Hi Gary,
I’m just curious, did you try cleaning/ sandblasting the plugs and trying them again? Thanks,
Pepe
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Hi Pepe, Well, the Ranger is back on the road and it isn’t. Explanation. The plugs were getting wet so I put in another set I had laying around. They all fired so put them back in and now I start the Ranger on chargas. It takes about five minutes to get the chargas rich enough to flare and start the engine. Once the engine is started, it is easy to flip on the gasoline fuel pump and get started down the road. The gasifier still needs a mile to warm up and get all the “bad” air out of the system. I’ve had some issues with loss of power but that was caused by a wet wool filter. Part of the problem here was cold damp air.
I also installed a pulse width modulator (PWM) to decrease voltage to the fuel pump. Still playing around with this device and only used it once so far and the results were not satisfying, Maybe I wired it wrong?
Last night I pulled the rear brake off to free up the parking brake. Over an hour later I had the drum off 
The adjustment screw was frozen so I could not back the brakes off to get it over the ridge on the drum. Hope to have the emergency brake cable freed up and new brakes back on, (Some of the brake hold down pins were rusted off too)
Gary in PA
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Hi Gary,
Thanks for the reply, walk through and analysis. I think brakes are first on my last thing I want to mess with list.
Season’s Greetings,
Pepe
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Gary did your buy that truck from someone in Wisconsin? Sounds like a typical brake job up here. I am hoping that you get all the bugs worked out with you system. I am interested in building a smaller vehicle. TomC
Hey Gary, I’ve been following you on Youtube, and was delighted to find you discussing your gasifiers here! You mentioned a nozzle free intake earlier on this thread. Could you elaborate? I’ve just begun to design a gasifier for my commercial size walk-behind mower and am hoping to keep it as simple as possible without damaging the engine.
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Welcome @CoryW.
You’re probably going to want to look at Gary’s smaller charcoal gasifier, the Simple-Fire, which can be found here: Simple-Fire I believe there’s PDF plans in the files/thread as well.
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Thanks Brian, that’s exactly what I’m planning, but when he mentioned not using a nozzle, it sounded like something that could be incorporated into his simple fire design.
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Hey guys, Time to give you a status update on the 2004 Ford Ranger. Right now it is sitting in the driveway awaiting some upgrades. The rear brakes were fixed over the Christmas vacation when I wasn’t feeling too sick to work on them, Fired it up to go back to work on Jan 4 and it just did not run well. Needed to use gasoline to help it along getting to work and then used gasoline to get back home, I found some water collected in the low spots of the hoses which impeded the flow of chargas to the engine, However, I do not think it was a total blockage. So what else could be the problem???
I’m also making an oil bath final filter to see if it can eliminate any soot reaching the throttle body, The gasifier was emptied and I found a small hole burned in the side of the fire pot. That should not have affected the gas quaility, but now I want to rebuild the fire pot and tuyere. Am thinking of making the unit a little higher to increase the amount of charcoal the unit can carry and therefore increase my driving range.
In the mean time, gasoline is CHEAP so the push to get this project done quickly is not as urgent. I’m also building a kinetic log splitter and that project has been taking up prime floor space for over a year now and has to get done!!! and moved out.
Here is a picture looking into the gasifier at the firepot and tuyere at the bottom, There is several hundred miles on this unit and you can see the ash has built up around the tuyere. Every time I load the gasifier, I use a long rod to break any ash located over the tuyere. This ash can then fall down into the collection area and dumped.
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How about some pictures, and details on the log splitter? thanks, Al
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I have a question for you Garry. You dont seem to have any gas cooling unite on the Ranger. How hot does the gas and filter get?
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I believe that the later charcoal gasification processes are so endothermic (absorbing heat to reduce CO2 into CO) that the gas exiting the reactor is fairly cool without any needed extra cooling.
I think Gary once said that he knows his charcoal is running low when the gas leaving the reactor gets above 100F (37C) or so. Don’t quote me on that number, it’s just a rough memory.
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Wonder if that is only true for an updraft sistem like Garys becouse my crossdraft gas gets quite hot at the exit…
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My guess is that is the reason folks were saying that 20cm wasn’t really enough space/charcoal to fully reduce the combustion gases from the nozzle area. I would think that with a larger space of charcoal between the nozzle and the exit, that a cross-draft would also have low exit temperatures.
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Mine runs about 120f but still cool it some before the plastic tubing. At first it runs hotter but after it warms up and the engine is running strong the gas cools down.
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Well that is interasting! Tells alot of whats going on in the heart at a cold start!
I just cant understand one thing. CO2 reduction can only hapen in a about 700C + enviroment. If the temp gets lower the reaction stops right? Doesent that mean that the gas at the edge of the reduction zone is always 700? How is it possible to cool it down to 50* then? Does the gasifier walls in a updraft sistem and the fuel bed cool the gas so much?
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My charcoal might be a bit wet because it’s about four years old. Just no time to make new charcoal. So the moisture might get cooked out in the beginning of operation carrying the heat with the humid gas. As it drys out the temp drops.
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I think Jeff is right. Dry gas can’t hold a lot of heat energy. No mass to carry it. Temps can be high but the amount of heat energy is low.
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Hey guys, will try to answer some of the questions. The log splitter is nearly done. Some pictures when finished and running on chargas. Look for it under its own topic.
My exit gas stays relativley cool until the depth of charcoal over the reduction zone is getting low, then the temps climb. My cut off temp is around boiling (212F) on the cyclone inlet. If I open up the gasifier at that time, I will see glowing coals meaning I am losing the ability to reduce the CO2. Time to refill.
A cross fire gasifier usually has a short distance between the nozzle and gas outlet. This means a lot of hot chargas will be exiting the gasifier and need cooled. With my system, the hot chargas has to move through at least one and up to two feet of small diameter charcoal before it can exit the gasifier, This charcoal is a very good insulator and captures the heat. As noted the CO2 reduction happens at 700C but that hot reaction is well insulated by lots of charcoal. As the hot CO leaves the area of reduction, it’s heat is absorbed by the charcoal. This makes exit chargas from an updraft style charcoal gasifier relatively cool. (until the charcoal bed is lowered allowing hot gases to escape)
As Jeff relates, if you leave charcoal around for a year or so in the humid climate of an area like PA, it will absorb water. I too had the same issue and found water condensing in my pipes. Fresh made charcoal did not do this.
Enough for now,
Gary in PA
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The charcoal bed realy looks like an amazing insulator. Does the engine alsow start to loose power at that point?
I just measured my gas at about 120c at the outlet of the crossfire gasifier at full engine power so looks like reduction goes all the way. Tryed to run the engine without cooling water and it ran ok. my filter got to maybe 40c but it is alsow worth mentioning the outside temp is about -10*c so some cooling will still be neaded at least at summer time.
Alsow put that theory to the test and the gas was actualy hotter (or carryed mere energy with it) when useing too much steem injected in the heart.
Thank you all for the interating ideas! (and sorry for a bit of an offtopic)
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Not in this case. The damp charcoal is on top and after the reaction zone (hearth). Just drying out the fresh charcoal added.
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