" npt or welding them to a threaded length of pipe. Or just use pipe with inserts to decrease the nozzle size if need be.
I will try to add finning to the inside of the car rim to give it some heat exchanging, I have a now retired steel cutting bandsaw blade I can use for that.
My ash dump will be coming out of the side using an ammo can so I can just scrape it out from the bottom with a fireplace shovel or spade.
That core will nest inside a 55 gallon drum
The 20 gallon drum will be sitting proud just a bit so maybe I’ll put in a drip rail for guttering.
I’ll obviously have to raise it up further for my grate and to have plenty of room for ash storage.
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As far as some heat exchanging for the air intake, I was thinking of using this toolbox to store the drop box as well as my charcoal or wood. To keep as a good well known dry reserve.
Gas exit would go through the toolbox from the reactor and into the drop box, and a length of tubing along the bottom lengthwise to the other side headed to cooling rails running along the bed.
It would be double acting to preheat the air even while raining and also use the radiant heat to either dry or keep dry my immediate fuel. I might try to make some kind of mantle that goes around my resonator to get even more heat but drilling holes in the bed and messing with my exhaust might be beyond me for now. But it isn’t off the table for down the road.
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I won’t be making this for the time being until I get a gas shielded welder, or try to wrangle a welding buddy into helping me with his equipment. I’m taking advantage of this lull to plan it out as much as possible.
Any criticism is more than welcome.
Hey CodyT.
You confuse me now.
You are talking a lot about design elements for a raw woodgasifier.
Not needed for a charcoal gasifier.
Will only add weight and complexity. Failure points.
???
Steve Unruh
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Raw wood is the ideal goal, but with charcoal mixed in for “rocket fuel”
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If I wanted to make this for charcoal I would use the propane tank as the bottom, with little to no reduction and just cold ambient air intake without bothering to preheat it.
I’m still interested in the Mako designs, and I could benefit from that in something like the Sierra maybe. I would be more comfortable with a Mako once I can get my hands on thicker material or get good at working stainless steel.
Tomorrow I am going to have another try at looking for PVC adapters to go from 1.5" to 3/4". Per Kristijans advice to use an even smaller valve for air adjustment. I’m also looking to use a different valve because I cannot find a lever to attach to my 1.5" butterfly valve, and I’m lazy and don’t want to make one from scratch. I’ve already got a few good brass bodied 3/4" ball valves that I can attach a choke lever to.
Maybe once I size down enough it’ll get more demand to the reactor.
I’ve also thought of a decent way to secure the barrel into the bed. I originally thought to use plumbers tape and turnbuckles but I’m worried of the tape breaking from stress. So I have the bolt tightened barrel lid rings that fit nicely on the ribs of a drum, and I despise these hoops so much I never use them except for long term storage.
I’m thinking of welding some D rings to a hoop, and holding the barrel down with turnbuckles.
The turnbuckles would give a good stiff arm to hold the barrel in place. I have a few anchor loops in the bed I can attach them to.
I also am going to cut out some pieces of my aluminum diamond plate to keep the reactor from melting my bed liner 
already got one little spot from where the end of the flute was touching my tailgate cover.
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Here’s the reducer. I figured to give it a good length to make the engine try to suck more of the producer gas instead of just air. Not sure if that will really be what helps, it’ll most likely be the smaller valve that helps more.
Cody,
I thought Kristijan had a neat idea for “remote” air mixture control. For a while he had a hose running from the point of air mixture near the engine to inside the vehicle and put the valve on the end of the hose inside the car where he could adjust it while driving. The noise from the air sucking in the valve bothered him while driving, however
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I have the 3/4" ball valve installed. It seems to not have altered the idle too much.
I have the air mixture screw on the carb turned all the way in to as lean as it will go and idle is still smooth.
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Got the reactor situated to a more ideal spot. Hopefully I haven’t messed up the flex hose yet. Also got the ball valve glued in.
I might move the air filtered section to more towards the radiator to get less hot air. Those are just threaded ABS nipples so I can tweak that a bit.
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Can’t seem to get the cable just right to shut off the ball valve or open all the way. Might just do it the old Kristijan method running into the cabin. I should have some flexible hose somewhere for that.
The 90 degree throw of the valve is really throwing it off for the throttle lever I have for the air adjustment. I guess the throttle lever doesn’t have enough cable throw. Tried in various places on the valve handle but it’s fine, I can always run it into the cabin and adjust that way.
At least my intake air will be cleaner!
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Also it’s pitch black out so pictures wouldn’t do it justice, but the spare locking rings I put on the ribs of the reactor barrel work great as attachment points for my ratchet straps. I think this will help keep the straps from getting cooked. Very solidly mounted now, the straps pull down at an angle from two points so it really holds it to the bed.
I’m planning on cutting up some of my aluminum diamond plate as heat shielding for the bed like I’ve stated earlier. Luckily the nozzles aren’t touching anything so I might just cover the very bottom and the part facing the back of the bed.
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Good morning Cody.
Be very careful when running a hose in the cabin for air mixing . There are certain situations where the gasifier will have positive pressure that may let CO up through the air mix hose .
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