When I go to put the lid on, something is warped and I can’t tell where. I have to press down on one side and then palm strike all around for it to seat. Not sure what kind of springs would work for that, I think door springs would be too wimpy. You’d almost need trampoline springs to make sure it stays on tight
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If you are dealing with a out of round barrel or warped lid then I would go with the clamp type barrel ring then and hope it seals. If it is hard to seal up and you can get it sealed. Then I would find the smaller 5 gallon clamp seal bucket, and weld it on the top for filling the hopper.
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That’s what I was thinking, yeah. I can always make a Gary Gilmore type puffer top for the little lid.
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Did a test burn. It’s so odd. Cool beneath the nozzle layer but everything above is hot as hades. Hottest right below the nozzle on the same side as the nozzle. Right now I don’t have it at a 45 degree so it could be too close to the sidewall, but it was glowing hot right beneath and the paint is now gone right there. Exiting gas doesn’t feel moist but there’s lots of moisture in the cooling rail for the length of time I ran it.
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Got my 45 degree street elbow in. This makes the distance to the grate a bit closer but I have 21 feet of 2" cooling rail.
Got the trusty filter box in place.
Going to try another flare test. Only parts missing currently from the plumbing is my elbow running back over to the passenger side, and I need to get a PVC female threaded coupler to hook up the hose barb. I don’t want to cut any holes in the bed, the truck is still mint!
This is in super temporary “should I bother going to buy more 2” pipe" mode.
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Talk about super Stealth. You are just hauling a blue barrel in the back of the truck bed. Permanently. Put some tie down straps on to secure it and it will fool all of us.
Bob
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Get that video camera rolling Cody, You are getting close now the way it looks.
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And wouldn’t you agree Don, Cody will need some presliced lemon wedges too.
Bob
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Did a flare test. It’s super odd.
The cooling rail isn’t getting that hot, but the exit pipe to the filter box was almost too hot to touch! It’s most likely not cracking steam. I’m wondering if a naturally occurring ash funnel will form eventually.
It warped one of my super cheapo bilge blowers. Video uploading now. Very strong flare. Two blowers joined up.
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That sound at 4:40 sounds like the fire is traveling backwards down to the blowers. That is why the blowers got so hot. I had that a couple of times and melted the fan blades. Bummer!
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Well, when I get it plumbed up to the engine I’ll probably watch it like a hawk on the test runs. Need to stop by the hardware store and get a few fittings and fresh glue. I should have enough elbows though.
The bottom fan is what got messed up, probably because it was cinched down to that silicone adapter. Plastic got soft and it warped from the hose clamp.
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I forgot I should also note.
While the bottom of the gasifier was hot, it wasn’t burn the paint hot. I could hold my hand almost anywhere. I think when the nozzle was straight across it was simply too close to the wall. The street elbow extends it a bit. I can literally hold my hand on the gas exit right out of the gasifier with these two blowers pulling on it. I had it pulling for about 3 minutes, so 8 minutes total it was up to a good enough temp to start an engine I think. That tells me the nozzle isn’t too close to the grate. Hopefully it stays that way with it running the engine. I might paint a few bands around the pipes to see if they’re getting too hot when driving.
I also think my gasket wasn’t filled out entirely so I’m going to do another bead of silicone, cling wrap the rim again and just go overkill. I’d rather a little too much and have a good seal than to have an air leak.
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Hi Cody, if you had any kind of a air leak right before the blowers it could catch on fire there and burn. That might had been what Don noticed the sound change of the blowers.
Looking good so far, if the barrel does get to hot at the bottom. Just do a WK corragated roofing and sheet at the bottom part. Fill it with ashes. You will be good to go there.
Those are 2" cooling rail tubes you could put some flashing strips with a twist in them to make the gases spin throught the cooling rails giving more cooling.
Bob
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I also suspect an air leak, mostly because the PVC pipe running to the filter box isn’t glued or taped up at the elbow. Everything else is sealed up with couplers. I had a whole roll of gorilla tape but I couldn’t find it and couldn’t be bothered to hunt it down. I’m going to glue a stub of PVC to the other side and use one of the close fitting metal sleeved couplers right there.
One thing I like to do with elbows is to just leave long enough barbs of pipe to attach a coupler, that way I can move it around or reuse for another project. The stiff couplers hold onto PVC so well they actually will get stuck. They don’t wiggle either like the regular couplers because of their sheet metal sleeve wrapping around it. The couplers we use the most are actually made to fit Metal to PVC pipe for retrofitting.
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And of course as soon as I get the missing pieces it’s going to rain for the next two days. Supposed to be an inch tomorrow, so it might not be so bad that I can’t get some work done. Just can’t do any welding.
I get Good Friday off at this new job. It’s even a paid holiday!
Got the adapters and some rubber caps for clean outs. This portion will be the lowest point so I figured it would be a good idea to Tee it right there for draining.
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Forgot to take the picture. There’s no turning back now! Drilled a 2.625" hole in the headboard of the truck bed for my gas to route sneakily under the truck.
It’ll be PVC straight down, then a Tee junction with a clean out and drain cap, and the quick disconnect hose barb that will let me snake into the engine compartment behind the fender.
I had just a couple hours of no rain, so I got some of the PVC pipe glued up and the hole drilled out.
Tomorrow if it’s not a real bad downpour I might try to clean out the shop to get my mixing valve welded up. I should have a 2" coin that I cut out somewheres. When I was testing the engine with the last diagonal draft, I was just using a plastic gate valve.
I wonder if downsizing the intake tubing from 3" to the 2" PVC will hurt my performance on dino.
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Cody. How far are you from Biscoe? I have a buddy there I’ve been trying to get involved with WG for a long time.
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That’s about a 2 hour drive East of me. I live roughly 45 minutes West of Charlotte.
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Hole in the headboard won’t work, at least not for 2" pipe. Drilled out a hole in the bottom instead. The hole is a bit bigger than the OD of a 2" PVC pipe so I’ll probably wrap the pipe in duct tape to get the gaps sealed up and prevent the pipe from just banging around.
I’m getting this truck DOW before the end of the day.
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