Normans chevotafire pickup

For the cooling tube I’d suggest making the corner parts and the initial tree out of stainless and leaving stubs to attach much cheaper galvanized pipe for the straight shots. Like Bobmac has done.

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Yup I am glade I spent the monies on the 409 Stainless Steel tubing. I will replace the galvinized fence post with 409 SS when they start to wear out. Waynes complete cooling tube has been replaced by Chris S. Mod. Design. I repaired it all once. Now it has been all replace even down behind the tail lights to the condensation tank. The tank has been repair once by me also. Corrosion control is the name of the game. STAINLESS STEEL is the cure for it. Just need $$$$$$$ to do it. I see the cooling gases having the most corrosion area to deal with. The cooling rail trees take a beating bad. This is why I changed it to a header to the corner trees tubing rails. No more water flushing this area out. The header stays clean of ash or soot. The rail well that is where it starts to collect. But is easy to flush out with a water hose by removing the top header caps at each end. Very happy with my design build. Also the sloping cooling tubes to the back of the truck bed. It keeps everything water, ash, soot moving to the back condensation tank.
Bob

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Bob if you want a less expensive condensate tank look on eBay or local for 1/2 Kegs or 1/4 Kegs. 1/2 is about 16 gallons and 1/4 I think is about 7 gallons. The bung is a universal 2" and will accept a Triclamp fitting. The kegs are usually either aluminum for the really old ones or stainless for the newer ones.

Or rent a keg and have a party with your neighbors and keep the keg! You’ll lose your deposit though.

They make two shapes, one shallow but wide and one narrow but tall.

You live near one of the Hipster Meccas so I’m sure finding kegs from a craft brewery wouldn’t be too hard.

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Just keep in mind you will have to draw that down to 12" to make it all fit inside regular 55 gallon drums

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So sometimes you just gotta try things for curiosity sake. My step dad gave me a low milage carb another Holley 4 barrel that I put on the truck. Runs good, for the idle I need on gasoline before switching over to wood. When I got it it was set up for manual cable controlled choke which I have no need for, so I swapped my electric choke off the old carb on and while I was there I thought back on the issue with the old carb I never got into the secondaries, which allowed the back barrels to fill up with soot and eventually corroded the throttle shaft so bad that it is now immobile. When it started to stick months ago I locked out the secondaries with a simple spring ( the are vacuum controlled in stock form so I stronger spring externally mounted locks then out completely) this has served me just fine, effectively taking a 4 barrel and converting it to a front 2 barrel only. Now with this new to me carb I got to wondering in the power department if the rear barrels actually made a difference in power on woodgas getting more gas into the engine. So instead of locking out the secondaries with a spring, I went inside the vacuum actuator and removed the spring that holds the secondaries closed untill proper vacuum is achieved to then open it. My thought was full time 4 barrel action, on any acceleration the only thing that must be overcome to open the rear barrels is the diaphragm that moves the plunger to unlock and allow free movement of the rear butterflies. Now in theory that’s double the cfm flow into the engine, double the fuel more power right? Hmmm well 2 days of driving it this way the theory is…correct. The execution of it, not so much. Without the spring in the actuator to close off and return the rear throttle shaft to it’s closed position, I have to wait until the vacuum demand that once overcame the diaphragm has subsided, and the barrels to then close off. Now under hard acceleration the rears activate at about 17-20" of water as witnessed by my rails vacuum gauge. But will not close off until vacuum is under 12-15". So even if I let off the pedal and the primary circuits close, the rears are still hung open, pulling like crazy. Under hard load of pulling a hill I can take my foot completley off the pedal and will continue climbing the hill as the rear barrels are a mindless beast feeding fuel as hard and fast as they can. The quick remedy is a clutch kick or shift, momentary dropping vacuum demand and secondaries close up. Very interesting to drive. Yes I fully realize this is dangerous having more or less a ghost putting the pedal to the wood when it wants and not me doing it, so the spring will go back in. But a interesting result. Mechanical secondaries…more safe, and more throttle control to do this. That being said, if the rears dont get locked up, and the squirters from the accelerator pump remain clean and functional which ended up being the problem with my old carb, I can’t really see a reason “not” to feed straight through a carburetor. Yes a better filter would be helpful, and the gas acidity does have a corrosive property which in time will eat away at the carb as shown in my video a while ago and as Jo saw on his rabbit throttle body and Jacob on his throttle body. But if you don’t have efi, this still seems to work just fine for me.

