What a great father’s day! I spent the morning at Ray’s place (just 20 minutes away) and got a hands-on tour of his TLUD’s, simplifiers, and more. Very impressed with not only his gasifiers and char making systems, but also his energy efficient house, solar setup, and biochar-infused gardens. Thank you Ray!
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Dont know much about charco ,or the energy content per pound, one of each type gasifier would be nice, toltal differnt designs, probbly a bit lighter, I think the dakotas add around 600 pounds at least,with cooling rack.Could be done lighter i think.Happy fathers day.
Thread resurrection! I recently posted in a new thread that I was looking at the tried and true Dakotas and Rams, and I am, but I keep coming back to the idea of a gasser van, especially because there are no good Dodge trucks in my area at the moment. So with that being said, I found this van on ebay and for a 4x4 van (rare) the price is right. It’s a bit ridiculous with the lift and tires (it well affect performance) but who wouldn’t love a wood gas monster truck in the collective fleet 
Mechanically speaking, does this look like a good candidate? As always, I greatly appreciate the feedback.
http://m.ebay.com/itm/Chevrolet-G20-Van-g30-/272134335657?nav=SEARCH
13k is a lot of $$$$$. Would you put the gasifier on a trailer?
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Hi Jeff! The max cost is 10k (without the sound equipment), possibly much less. A 4x4 conversion itself for a van costs close to that.
The idea is to mount it in the style of Stigg-Eric Werner (picture earlier in this thread) or do something similar to the wood powered Caddy. Full WK system with creative mounting. But if that proved completely impossible, yes it would be a trailer.
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Well, it sure looks nice. When I worked for Dowell, gas and oil well service, we had a few conversion 4x4 vans like that. But not as much lift. They worked good.
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My pot growing friend of days gone by would have called that van a heat score. Add a gasifier to the back and I would be concerned about too much attention being paid to me. Real cool looking ride though…
Best regards David Baillie
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You can make the van work for you but, it needs some immediate changes. Like the guy says, “it’s a show van”. Throw away the spring blocks on top of the axle. If you hit deep mud in 4 wkl low, you can walk the axle right out of the U-bolts. It isn’t a 0ne ton van by any stretch of the immagination. It has a small-tube Dana 44 front axle. The rear Dana 60 is ok. I have Dana 70s front and rear in my one ton. It has headers. i’ve been wondering how much heat is lost to headers, as opposed to manifolds. Would this affect the muffler heat exchanger?
Steering stability is better if you get it lower. If you have the time and money, you can make it fly.
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There’s a pretty good article about front lift blocks.
The front axle looks like a 10 bolt gm instead of a Dana 44. Not much difference but neither was used in anything above 3/4 ton.
The angle on the steering is bad. Going to want to turn right on bumps I believe.
That piece worries me and looks like it was put together just to make things work.
I’d have to see this thing in person to make sure it was built to drive and not for “show”.
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,It does look kinda like a corporate axle ( the cover) but, he listed it on Ebay as; “Dana 44 front, Dana 60 rear, 411 gears” Most people wouldn’t know the difference. I have duals on my 1 ton Dodge Power Wagon with a Cummins. It has a T-34, 5 speed and a 201 case. I had to use some short blocks. With all that torque and a 10,000 lb camper, I was afraid that I would get hop or just break the U-bolts. I built a bridge from tube-to-tube over the differential housing. The, I took the top strut from a Freightliner with Hendrickson suspension and installed it from the top of the diff to the chassis.
A big raduis rod. It was strong enough for a SQHD axle so, it shouild be strong enough for my Dodge.
Chassis and suspension mods are pretty easy. The Chevy could be fixed up with a couple of radius rods.
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