Anyone in North Carolina currently DOW? Shout out from Greensboro!
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I am a tad out of the direction… but i like the pictures…
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Copy paste.
You have abig hopper there! Can we get some technical details on the whole build?
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Wow KyleD
You have been doing your researches, readings, and then applying alright.
Nice, BIG, rational gas flows piping. Rare to see on a first system.
So, is this your first system?
Regards
far-out Left-coast tree-farmer Steve unruh
My twin brother and I have researched the woodgas topic for a long time. Since 2007 maybe? Finally built our gasifier in 2012. Only thing wrong was the hearth size ratio was a bit too small. Old straight six had a hard time under any load. Haven’t touched it since we both headed off to college. Sold the truck, moved to North Carolina to raise a family and now the gasifier is resting in a barn waiting patiently on my grandfather’s property in Ohio. So taking what we learned from the first one I’m looking forward to my next build. To be honest, in regards to “technical details”. There are none. Just welded up what felt right in the spirit of Imbert. But I can say the hearth was maybe a 5" pipe that’s 7" long with 5" between the top of tube and bottom of nozzles.
All I can say is I believe we have performed well when we were still sceptical of woodgas. But now we have drove a '79 ford down the road (without gasoline at all) that’s all we needed from such a slap together, one weekend, gasifier project.
My next gasifier feels like it’s always a few weeks away from completion. But my butt is dragging…
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I like the grate shaker idea!
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Yeah, metal heim joint thru the sidewall of the case to a window wiper motor to actuate it back and forth. All on a timer, Or when you need it the “actuator” is also on a over ride switch if the vacuum gets too high. Transfer rod was sealed in a packing gland when it goes thru the gasifier housing. Worked well and didn’t leak. The grate is 3/8th of an inch and worked well also. Slid on the angle iron with no problems. I was surprised haha
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Good feedback.
I believe you have correctly figured that your hearth active volume is too small.
Keep your outer housings.
Make a bigger/taller inner hearth “fire-tube”. Read here on the DOW for what others have found the need to use.
You appear to have drop-down “J” air nozzles? These can be tuned for height; end protrusion; and exit diameter.
Your restriction opening Floor can be a drop-in plate overlapping a perimeter wall solid welded ledge. Then changeable tuneable for height and center opening.
The either 240, or 300 CID engine in this pick up will never be a ball-of-fire in that heavy chassis. Woodgasing at least manually wire back the exhaust heat flapper to-bypass. Woodgas you do not want intake manifold heating. Read here on the DOW and manual cable control in some more running ignition distributor timing advance.
Regards - from the Cascade mountains to you
tree-farmer Steve unruh
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I’m honored Steve Unruh.
If my memory serves well since I haven’t worked on the gasifier since 2012…
Yeah it has drop down Jay’s (1" pipe maybe?) which are adjustable for various heights with couplers twards the top of the hopper. The nozzles could be threaded in at different lengths and sized accordingly with pipe caps drilled to size. (Keep in mind that the pictures provided is of various stages of our build and not of the final product, its just ones that’s has survived from 5 years ago)
We concluded to use interchangable throats for a good tuned flow with different engine demands. But that’s mostly where we left off for the gasifier. Figured that we should leave it to put what we learned into a more stable build with no weekend rush job haha. I really love how it’s like a shrine to our first try to woodgas, and how it worked better than we could imagine. Even tho it had it’s hiccups. And we ran a straight six that was 30 years past wore slam out anyhow.
Ohh we made a bracket to adjust timing by hand and welded adjustable bump stops to both extremes of retard and advance, checked out with timing light and the works when setting the bump stops. So we just fine tune somewhere in the middle as we drove and knew we weren’t going to go way out of range. Worked well on that end.
The carb was made from a junk, gutted out single barrel, hole drilled the side to accept the woodgas piping and pow, did the job. Had throttle, choke plate to adjust vacuum on woodgas and did fine. The quick warm up butterfly is what I think your referring to, it was rusted out and removed before this project went under way, and no egr, So that was easy. Never backfired from high intake temps. Which is weird cause the two manifolds are on top of each other. But hey, I’ll take what I can get.
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Kyle,
I’m located in Oxford, NC, and have been working with Gary Gilmore’s SimpleFire charcoal gasifier since September, I just finished one for a Toyota Corolla which I’m planning to post to driveonwood.com perhaps by the end of the week. I’m located about a quarter mile off I-85 at exit 206. Plan to visit if you travel this way.
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Sounds great! Been a few months since I got back on this forum. Busy with my gasifier and following the Bandit Big Rig Series as a team mechanic. I’ll definitely need to see your setup soon. Any way to send me an address or we can text? I’ll be in contact with you soon since I have a break from racing these next few months.
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