Dang, I lost all my notes on the air mattress pump but mine has a Mabuchi motor. Bought some clones on eBay. Kind of like this.
http://www.mabuchi-motor.co.jp/cgi-bin/catalog/e_catalog.cgi?CAT_ID=rs_380sh
I’m back to drafting right at the engine, don’t get any explosions that way. Too much draft is not good’ I modified mine for 2.5v. That’s two pairs of D cells.
Thanks for the suggestions. I use my Kirby vacuum cleaner to pull on the gasifier and get it producing good gas. Then I close a valve and turn on the bilge blowers to pull the gas from the back to the throttle body. I put the bilges on a parallel leg thinking that when the engine is running the gas would go straight through the other leg to the engine thus avoid the bilges getting in the gas while going down the road. WRONG. Parallel pipes EACH get the some pull and thus while driving, gas is going through the bilge motors. I did make a disk out of open cell foam with a nylon mess backing and placed it in the pipe just before the blower motors. Hope it picks up some soot and also a little drag on that leg of the parallel pipes will force more gas through the straight pipe. If it works , I know it will plug up and stop the draft so I will have to take it apart. But want to try something to save the bilges. Just though about it. I maybe could mount the bilge blowers past the mixer and near the front bumper like the Europeans dol. Hmm. Have to look at that.
You are probably correct on the idea of letting the engine pull the gas up from the back. But, I’m kind of a die hard and try not to use gasoline. ( I am planning on putting in something so I can run hybrid on the trip to Argos. It is against my principles but every other woodgas person is doing it and I have to keep up with traffic in Chicago. Going the speed limit is not good enough there)
I asked a friend that still works in a paper mill to get me a piece of that felt that supports the wet paper while it goes though the dryer. I could lay that on top of my hay filet as a final resort to collect the soot. Might even spread oil on the hay to give it more affinity for the soot.
Got to get out to the shop. Last night I think I found the problem in the wiring for the speedometer. It isn’t a easy fix, so I slept on it over night. No big brain storms, so I guess I’ll just go out and dive in — or in this case under the truck. TomC
Wow Jeff. You must be working with a lot less draft than I am. 2.5 volts? I am finding a lot of RC motors on Ebay, but the ones we use have to be sealed so no sparks can get to the gas. Andy suggested that Dustin had the video I saw where they changed the motors. I’ll have to see what I can find or maybe Dustin will chime in.TomC
The felt is in the press section. It will get loaded with moist/water like a sponge and airtight. But if you get the nylon one from the dryer like you say, that might work. Maybe that’s the one your friend had in mind. It’s also good to put where you don’t want weed to grow, under the porch or under the driveway gravel. You already know of course, living in an old paper mill area.
Tom, any numbers printer on the frame of your in gas motor?
No it was totally rusty so could’t see anything
Ok!! I need some help. Getting ready for Argos so put the gasifier back together and am having troubles. I cleaned the ash pit and rodded through the grate but it is still pulling much more vacuum than normal and the temperature at the grate went up to 1800 F the gas going out was over 800 F. I guess with to much vacuum it is like going up a hill all the time and over pulling and thus the heat. So what would cause the vacuum to go high. The cooling rail and the grate vacuum are in proportion of about 2 to 1TomC
Class time
Everyone come back with their answers before Wayne comes in. Test our knowledge. Winner gets a coffee mug made by my wife. She doesn’t know it yet.
Time is limited he has to fix it to get to Argos!!!
I’m thinking restricted air inlet causing it to pull air from the wrong place (ash dump seal for instance) igniting the gas causing high temps.
Opps grate vacuum or hopper vacuum Tom?
Grate vacuum Tom. Thank you for posting the reward. TomC ( I am a little panic right now. Had many little things to do before I go and then this shows up. )
is the vacuum high with the lid open tom.
If your char bed was plugged up, you’d see high vacuum, but low temperatures.
If your char bed was too loose, you’d see low vacuum and (maybe) high temperatures.
This means they may be two different problems.
If this is a standard WK setup, there should be little or no difference between the grate vacuum and the rails vacuum, it’s supposed to be a clear passageway through the dropbox into the rails.
Given these clues, I suspect you’ve got a blockage in the crossover pipe (or somewhere between the grate and the rails), and simultaneously an air leak below the grate (or possibly a loose char bed).
You’ll probably fix these separately, I don’t think they’re the same problem.
Hang in there Mr. Tom , you have a whole community trying to get you on the road.
Usually with a plugged gasifier the temps will be below normal …
With a 2 to 1 vacuum ratio between the rials and the hopper shows that the char be is drafting easily .
I would double check my fuel and make sure it is dry , it seems that damp fuel will run the temps high and with the weak gas one has to use more throttle thus more vacuum.
I think I would reverse my stater blowers ( blowing smoke out the hopper ) and see if is is steamy or a dry smoke that will ignite with you torch.
I’ll have to check it and get back to you Paul Until I get there, what are you thinking Paul? TomC
just fishing for more data ruling out where the restriction could be I just came back from a burn tube failure internals went crazy.
Just to clarify Tom you’re measuring grate vacuum ? Not the hopper?
There should be almost no difference between the grate and rails.
I am with Chris .
Yes if you are measuring the vacuum post grate and the cooling rails they should be almost the same
Sorry to say, I’m not running a WK. My vacuum reading are one on the cooling rails and one out of the grate area, which a Chris says should be equal but I have always found the rail was about double the grate. ( ? ) I let the ash pit get totally full — with only 4+ inches from the nozzles to the restriction, I am hesitant about pulling all the ash out and upsetting my char bed. I did however empty the ash pit and not much changed. So I took a rod and reached in and cleaned some of the ash/char off the grate and rodded the grate out from the top. It helped the driving, but still pulling more vacuum than I had been . Oh something else, While starting up cold, it blew a little smoke and then went to a very faint smoke and the temperature was very slow building up. I usually get the grate temp up to 900 before I feed it to the engine. I never got over 700 and I was able run on the gas so I went for a ride. That is when the temp kept climbing to 1800. That scared me. Something was wrong on start up but I hope running up to that temp didn’t warp my restrictor. TomC
Oh hey! Just a thought in getting ready for the trip I cleaned out my hay filter. Of course I have kind of an odd hay filter. Basically it is hay with a 4 inch piece of foam on top before the gas exits on its way to the engine. Besides changing the hay I probably did something dumb. I put the foam in a tub of water and using a garden hoe pumped the foam to wash the soot out. Then I had this HEAVY foam full of water that I couldn’t hand squeeze out by hand. I put it on the garage floor and put a steel plate over it and drove the tire of the truck onto the plate. Long and short of it, I got “most” of the water out and I blew through it with air and set it aside for a day. When I put it in it was almost back to the weigh of new but did have some most feel to it. Did that cause my restriction???TomC
Second thought I doubt if that would cause a high vacuum in the rails and ash pit. TomC I’m going nuts trying to figure this out