Woodgas or not, I love that car.
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Pepe,
I’m glad you like it. I found out that the brass adaptor that was threaded into the nozzle broke off. I will extract the broken piece and replace with a thicker stainless steel nipple. Once I get my pick up repairs done, I’ll get back to the MG. Hopefully I’ll get back on the road soon.
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I just cleaned out the reactor and here are pics of the clinkers on my nozzle:
The poker easily removes them:
my reactor problem was caused by a brass reducer that broke off inside of my nozzle. I’m thankful that I have internal pipe wrenches:
I hope to fix this part and replumb my charcoal gas return line and flare circuit tomorrow.
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OK, Bruce, you got me. I had to look up internal pipe wrench. Darned if I haven’t passed up on these at garage sales because no knew what they were. Sure beats distorting/breaking a pipe with a pipe wrench. Learn something every trip to DOW.
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That’s pretty good Bruce , no wear on the holes from what I can see , I have noticed one thing on mine yesterday when I removed it again , because I had cleaned off all the clinkers around the holes last week and replaced it back into place , since then up too yesterday only a small amount of clinkers had built up around the holes and because my stainless pipe is less than 1 mm walled I can see where I have poked my wire up like you do its taken away some of the stainless so now the holes have chips out of them , still nothing to worry about yet though .
Dave
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thumbs up
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I took the MGB out for a 22 mile run today. Quick startup, good idle and enough power to go up and down hills on a country road in 3rd and 4th gear. But, lots of smoke. I was hoping that it might just be from setting for 14 years. When I returned and did a compression check I got 120, 120, 110 and 70 psi. So now I just have to work up the motivation for an overhaul. I have new flat top pistons that will give me a 12:1 CR. The syncro is out between 4th and 3rd gear so I’ll fix that at the same time. Maybe next year? Here are a couple of videos:
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Well done Bruce !
I bet you were so pleased to be able to have a drive in the old girl at last . Although its a shame about the smokey engine its not the end of the world and you have built one beautiful little charcoal baby .
If the engine has been sat around a while and not been run for a while , it could be worth having a look at some of the additives available for oil burning engines and stuck piston rings , valve seats/guides ect , worth watching a few youtube vids to see what you think .
Dave
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Congratulations Bruce .
I like it 
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Bruce,
Drive and enjoy it! Your excellent charcoal-making system and this well thought out MGB go well together!
Maybe find another MG engine, rebuild, swap and have a spare. 
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Dave,
I looked around on the net for stuff to free stuck rings. Acetone and automatic transmission fluid is most recommended. Marvel mystery oil also gets some good reviews. First, I drained and saved my good oil (with antique car ZDDP additive). I mixed up some MMO, ATF, acetone and engine flush. I poured this magic potion in the cylinder with piston coming up on compression. I fashioned an air compressor to spark plug thread adaptor and air blasted to push the penetrating mix past the rings. I also stuck a magnetic block heater to the engine beside the offending cylinder. I refilled the cylinder and will let it set for a week. After the wait I will take her for a run to heat up the engine real good then try air blasting the penetrating fluid again. Wish me luck. If that doesn’t work, I may try alternately cooling and heating the cylinder with CO2 and torch.
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My wife positioned herself at the takeoff end of the runway and videoed me taking off. When I got directly over her she gave a little giggle. I noticed your wife did a similar thing in your video. Common thought—boys and their toys. Just gotta love them!
Pepe
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That sound like a powerful concoction. Certainly hope it works. I am a fan of Rislone oil additive. I bought a '46 Ford flat head six and the guy that sold it to me told me, " If it sounds like a rod is going our, it is just a lifter. Put a quart of Rislone in it and warm it up and go drive it until the noise goes away.". It worked. I have put Rislone periodically in my cars since. Especially my wood gas truck — tar protection. TomC
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Bruce add some SeaFoam brand de-carbonizer to your mixture.
Continue top-down dosing.
In between treatments put some cheapest engine oil in, good spark plug out and cheapest in and just run the engine to fully warmed up. Snap rev up and down if at all possible to vacuum pulsate the rings too.
Allow engine off cool down.
Repeat. Repeat. Changing out the sacrificial oil as it darkens and “treatment” contaminated smells. change out the spark plug as it fouls out.
You are trading hands on time for quicker results.
WILL free up ring sticking with the up/down/in/out cylinder bore travel forced ring movements.
May still be an oil pumper though from actual rings and cylinder bore wears.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Edit: for running fuel you can use bled-in propane. A dry gas.
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Thanks guys for the encouragement on freeing the sticking rings. I have both Seafoam and Risolene on my bench and will add some of each to the mix. Good tip on putting cheap oil and plugs back in until compression improves. I’ll also try the Propane bleed. I’ve also heard that steam might loosen things up. I hope something works.
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I think a mixture of the above will certainly help , but engine runs will help no end helping to free up any seized up parts , maybe once a day around the block a few times for a week or so should help .
Dave
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I don’t know, but it seems like by the time you buy Rislone, Sea foam, acetone, and dextron, and then pour, pressure, strart, stop, heat, cool. You might be time and money ahead to do a quick and dirty ring job.
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Andy,
You are obviously a lot handier and luckier than me. You are probably right if everything went well. My few attempts at “quick and dirty” ring jobs have turned out to be long complicated and expensive. I’ve read that getting the pan off of the MG is a challenge if not pulling the engine. I do have some high compression pistons I bought cheap that I would like to install in if it comes to a tear down. This assumes that it has not been previously bored oversize and the cylinders are OK. Thanks for thinking about me. We will see. So far no bloody knuckles.
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Dave,
I like the idea of some short runs to break things loose. Might as well have a little fun.
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