If you have any interest in a foundry especially iron casting… this guy made a babbington burner to burn veggie oil for his furnace. Waste oil is used a lot for home iron and steel foundries. It is also used quite a bit to get the charcoal making process started.
Or if you just want heat… this is probably simpler.
Well the Mechanic in a Bottle may work for some people on some things but it did nothing for my surging Snowblower. The thing works OK on half choke so I did get the 8 inches of snow off my 3/8 mile section of shared road I maintain. I doubt it would be thrilled to deal with anything much deeper. I’m going to have to bite the bullet and pull that carb off unless it’s just the pilot jet. I could clean that by just removing a control cover.
I will assume it is… but is the carb is adjusted for cold winter conditions? You have to tweak them a bit in the colder denser air vs the warmer summer air. It also could have been bumped accidentally.
I will defer to someone more knowledgeable but I think the surging can also mean an air leak in the line or plugged fuel filter or even a bit of water trapped in it. I have had surging with a plugged air filter like a mouse got in it or something.
Too much air and not enough gas is the problem. I’m sure it’s my fault for not draining the old ethanol out of it because I also believed the internet liars that Ethanol Shield would keep the gas OK for a year. The regular non-ethanol gas here is a higher grade and about two dollars a gallon more and the first half gallon out of the pump is still going to be E-10. My fault for being a cheap ass. The log splitter is still running fine with the same gas in it so I doubt it was varnished fuel in the jets. Probably just sucked up something that the gas treatment couldn’t dissolve. Pretty common since there are at least a hundred people on Youtube that think they need to analyze and fix the problem. Don’t ask me why. After getting my road down to dirt and gravel of course we had to get another 3 inches of snow last night. That was system snow. We have lake effect scheduled every day for the seven day forecast. I think in these parts weather can’t be easily predicted so they just stick the possibility of lake effect on every forecast.
What kind of carburetor? What engine?
I don’t have an easy fix for you. I just brought a 2006, honda clone, generator back to life. $50 on craigslist. Someone left probably a full tank of fuel in it years ago. I cleaned it out @&#~!. I put a $10 filter on it. Works fine now. Everything I read and all my experience tell me never, but never store engines with fuel in them.
Rindert
This is the snowblower Bruce. I bought it 4 years ago for $1099. I think inflation has been a problem in our economy.
This is the carb. I will be ordering this rebuild kit for future problems
951-05389 Carburetor for Troy-Bilt 683-WU 683-WUA 357cc Engine | eBay.
Tom, if you take off the air cleaner apparatus and expose the choke end of the carburetor, you can spray carb cleaner into the left side passage. This passage goes directly to the three little off idle fuel passages that may be the cause of your governor hunting. It’s a minimally invasive procedure.
Not supposed to snow on Friday Bruce. I’ll try the choke side option then and report the results. You must have a good camera.
Because there is a lull in activity here lately I’ll fill the void and present a lesson in the perils of frugality. Pulling my long splitter through the brush last year I rammed the suction hose from the oil tank to the pump and broke the hose and lost the four gallons of hydraulic oil in the tank. I went on Amazon and looked at hoses and there was one for 20 dollars and one for 39 dollars. Figuring a hose is a hose I bought the cheaper one. It was way thinner and flimsier than the original and I never could get it to quit dripping but since it was firewood season I kept using it and ordered the original equipment replacement to have on hand. Well in the 10 months the machine sat idle it drip drip dripped out all the hydraulic oil. Four gallons worth at 13 dollars a gallon. The other day I put the good hose on and bought four more gallons of oil, so to save twenty dollars on the hoses I spent $52 to replace the oil. Of course the $104 dollars of oil and $60 dollars worth of hoses would have not been necessary If I had been smart enough to realize going cross country pulling a log splitter was not a good plan.
It sounds like the fittings on it weren’t very good. A hose isn’t a hose either but they do have ratings on them.
Thanks to liabiity laws, it is illegal to crimp hoses without a certification and liability insurance… or at least that is my understanding.
We are in a thaw and finally warm enough to work on the snowblower outside. Pilot jet was completely plugged. Whatever was in it would not clear with torch tip cleaners but after about an hour of searching I found some old jet drills and there was only 4 left of the original set but unbelievably one was the right size to drill out the jet. Runs fine now. Amazing to think that a clogged tiny hole like that could cause so much trouble.
Great job! back when the hardware store actually carried small engine parts, my dad would just replace the needles for the jets. It was just easier then trying to get them clean because you can’t get all the varnish off. Drilling them works though. It wasn’t worth the time for a dollar. Now they have so many models, and the guy that worked on them died. I don’t think they even repair mowers anymore much less carry parts. Now it is actually not worth your time to do anything but just to replace the whole carb, unless you already have the drill. 
I’m certainly not the first to have thought of this, but I can’t find any discussion on the forum about using spark plug ceramic as a nozzel. Is it too fragile? Has anyone tried it?
Please excuse my off-topic comment.
Thierry
Hard for me to imagine how that would work. Wouldn’t the hole be to small?
Anyhoo, I think I remember someone telling me that Spanish porcelain was used.
Rindert
“Wouldn’t the hole be too small?” It all depends on the number of nozzles.
It’s hard for me to imagine how that would work. " Me too… !| 
I thought you were going to find a solution 
Thierry
I think silicone carbide aka hexaloy is the best. Thats what they make foundry crucibles out of.
Rindert
if you look on Ali Express you can see plenty of shot blast nozzles made from all types of exotic materials and most i have tried and they all did an amazing job as a charcoal nozzles ,so for a multi nozzle wood gasifier they would be perfect , just look for any that say Tungsten or carbide in the material mix from memory 10 years ago i paid about $13 AU each .
Try these Boron ones i used these types and they were great after 60 odd hours of run time no damage at all on charcoal .
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009301669468.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.14.41a22c47OjAzEZ&algo_pvid=b0bf57aa-bfae-4fa8-8219-1829cc6d5f5c&algo_exp_id=b0bf57aa-bfae-4fa8-8219-1829cc6d5f5c-13&pdp_ext_f={“order”%3A"21"%2C"spu_best_type"%3A"order"%2C"eval"%3A"1"%2C"fromPage"%3A"search"}&pdp_npi=6%40dis!AUD!17.62!9.69!!!11.49!6.32!%4021033d1217664567380541674efc28!12000048670480954!sea!AU!0!ABX!1!0!n_tag%3A-29910%3Bd%3A474e585c%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895&curPageLogUid=CGqCHUKRt8eY&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch|query_from%3A|x_object_id%3A1005009301669468|_p_origin_prod%3A
Dave,
Thanks Dave, that looks very interesting, but how do you attach these nozzles to the gasifier? They have neither threads nor flanges.
Just like the Hexaloy tubes Trigaux. Pipe nipples the same ID as the OD of the nozzle. Sometimes a little grinding with a rotary tool is necessary in the nipple if it is too tight.