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Someone really needs to get a wood gas engine on an engine dyno. I’m talking about state of the art, flow meter, reading A/F on every cylinder. Then we would have a base to work from. Just getting a vacuum reading off your gasifier to indicate what was going on with the carb is more information than I have seen anywhere else. It will be interesting to see if you can get that old carb cleaned up. I was always led to believe that vacuum secondaries were for grandpa’s car and double pumpers were for young dudes with cams. Same with distributors. Still think that a dual quad manifold with a carb in one hole and a adapted throttle body in the other would be the way to go for WG.

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I don’t know if you’ve tried this cleaner, it’s turpentine that the painters use, actually cleans the hands from the tar.

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The carb will cleanup back to functionality, but it’s the corrosion that will kill it. The secondaries will move but after much cleaning not in any runable way, they are junked. Still a swappable carb for later use when the one on the truck comes off for cleaning. I must say I really appreciate the serviceability of Holley carbs very easy to work on. I’m on the hunt for a 2 barrel motorcraft off a early 60-70 Ford for the next motor with the smaller cam to see how things work it. This will prevent the rear barrels from clogging cause they won’t be there, but it will still allow me to use my mixer box as it is no modifications for a different carb. I’m more curious to see woodgas used on something with independent throttle bodies, each cylinder delivered same amount of fuel then hooked to each cylinder afm. That I think would show the open potential for woodgas in a individualized cylinder, while taking out the problem of single cylinder impulse feeding problems. Would be a very interesting mixer box to feed 8 throttle body tuned in time though :thinking: I do wonder if the ginormouse upper and lower plenum of the V10 is helping with it’s twist and turns to better mix the fuel with air before entering each cylinder. In some ways how a tunnel ram works on a gasoline engine?? Just thinking out loud

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I just think here is there any way you could modify the carb to run on gasoline front 2 barrel. And then run the would gas on the secondary part of the carberator. You have junk carb to work on. The air supply could be a main seperate manual control valve to the secondary. All wood gas would go through the with the air mix valve controled from the cab. Also a control valve from the cab for the woodgas valve.
If you shut the front two barrel air supply off or on with a manual control valve controlled from the cab.
I almost think I saw this some where using a Quadra jet carb.
Maybe some can find this .
Bob

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Isn’t that what the mother earth news guys did or something to that effect? I mean a manual choke flap would close off the front barrels easily enough, but not enough to stop the flow of fuel just enough to stop soot build up. But then the easier route with that would be back to 2 throttles, one to control gas side of carb one for dino juice, mini truck no room for more pedals! I still think a single pedal could be made, with a manual switch from one throttle to the other. But for the miles I have already put down I don’t think the work would honestly be worth the hassle. A periodic carb cleaning is no big thing to me, specially now I know the key problem points with long term woodgas use. If I had known what the problem was I could have fixed the old carb without removing anything from the truck except the mixer lid. The squirt jet is held in place by a single phillips head screw and oring seal, remove the nozzle blow through air and pipe cleaner pass through fixed and back on the road. Maybe 10 minute job. Now I don’t think you could say the same for say a Edelbrock/Carter carb, there are more exposed passages like the metering rods that could easily clog with soot. Then all gasoline use besides accelerator pump shot would not be usable. At least with my truck, I need to run on gasoline while pulling woodgas up to the motor for a solid 30-60 seconds before it will run the engine and that time is done on gasoline usually one float bowls full is enough to get it going and switched over to wood. So long as primary circuits are free and clear, this carb has no issue consuming a little soot. I believe the absolute filthyness I witnessed was because I drove the truck for about 2-3 weeks with no gasoline use at all, allowing soot to get in where gas was not able to wash it out. Surprisingly even the jets were clear despite seeing some soot inside the float bowl. The transfer ports around the butterfly’s were packed solid so no fuel control for idle capabilities but that can easily be scraped away with the carb on the truck as well

