Chris, A secondary issue of running the carb completely dry is the accelerator pump in the carb will dry out and wear out. It does not work on my 72 dodge 318 because I ran it dry for years when I ran propane. The propane carb as well as the woodgas carb are above the gasoline carb to use it’s butterfly. I have both an electric solenoid and an electric fuel pump on the gasoline on that thing. The regular fuel pump finally gave out from the ethanol in today’s gasoline. Typically it takes 20 to 30 seconds for the bowl to run dry but there is usually enough left in the accelerator pump reserve to get a few squirts. Having a gasoline dribble is annoying in that it messes with your timing setting. You can almost always tell gasoline is getting in there if you can’t advance the full amount where on pure woodgas you don’t get a full burn without the full advance. This OBD2 car seems to do it all by itself but it does some kind of reset every 30 seconds or so. I need to research this. It averages things for a while and then resets the computer parameters. My OBD1 truck also does this. Occasionally I have to turn the key off for a few seconds and back on to get it to manually reset. Wayne has also had to do this with some of his Dodges … Mike
Hi Mike,
Squirt pump is long gone, this truck sat dry for ten years… of course who needs one when you’re used to driving on wood anyway? Even without the pump acceleration is way better on gasoline than wood.
Chris,
You got me thinking now. I have the TBI on my 454 to deal with,… slightly different animal BUT;
I am thinking of using an ASCO solenoid valve to completely kill fuel flow to the throttle body assembly as I have heard they will dribble a bit of gas under high vacuum. ASCO makes valves with just about every coil voltage you could want and they make valves rated for chemicals including fuel. If the Normally Closed/Normally Open configuration is ordered properly, a single 12V form C relay should be able to kill the fuel pump and operate the solenoid valve.
Henry, On my chevy TBI, when I turn the juice off to the injectors there is NOTHING getting through as they don’t click. I don’t know what year you have but my computer doesn’t throw out any codes at all. It is a 93 … On my 91 I was concerned about this so I wired in a pair of dummy injectors so the computer would think they were there but found this to be un-necessary. I have a fuel pump switch as well. There was a test pigtail on the driver’s side of the firewall so was super easy to do. On my 97 cavalier I turn the juice off to both the fuel pump and injectors. Back to the truck, when I leave the injectors click and JUST turn the fuel pump off it will suck a dribble up from the tank and I just call this running hybrid. On the 97 cavalier I will put a resistor in series with the pump and injector circuit so it will just dribble some stuff in on occasion when I hit that switch … Hope this helped ??? I don’t think you need to go the solenoid route but give it a try ?? Some people worry about the injectors clicking for prolonged periods while dry so I turn them off now … Mike
chris, i think it would be really cool if you considered doing a similar presentation at OU.
i understand the consideration process as it takes time and energy to do such things,
i was talking about my ideas last semester with a few engineering students and they were amazed, one told me of the grad school program involved with biomass energy and told me students spend a lot of time and effort learning about energy from biomass
i believe you would have a large intrigued audience with the proper promotion or “strings” being pulled before hand…
I have run one TBI system and all you will need on it is two switches on the dash to kill the injectors (one left and one right). If you need a boost for hill climbing, passing or starting you can turn one injector on. The motor will run just a little rough but will have extra power.
Hi Chris; is your setup a TBI or a carburettor on my old truck I just added an electric fuel pump and put a switch on the dash to turn off the gasoline and all the air for the woodgas came in through the throttle on the carb.
Hi Ron,
You have this high tech electric valve on the wood gas line next to your inverter on the right fender well. If I remember it correctly when I talked to you at Argos, that valve acts as a wood gas throttle? Air enters through the filter and mixes with the gas in the chamber above the carb. Does that mean that air and wood gas both go through carb already mixed? Or is it just air as you mentioned above?
Don M
Hi Don; the valve only shuts on or off the woodgas the air comes in the filter and Ts into the woodgas line, and mixes above the carb so I can use the regular gas petal to control the speed to control the air woodgas mix I have a cable hooked to a throttle body in front of the air filter this works well, not perfect though. Recently I took the cover off the carb and the gas jets were covered with soot after about 3000mi like Mr Wayne said. the back two barrels were almost buried with soot. I sprayed some winter windshield washer fluid into it while it was running and it cleaned up pretty good, I am goind to mount a windshield spray nozzle on top of the carb and give it a couple of shots after each run and see it I can keep it clean this way.
I think the way I have it set up is about as simple as you can get with a carb and it works ok.
Sounds like a 4-pole relay to kill the fuel pump and both injectors is the simplest way to go, based on your input. A “Power Boost” switch to disable this momentarily is also a really good idea!
My truck is a 91, so it should be nearly identical to yours Mike. Unbelievable enough it has almost NO body rust, it belonged to an older gentlemen who kept it garaged almost all of it’s life - what a find!
Ron,
I like the Wiper squirter to clean out the carb. I have been thinking about how I will manage soot on my tbi after conversion. Will the washer solution cause corrosion in the intake system anywhere? I assume you run it for a few moments after “squirting” to pull all the soot and water thru the engine and out the exhaust? If effective, this would be easy to automate into a “shutdown sequence”.
Henry, I just turn on the throttle body injectors for 30 seconds or so after a drive and they spray the butterflies and intake clean. The area above them holds a lot of soot but I just vacuum that out from time to time … On the cavalier I switch back to gasoline for a little bit but the injectors on that will only wash the intake valve stems. ML
Chris,
Looks good. Glad your making the effort to spread the knowledge.
You should look around your area and see if any body shops want to sponsor your truck with a paint job. Or a graphics place could print a whole truck decal. It would be pretty cool to have slides printed right on the side of your truck.
Just an idea. Everything else looks good.
meschke
Hi Anthony,
Ha! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder my friend… but sure, it’s an ugly old truck, I just don’t want to throw much more money at it. Never meant to be a show truck. I’ve said from the beginning this one is just for learning. And I’ve learned a lot! As long as it’s mechanically sound and the gasifier works properly, I’ll save my pennies and convert another new truck.
On gallon of good oil based metal paint and a 4" brush and you could do it in about 3 hours. I’ve painted the Studebaker 3 times since I got it and my International probably 4 times
Mike,
have you ever had buildup in your intake catch fire, or had to intentionally burn it out - or does the injector washdown you mentioned eliminate that?
Henry, Never had any problems like that ever, even if I was running a tar producing unit … I worried about it and Wayne spring loads his air cleaner lid so maybe he has had a few to deal with ??? Truth is I have had to junk most of my cars and trucks before things wore out or got plugged up because the frames rusted out here in the salt belt … I have a spare intake manifold for the 66 chevy but it still runs fine when I need to move it but I won’t drive it on the highway anymore as it is unsafe in my opinion. It has seen plenty of goo but has been somewhat immune to it and that is a reason I still work with similar engines like the 4.3 in my 93 … The 4.3 in my 91 got toasted but that was totally my fault playing with a centerfeed. I understood what I did wrong right after that experiment of course … Mike