Woodrunner chevy

Thank you Goran.
So you don’t have a tap between the unit and the filter, doesn’t condensation form on the canvas when you stop the machine?
So it gets tight for a while before you get the heat up, on the next start?

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I haven’t noticed any trouble with condensing on the filter, maybe the double wall filter housing does most condensation, i have observed a harder (skorpa) on the ash and soot in filter ash container, along the periphery, which indicates some condensate dripping along the filter housing walls.
Ofcourse, this needs i always close secondary air and throttle after shut-down, or the woodgas shut-off valve under hood, otherwise gas can travel along the piping, leaving condense on the filter.

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Ok, then it will be a little easier to redo, if it comes to that.
How big a filter do you think is needed?
I looked at your old filter, there can’t be that much surface left to clean the gas on this.
Do you usually remove the filter and clean this?

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My old filter was 13m2, i never cleaned it, soot cake fell of when thick enough.


This is whats left of the old filter, 1,3m height, 10m folded.
Was it this filter you meant?

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Yes, exactly, there can’t be much left when it looks like this, right?
It sounds good if I don’t have to lift and clean, a little easier than with foam rubber.

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Aah, i had forgot that, that is a example of severe neglect to service/emptying the ash collector :roll_eyes:
Actually, there wasn’t very high resistance through the filter, even with more than half clogged.

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Can I use copper pipes as spacers in a hot filter, or does it corrode?

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Hi Jan, i think copper will do fine, copper is very resistant. Also it seems the hot and dry atmosphere in a hot filter seems to save on material.
Only material i would avoid is aluminum, but who knows? It may hold up well also? Maybe a matter of wood species used.

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I thought about the condensation, do you think it is better to insulate the hot filter, I have no insulation on the Iller, and it seems to work, but there is a lot of water at the bottom of the filter.
But if I insulate, I’ll probably have to make bigger coolers

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Insulation should be good to avoid some condensation, you could try to just wrap the filter in a cheap fire-blanket (brandfilt), some condensation shouldnt do any harm, most important is tempereture after filter reaches over 100°c, just one time each run is enough, this indicates the cloths are dry.
There could ofcourse be a lot of condensation in the bottom of filter, which stays cooler, this should do no harm, as long it don’t starts to boil of.
Infact, this could be a real advantage, as there are a small chance glowing particles set the soot on fire, after use, when oxygen can enter the filter, moist soot will prevent this, and also keep the soot in place, not swirling up to the filters again.

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A little over a month now, wife and i only drive on wood, this week has been back to work, so it’s time to fix wifes car, so we have one each, (her’s not powered by wood).


The Chevy has done both work and just “driving around” and run good mostly.
This week i’ve used it everyday to work and home, 37miles each day, and it has run worse than ever, bad gas, 50mph top speed, high temp after gasifier, but always start easy, and nice idle. Ofcouse i suspect the worst, must be a hot leak, cracked hearth, only one month driving after repair.

Yesterday i put in a bag of charcoal with the wood, it run good, but almost home it ran really weak, gas temp raised to dangerous levels.
Today i poked all the way down to the grate to feel- no charbead at all after restriction!
My conclusion: as i run on really bad wood, very soft, rotten, only softwood, my driving to work on 90% bumpy dirtroad crushes the reduction char so small the gas just carries to the filter, on smooth road this hasn’t happen, only before when using hard wood, and driving fast for long distances.
As i don’t use an “active” grate, no gas needs to pass the grate, i think i can make some kind of “grid” that forces the gas more throught the grate.
Going to check this out more tomorrow.

Flushing the coole the other week, seems the new filter works pretty satisfying, very little soot to be found, not as clean as with the glass-fibre fabric, but good enough.

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Goran, I believe that you will find an error that is causing you problems. My fuel is wood chips from various types of wood, mainly branches, there are many small twigs and bark fragments. Now I toroficiate it and it produces a lot of charcoal and wood dust, I fill the gasifier with this fuel. Strong gas is produced, yesterday and today I crushed stones, the tractor works in the range of 1200-1500 revolutions, but the drive requires a lot of torque, which it maintains without problems. I check several times with a stick what is happening inside the gasifier and I always feel a loose state or emptiness below, which according to the standards would not be good, but the gas is strong and barely reaches 100°C at the exit, obviously the conversion is taking place in the gaseous state below. Here are pictures of the pipes on the radiator, the inside is gray, no soot or tar. :woozy_face::thinking::grin:


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Hi Tone, yes, i believe you found out the way, a well built gasifier should work with almost no reduction space, :smiley:
But mine is built like the “modernized” imberts, cylindrical hearth, and i built it almost to shallow, which i think would need a little better quality wood than i use at the moment, imberts burn out their oxidation or reduction zone very fast, mostly due to fuel bridging.
Anyway, i couldn’t let go of the problem, so out i went, to check it up.


