So this air mass flow sensor will just shut the fuel down and if you turn the fuel pump off no fuel. Okay I just need to put a control valve after the sensor for the air and find a spot for the char gas to come in before the throttle body. When the char gas valve closed and fuel is turn on everything is back to normal. I like it. Thanks this will work I am sure.
Bob
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No I have my fuel shut off at the injector fuse and fuel pump fuse. The MAF I don’t touch at all.
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Okay so my cooling rail is going to be very Bass Ackwards. Just one run, solidly welded together. Starts from passenger side front corner, runs back and across the tailgate, and then back up to driver side front corner before it turns down for the filter. The way I figure is, right at the tail gate is a lot of wind resistance, and that also means that section of cooling rail will get some seriously cold air. My truck has a pretty heavy rake since it’s never hauled anything seriously overweight besides my fat butt, the rear end still sticks up like it should. If any condensation would appear I think it’ll show up near the tailgate area and run down to the filter body. I’m going to put in a false bottom on the ammo can filter just made with some rabbit wire. Then hay and then some sawdust. Filter exit will be covered with some screen material to prevent sucking up sawdust, or I can make a little canvas bag either way.
Since the filter will have a false bottom I’m going to make sure to paint the inside to keep from rusting. I might even spray the inside with Plasti Dip or some other spray sealant. Also going to install a tap for draining, I’ll probably check on it once a week.
If I find the sawdust is too heavy and chokes up my flow then I’ll go with hay for moisture and a canvas sack filter pleated up to gain surface area.
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Added an NPT elbow and a 90 degree rigid conduit section to the Gas Exit. It’s pretty good for cab height. Going to bridge this and the cooling rail with some flex exhaust. Not a very long portion though. Unless I find some high temp 2" ish sized heater hose, that would be a nicer find.
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@KristijanL I know I’ve asked about rising hopper temps for a downdraft charcoal gasifier, but do you remember how hot yours would get once it started to run empty? Does it get hotter than a raw wood setup or is it pretty similar, like 100°C once it’s almost empty. I’m trying to see if my mechanical engine coolant gauge will be okay for my hopper temp or if it will get too hot for the sensor. I also have a digital Exhaust Gas sensor as well but I’d rather use that for cooling rail temps.
The mechanical gauge goes from 130°F to 280°F, my gut tells me this is sufficient but I’d like to install the correct one the first time around.
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HI cody, ask bob mac if he thinks you should make the grate out of something more like 1/2" rebar , because by the time you load the unit with wood, and start pokeing a rod down too the grate, the grate is red hot at TIMES, it will most likely sink down ,and then eventuly brake away. easyer by far too fix now/ 1-PS how thick is your grate steel bars.? 2 are you putting a restrictor over your grate plate peice.
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It’s just using charcoal, won’t have a whole lot of rod poking. Maybe more like stirring.
If I add wood it’ll be a few chips or twigs to add some moisture mixed into the charcoal bag.
I’m going to add more bars to it to tighten the grate up.
Looks like 1/4" bars to me by the way or maybe 5/16".
The base will outlive the grate so I can always rebuild it with a rebar grate. Luckily since I went to these grease drums I can dive into the bottom of the barrel to change it out. I’m eventually going to add an ammo can hatch on the side for emptying out and cleaning the grate on a maintenance schedule. Insulate the lid of the can with welding blanket wrapped around ceramic wool to fill in the space like Bob does with his WK ash dumps.
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Forgot to mention there is no restriction
OK thanks, i dident realize you were going with charcoal, I dont have much knowlege building charcoal gasifier units YET. GOOD LUCK,ENJOY. caint wait too see your miles per load of charcoal, INTERESTING, keep up the good work.
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This one is pretty dang simple so I might not be able to get away with mixing wood or having super moistened charcoal. Matt has an advantage with his rectangle shaped bodies because it narrows the active zone and lets less tar slip by.
If I could find the right sized pieces of that hexoloy I’d make another one like a Mako with a ring of nozzles to get a more even plane of fire. I can only find the 1" ID and the 10mm ID stuff. Just 1 1" hexoloy is enough to get good velocity for my 4.3L V6. Makos had 14mm nozzles and only needed 4 to 6 of them depending on the engine. Not sure how many 10mm nozzles I would need for this engine.
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GOOD luck with it, sounds good enough, you got too try it too learn as you go sometimes. I just follow the book and build from have wood will travel ,book, if i get time i like build a charcoal gasifier from all the scattered tips up here at DOW,
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The only reason you might need a restriction opening is if the air by-pass and goes around the hot lobe. With your barrel unit it would be easy to put a round restiction plate in with a opening in the middle. Put ash in to seal up the plate edge inside the barrel.
Bob
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It wouldn’t even be that difficult. I could use a lip from a wheel welded to some plate and just rest it on the grate and backfill with ash. I’ll keep that in mind if I start to see tar on my bag filter. Just a bit of restriction could be the difference between requiring water drip and using easy made moistened charcoal and actually being able to take advantage of the water.
Cody, l had a capilary type wood boiler temp guage. Went up to 120c. It was sufficiant, once the hopper was empty the temp spiked fast from just sbout ambient to about 60c. Problem was, since the hopper was insulated, it never went down when refueled. The next hopper, it wuld spike again at 100c. The next at 120 and a fourth hopper will bake it.
Since you will have it out in the open you shuld be fine. Just position the probe so that it catches the radiating temp of the glowing char as fast as possible and it will work
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Sounds good. Mine is also a capillary type, small copper tube protected with a steel coil sleeve. I’ll place it opposite of the nozzle and about 6 inches higher, so that would be in the lower 1/3rd of hopper capacity. Now here’s to hoping it’ll be long enough to put in the cabin on my A pillar so I don’t need to look in the mirror! I have about 1.8 meters of lead so it should be fine.
If you can, put it on the top. Once a convection current occurs in the hopper due to low fuel it will show it, oppesed to it being low.
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Oh okay so near the lid, gotcha.
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Not to toot my own horn or anything but, I can lift this unit empty into my truck bed 
It doesn’t stick too far above the cab. I already have two bolt holes to mount the gasifier to the bed.
I might buy a 2" pipe union and hard weld this 90 degree pipe to the cooling rail. With a close nipple and the union it should be pretty darn close to level with the bed.
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For bracing I’m going to use one of my lock rings for these barrels, and it’ll be bolted to the side of the bed from that ring. That’ll help prevent side to side motion. I’m going to weld some tabs to the bottom and bolt it down there as well.
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Just paint the gasifier the same color of your truck red and it will be hardy noticed. You will not have to worry about making tar and the black that gets all over the hopper like a wood gasifer. Black is the only color for a wood gasifer in my opinion.
By the way how old are you Cody? I am going to be 70 this coming April 30th. My lifting days like that are over. Lol.
Bob
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