No, that is from the new owner of the car, when Alf passed, his children and grandchildren was in a hurry to sell of his stuff, i remember seeing an ad on Blocket for the Chevrolet, and realized he wasn’t with us anymore.
This is often the sad reality today, he had so much stuff, historical and tools, alot of it just thrown in dumpsters.
The US government was not even that foolish. I worked replacing conveyor lines at the Detroit Tank plant when they switched from the M60 to the Abrams MI. Every piece of equipment used to machine the M60 was rust proofed, crated and sent to some underground storage facility, I think in Wyoming. From what I was told, everything used to build all post ww2 armaments are stock piled there, the idea being that if all manufacturing facilities were taken out by nukes these old machines could be pull out, set up and at least manufacture old, dependable weapons.
I made a little start-up video, ofcourse i burned down the wood a little to much at last run, so start-up took longer then normal
But thats the real woodgas- life ,usually when that happens, i use to start driving on gasoline, with blower running, then shift to woodgas after some km’s.
Goran, excellent presentation of the system, even for me it takes 5-10 minutes, but when I open the hatch on my new chimney, the system heats up faster because the steam does not cool the process. If you get a chance, make a video about the shutdown, I would appreciate it. Do you vent the gases coming out of the hot gasifier through that tube where you have the ignition electrodes? You are using a pressure blower that supplies air to the nozzles, right?
Thanks Tone, a shut-down video it’s gonna be
I let the gasses vent out through air intake, i used the chimney before, manually, but for now i just shut the engine off, the after-gassing smokes out the air-intake, which is placed beside the chimney.
Yes, pressure blower, inline with air-intake.
Thank you, Göran! Great video! Impressive set of automation.
Thanks JO, yeah i like this automation, if i let it cool of, and poke it, and refill in the evening before, im able to start up the gasifier from the kitchen, while taking a morning cup of coffee
But the VERY best thing is: if i park it, for example on a supermarket parking lot, curious people use to check out the truck, if they get too close, touching and like, i can activate the valve and blower from a distance, this is really fun, they look all around, almost running from the truck, in the believe the did something…
One time a older guy got almost dragged away by his wife, -You touched something!! No! I was just looking… it started automatically?!!
Ha! While many of us have a bit of the The Trickster in us . . . . some have more.
GorenK. please also show if you have manual individual active activation switches too for a hands-on command control.
Remote batteries do go weak. The remote itself can die. The receiver develop habits of its own.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Hi SteveU, i was hoping no one asked that question i have all those controls, not so fancy though, kind of a semi-temporary-permanent solution
The green wire is +12v, if brown wire is twisted contact with this, flare valve opens, blower runs, and glow-plug gets power.
If blue wire touches green, a dose of lighting fluid is pumped in

This bypasses the remote, if everything else is working.
This wires (use to be stuffed under the seat) controls /activates every function separately, there are also some wiring for future feedback led’s.
Bad pic. I can easily unhook the valve actuator, for manual control.
The “pyro-starter” is attached with a v-band clamp, i had a wing-nut on it earlier, for easy opening, if not working, im able to put something good burning stuff down in the tube for lighting.
Otherwise i just show a pipe down to the nozzle level, dropping some storm-proof matches down the pipe.