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That is interesting about the metering rods on the Edelbrock on wood gas. The reason I started running Edelbrocks was because on the fly tuning was so much easier with them that with the Holley though I have nothing bad to say about Holley’s. I think in almost all cases, tunnel rams offer the best performance for a carbed engine. My last 454 ran a Weiand tunnel ram with 650 CFM Edelbrocks.
http://store.wpsracing.com/wehituraminm1.html
This was a mud truck and we wanted the torque band between 3500 and 5000 rpm. Didn’t care what happened above that limit. Actually running that engine by mistake over 6000 with the valve springs that were in it was what blew that engine. Didn’t bother to install beefier springs when we switched from flat tappet to roller cam.
If nothing else, the tunnel ram would give wood gas more time to cool. Can’t beat a cold dense charge. Of course most trucks are going to have hood clearance issues unless you are willing to show what you got. When I was a kid we used to use mail boxes for hood scoops.

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Thanks Norman, running good! And with the gasifier sticking out!

And if my chief finds out I am doing testdrives like that with the kids there was only vision and no sound for a few days :grinning::grinning::grinning:

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I noticed with my Weber and it’s mechanical secondary that I did get some better acceleration. Wondering how well the Sierra will do with it’s 3" diameter single butterfly.

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Thanks for the video Marcus .

About all I can say is Stand Back Nonbelievers :neutral_face:

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Through a series of break downs of trucks at work yesterday I didn’t get to leave work till 11pm last night, but with no traffic on the road whatsoever I was able to make it near 50 miles on a hopper load of maple a new distance record for the Toyota. I pulled in the driveway just after midnight and up at 6 am went to light up this morning and first time I have ever hit the blowers and she came right back to life no lighting needed. Guess my truck can sit about 6 hours without needing to fire back off with butane assistance. Will be a half day at work as today is meat your kids teacher day, so expect the truck will go another round when I leave at lunch time with no light up, pretty neat. Downside my silicone fix on the pinholes of the drop box is starting the peel back and small air leak causing high temps in the center post as of this morning. I’ll smooze it back on for now until the dodge is going and I can down the Toyota for proper repairs

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Hello Marcus, I hope you don’t mind my curiosity, I’m interested in how it looks when you turn off the engine, where you release the gases that still come out of the gasifier, how long it continues to smoke, whether you have a non-return valve installed on the air intake,… ? Well, if it is not necessary to burn the charcoal in the gasifier 6 hours after the shutdown, it means that a small amount of oxygen is getting in, which keeps the charcoal alive, and the leak you discovered was probably to blame for this.

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The leak just started this morning on my way to work it was at my normal operating temp of 350-400f and then it suddenly started to climb and came to rest around 550f, which is same temp as when I discovered the leak about a month ago and spooged it with silicone. Temps dropped right afterward back to normal, so I don’t think that is the cause for the char staying active. Now the hopper lid on the other hand, it will smoke little wisps for about 15 minutes after shut down. The gasket is getting pretty bad on the lid with tar buildup if I had another lid to swap on it would be no big deal. The throttle body gas and air valves I use up on the mixer do seal up completely so unless it is the hopper lid I don’t think there is any other leaks that could let oxygen in

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When stopping, I disconnect the flexible hose on the refrigerator and light the gas, which burns for another 5-10 minutes, the air supply is automatically closed, and the moist pyrolysis gas, which is still being produced due to the heat, relatively quickly suffocates the glowing coals, after about 1 to 2 hours it is need to burn charcoal again to restart.

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Hello Marcus and Tone .

Just this morning I shut down my V-10 at about 9 AM and started back up at 2 PM without relight, just blowers .

Each of my gasifers that hold a large amount of char will keep a live coal for some time without the gasifier being hot or wasting fuel .

With soft wood I expect the fire to hold 4 hours and with hard wood I plan for 5 hours.

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