Chevrolet s10 4.3

Yes, you might be right, s10s are known for taking a lot of petrol, and then I have spruce and willow, and JO, I think ,mostly drive birch.

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Iā€™ve found out on spruce it almost doubles the consumption against birch, itā€™s not only the energy content that counts, itā€™s much the charbed too.
My favourite fuel is a mix: birch 70% spruce/pine/others 30%
The spruce gives soft, fast reactive charcoal in the bed, helps up acceleration/fast changes in gas consumption, the birch gives a hard, stable, fuel efficient charcoal bed.
Just my theories, but much seems to prove it, one of my earlier gasifiers was very sensitive to constipation, no spruce for that, only birch, ran well, somewhat slow response, very fuel efficient.
Edit: Iā€™ve owned a s10 myself, 10years ago, only gasoline, i had thoughts about ā€œgasifyingā€ it but wife wanted it as hers, it was a real fuel drinker, impossible to drive under 1,2liter/10km, and if you drove a little harderā€¦

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I love it when you guys talk ā€œdirtyā€ confirming my loaded stationary engine ran observations.
Wood species does matter a lot down in the made in place char bed.
S.U.

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Hi Jan, yes the type of fuel you burn is important. My hard cherry wood vs. my soft type of poplar wood is very different. I can not just use the poplar wood makes good gas but to much ashes and a lot of tar in the water/tar condensation tank. My charbed will get consapaided with ashes and fines of soft charcoal. The cherry wood makes great hard and larger charcoal for a great charcoal bed. On both types of wood I burn bark and all. Lots of thick bark on the poplar wood and it is fiberis and stringy. We all have to figure out on each gasifier webuild the right combination of wood to burn. Not all WKā€™s, imbertā€™s, and other types of gasifiers are same. We just have to think of them as woman in nature. You find out what they like to do and feed them what they like to eat that is healthy for them. So it does go back to the building and type of gasifier you build. And also the engine too that you are making gases for.
Your charcoal looks just fine to me and like mine. BBB, DOW, SMEM, HWWT.
Bob

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What everyone said :smile:

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When I got out with the shit, it had pulled together the filter barrel, so probably tight in the unit.

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Thanks for the ride Jan. Do you have a knob to control the idle speed faster?

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No, Iā€™m a bit lazy, and usually I donā€™t need to change the idle that much

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My S-10 seems to need a faster idle to keep the gas production up, especially at start up.

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Jan, Iā€™ve found on my rigs they are more likely to stall when letting go of the pedal if the charbed is tight or any other woodgas restriction like too much water (bubbler) in the condensation tank. It throws the mix off at sudden changes in demand.

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Good Morning JanA,
Here is a maybe why the problem after stting one hour then back to good woodgas - ash build up.
When it has been sitting charcoal consuming from leftover heat WITHOUT use flow the charcoal surfaces will be smothered in not flow cleared surface ash.
I see this in air shut down woodstoves.
Even seen this in open air burnt down wood forest harvest wood debris burn off piles.
Shake your grate to clear this?

Other say they must open hopper rod down after warm siting then going back to driving
Two; Maybes.
Steve Unruh

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Yes, you are probably right about that, there will be ash on the coal so it will take a while before the reduction takes off. :+1:

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Thought of one thing, then there should be soot on the coal even in the morning, so that shouldnā€™t be the cause?

Yes true.
But everyone experienced cold-system in the morning do first rod down the upper. Then shake a bit the lower before liting off.
Then suck draw very hard to warming up. This would clear the surface ash. Disturb and fracture the char chunks exposing new faces. Collapse and compact any voids that were made system sitting un-demanded, unworked.

Are you also after your one hour hot shut down upper rodding and grate shaking too?
Some do this automatically. You see this in old films of gasified trucks.
S.U.

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In the morning I make a small hole down to the coal, so I can get the lighter down, 1" or so, nothing more.
I have tried making many holes down through the coal to the grate when it is hot, but notice no result from it.

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So Jan are you saying that you think your charbed or coal is to tight or restrictive for the air/gases to go through? What are you pull on vacuum after the grate?
When my charbed or coal is to restrictive I will use larger pieces of wood and harder wood. I will give my grate a shake before light up too sometimes.
Before I light up my gasifier, I always use my poking rod and push it down to the grate and into the holes of the grate to feel the charcoal and ash to feel how loose or tight it is. This tells me on what size wood I will use on start up.
One time well more than one time I have let my char/ash build up to much below the grate and it backed up into my cross over into the dropbox. Lol oops. Clean out my ashes/charcoal more often fix that problem.
Bob

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I cleaned the unit last night, I had almost nothing under the grate.
I donā€™t think there is that much ash in the charcoal above the grate either.
But it seems that the spruce wood is getting denser, although it is not visible.
I did reduce the holes on the grate a little before, but I think the small thing shouldnā€™t affect that much.
I remembered that you used to make a lot of holes down to the grate, so I tried yesterday, but it didnā€™t get any better, didnā€™t remember to check the vacuum though.

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When my vacuum get up to the 30 inches of water or 0.074725 bars or 2.206677 mercury and this is at like half throttle or less on my pedal, I know I am plugged up some where in my gasifier system. I will clean everything out real good. That charcoal/ash can plugged in a lot of places. Flushing out with water is the best way from the cooling rails to the piping to the engine compartment.
Bob

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Test after cleaning, and now it works as usual again

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Jan, thank you for the video. Glad everything is running good again.
Bob

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