Exelllant response and good showing all of this GorenK.
I have nightmare memories of a very embassasing time in front of people watching, some officials when a brainiacs developed digital PLC controller did not like the hotels Grid-fed-out power. Would not work at all. I suspect there was a failing BIG motor, somewhere inside affecting that circuit. Volts and frequency was O.K. I did not have an occilscope in my back pocket to see wave clutter, chattering.
Took him and me Both reaching in manipulating to go-back to a development-remembered-manual operation get a very fancy expensive wood gasifier lite up, and operating into good flare.
I’d said to go with a 12vdc based PLC system and then just let any feed charge up a sealed lead-acid buffering power supply battery.
Ah . . .was considered too old of 20th Century thinking.
S.U.
Still funny
Thank you for the movie and pictures, I really enjoyed watching
Thanks for sharing this video. I really liked the in depth explanation of your system. That wireless remote is an awesome idea, I may try something like that for my blower switches.
I tried looking to see what sort of valve you’re using for the flare. Is it a standard steel ball valve or is it a gate valve?
I’ve been seeing some stainless ball valves but it says their maximum temperature threshold is 400°F, I guess because they have some sort of plastic rubber seal.
It makes a lot more sense now seeing you are using your blower in the push style, prevents it from getting nasty. Also easy to push the gas to the engine for a No Gasoline start.
Also you don’t have a valve to shut dirty gas going to the filter prematurely? I guess it’s more likely to flare out following least resistance.
Thank you Bronlin, yes the remote is practical, and there are cheap ones available today, with a remote the size of a common car key, also programable for toggle function, one push on, one push off.
I probably go with one of these when my remote dies.
Hi Cody, you are correct, the gas takes the easiest route, through the flare valve, many uses a shut of valve before filter, but i think the amount of gas going that direction is neglible, anyways, i don’t had any trouble.
The valve is a stainless steel industrial ball valve i found in a dumpster, it’s ptfe/teflon plastic sealed, rated for 175(?) °c constantly, 260°c/500°F short term use, no troubles yet when start-up it seldom reaches more than 100°c/212°f.
And for the blower: it sure getting nasty, all after-gassing (smoke) goes through the blower when shut-down, but it’s heavy duty, old dust blower from a big metal grinder, and i drilled a small hole (1/4") at it’s lowest point, some moisture dripping out that way.
Enjoyed it Goran, thanks. Especially the valve actuator. For future project it might be easier to use Belimo’s? Must be around in your place too. Haha but nothing beats the feeling of scaring strangers with that valve. . Your beard cant hide your smile in that case.
Thanks Joep, i have saved a lot of Belimo actuators, but everyone is 240 or 24 volts, i got one 12 volts, but it only operates at ac by some reason (no built-in rectifier, just ac motor) i had some ones i could pretty easy replace the motor, but they don’t had the built-in end limiters.
Edit: the 24 volts one arent strong enough to open the valve when cold, at only 12 volts.
Hi all
Today i did some cleaning/maintenance on the truck, so i snapped some pic’s.
As there has been some talking about bridging lately, i thought it could be good to document this, when it’s very obvious whats going on.
I’ve noticed some varying power lately, which really corresponds with the temperature of outgoing gas.
Here it’s visible how only the wood-chunk’s in the center is falling down easily, the wood in the periphery grabbing the hopper walls, desperately, to avoid falling down to the hot place.
Here it’s clear the chunks is glued to the bottom funnel.
These two pictures i find interesting, it shows clearly how the chunks are glued in the front part of gasifier, which is always cooler due to wind drag. This is after i’ve started emptying the gasifier from the center, the chunks in the back fell down pretty easy by themselves.
Well, after a cleaning like this it use to run ok for a while again.
Now some pic’s of the filter, i was curious how it looked.
This is a wiew from upper lid, this shows how the soot-cake builds up, and falls of due to it’s weight and vibrations.
Conclusion: this stainless steel mesh holds a thinner soot-cake than the old welding blanket filter, but not a big difference.
And yes, i should really empty the filter more often, but i am lazy.

Goran, good report, then it is good to keep the storage tank at a slightly higher temperature, you can also see that the raw wood sinks directly into the hot zone, I am not used to this either with my gasifier, especially now after changing the “heart” charcoal is formed quite high above hot zone. Yesterday, the tractor worked for several hours, so I brought home a load of wood already on the “reserve”, when the temperature of the gasifier already started to rise, well, there was still enough charcoal, but the “baked tar” peeled off nicely from the wall.
Regarding the filter, I have only one question, wouldn’t it be better if the bags were facing upwards and the direction of gas flow was from bottom to top, so the gas pressure would inflate the bags?
Ha, this might be a question I can answer. No, because the filter will get clogged from the inside. This way it is self regulated, no cleaning means more pressure loss, but easy to shake off on the outside. All upside down might be what you mean, but airflow is best from outside to inside.