I started with emptying the filter, it’s little cumbersome to reach behind the gas cooler, my intention from the beginning was to make the cooler so i could swing it out of the way, but it become to complicated, i can empty it with a small rake, for stoves.
Or use a long, narrow nozzle for my shopvac.

There was some soot/char in the filter box. :smiley:

Not so much in the gasifier ash-room (pic became darker than i thought)

Inspection hatch between hearth and grate, not so much of a charbed.
But no signs of white ash, which seems promising.
Well, i dug out like a “funnel” in the wood, all the way down to restriction, and filled with good charcoal, which i bumped down with the poker rod.
And: NO, i don’t feel “cool” with my big, shiny hopper, i definitely need longer arms… :crazy_face: i smell like well smoked sausage now…

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So no white ash is a very good sign Goran. The char/ash looked very fine to me. Was there any popcorn and bigger sizes in your dump out. If so screen it out and try mixing 10% of it to the wood you are burning. The rocket fuel just might help.
The soft woods are hard to burn, I have had the same problems in my WK Gasifier when burning my soft poplar wood. Had to mix in my hard cherry wood to get good wood gases.

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Hi Bobmac, i have a box with piece of mesh on top i use to sift the ashes, and dump back the charcoal, only bad thing i forgot to put the ashes under roof, it rained this morning, just a ash-cake at the moment, it think it dump it back in the hopper as is, a little at a time.
Interesting you mention poplar, i’ve run almost 90% balsam-poplar this last week, not good wood for gasifiers, very “soft” and lot’s of “mushy” bark.
I chunked 8 bags today, with juniper, oak (floor-boarding) hazelnut-bush, and some softer wood mixed in.
Will see if it runs better tomorrow, else i have to disassemble the gasifier again, good thing i improved some stuff, to make it easier to “open up”. :smiley:

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Excellent Tone, as always. Sorry Goran, but I would like to know how much sood/tar is acceptable ? I had a run time of four hours last weekend and ended up with almost two liters crap. No separation after 48 hours.
What do you guys experience?

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Joep, I guess we would like to know where it’s collected. Condensation from the hopper - no problem. If it’s collected downstream it should contain nothing but water and soot, which will separate.

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Thanks, there is no hopper :grinning: All down stream and coming from the cooler. Tar can be present there and doesnt separate?
I wont make this conversation long or switch to the drizzler attempts topic, sorry

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The chevy has run better this week, much of the lack of power could be due to missing on one or two cylinders, (i’ve heared it better now when i fixed some exhaust leaks, two holes big enough to let tennis balls in on the mufflers upside, and the inspection only put a “good to know” notice)
Well, im going to put in new sparkplugs when i can afford, and change out the wires, but i got a feeling it’s bad valve lifters, which becomes this winter project.
This week i had an electrical fire in my remote start-up device, the pump that injects lighting fluid started running constantly, with lit gasifier, man! it ran like a race-car on woodgas with vapourized kerosene! True, i havent experienced something like that, but it felt no good, explosion hazard…


Some work yesterday between rain showers…

Some wires melted, and two relays toasted, i found the cause to be the wires for the igniter glow-plug, touching gas outlet pipe, melting and shorted, (the only wiring i left un-fused :roll_eyes:, well, it’s corrected now.

Ofcourse the wire-fire toasted my remote reciever. Luckily i had some others to make one functional out of.
A lot of unnecessary additional equipment that can cause trouble you say? Well it seems i want it this way, maybe im some kind of “self-torturer”? Otherwise i probably wont chose to repair cars and trucks for a living? :wink:
Or fixing old chainsaws… two-strokes Are the most horrible things to make running… :crazy_face:

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Thought i post this here also, as it’s soon time for a traditional “fun-run” for mopeds nearby, i wanted to attend, on the charcoal-gas moped, this has been standing for some time, because it leaks oil pretty bad, i tried to patch it with our Swedish eqvivalent to J-B weld, but no success.
Last weekend i decided to pull the engine out of the frame, and do a SERIOUS cheat-quick-fix (im to lazy and cheap to disassemble the engine, and my ac tig welder are’nt up and running).


There is a crack next to the lower engine mount, probably due to chain running beside in the past.
I welded up a “bowl” as a reinforcement, this is bolted down with the engine mount and 2 of the engine block bolts, it also is held by the plate for the bottom engine shield/mount.

I put engine “nose down” for a week, to let most oil in front of transmission/crankcase, then cleaned it up, and grinded the surface.
Put on a layer of “seal and bound” compound, this is both flexible and gas/oil resistant.

Sealing compound.

The reinforcement bowl bolted down, pretty over-worked redneck repair, what do you think? :rofl:

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