I’m 28, but I was mostly talking about how light this setup is.
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Okay, you are in your prime of life good for you. Yup no problem when I was that young. Lol.
Now I need a Harbor freight gantry crane. Used it today to lift my gasifer. I could take off the welding table and put in on the ground but not lift it back up and put on the table again.
Bob
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I’m definitely glad I found that tractor crane. I’m going to need it if I build anything remotely as heavy as a WK.
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Had a thought today.
I can just make a whole new snorkel now that I know a 3" Fernco will fit it. That way I won’t be make a really risky cut on something that costs 3 digits.
I can put in a brass nipple for the hose going to the breather/PCV. It’ll just take 3 Fernco 3" elbows and some PVC. I can still attach the butterfly WK style in the PVC since all it has to do is hold the rod.
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Good thinking there Cody.
Bob
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I’ve been looking into the Mercruiser swap for the intake plenum again. It’s more simple than I thought.
It uses the same amount of wires in the injector connection, the only difference is the fuel pressure is a lot higher. You either have to tune with the computer or use a Corvette pressure regulator to dial it down. Glad to know there’s a drop-in mechanical way to regulate.
This might mean I can use higher blended ethanol fuels as well since more fuel pressure means more fuel, tune it in at the right pressure with the Corvette regulator and use an AFR gauge as my guide.
The other modification necessary is you have to tap a hole for your brake booster and make a gasket for your throttle body because the Mercruiser uses an O Ring seal on the throttle body, while the Automobile throttle uses a plenum mounted O Ring. No big deal just shape a card gasket.
I will hold off adding a gasifier to the Sierra until I do this mod. I’m uneasy about an intake event with the plastic one.
Just need to save up for the plenum. Ebay guys sell the entire assembly for around 400 dollars and that comes with Volvo/Mercruiser injectors. And I’ll need to buy a harness connector so I can cleanly remove the factory assembly and save it for a spare.
Had to put a bookmark in the Sierra, the throttle body is smaller than a Fernco 3"(actually 3.5") pipe coupler will fit. Ordered a silicone elbow that goes from 3" to 3.5" ID.
Also need to redo my switch setup for the gasoline side. Kristijan mentioned his Chevy went into limp mode when he tried to shut his injectors off, I would rather dribble a bit of gas than risk setting off a code in my computer so I’ll just wire in a PWM and switch to the fuel pump fuse location.
If I only go on the interstate this pickup gets roughly 18mpg, but combined it goes way down. If I lock out Overdrive my engine spins at about 2000 RPM at 65mph so that seems like a comfortable pull for a gasifier.
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A 3" ID silicone elbow fits the throttle body. Now my only concern is, will it collapse under vacuum since this is a positive pressure designed elbow(boost)?
Also the airbox accepts a 3" Fernco actual ID 3.5".
The only emissions hose that connects to the old snorkel looks to be a valve cover breather. I’ll still account for that just to be on the safe Clean Air Act side of things.
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Can you squeeze the elbow with your fingers. If so then it will colapes under vaccum. But you can slide a insert pipe in side cut it to fit in the 90° on both sides. This will keep it from calapsing.
Bob
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I’ll have to leave the side enveloping the throttle body unsupported, but I can put in pipe on the thicker side.
I can squeeze it but there is resistance. It’s strongest right at the bend. Maybe once I have the PVC pipe in as far as it can go I won’t see any issues.
Edit: I’ll go ahead and order a straight reducer and plan to use a 3" PVC elbow just in case.
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My next big purchase will be the cast iron upper intake plenum from Mercruiser/Volvo Marine. I found a concise guide for installation and wiring. Just need to also get an adjustable fuel pressure regulator and wiring harness for the injectors so I won’t have to rob from the spider injector.
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Looking good! plus twenty
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I’ve been thinking more and more on filtration.
I’m wondering which would be better; to use a combination of drop box and hot aggregate filter before the cooling rails, or to just run a cyclone before the cooling rails as my “rough filter”?
The media I was thinking to use was either lava rocks or Leca clay pellets. Something washable that will still act as a soot coalescer. I think a hot media filter like that would have less pressure changes than a cyclone filter would induce.
Since I have the charcoal gasifier to hold me over and just need the free time to build the cooling rail and filter,
I have a raw wood system planned. My original hearth won’t really work without serious pre-heating and I don’t have access to WK spec materials.
I’m going more Imbert. This will be the bottom barrel, cutting out this center section. The hopper area inside the bottom barrel will be about 9 gallons which I think is a good amount for fuel heating via exiting gases. Using some hot water heater tank remnant. Hearth will be a combination of a 17" diameter wheel and a steel pan I found.
Using Peterson’s guidelines for hearth dimensions, I’ve got this prepared. The big steel donut as my restriction, about 4.75" ID and a lot of mass, and this golf cart rim half as my reduction zone. All of this will be buried in ash. I would have just used the car rim but I wanted more distance from nozzles to restriction. I’ll weld a jacket around the rim, entire center section cut out. I may use two close rows of nozzles, one being the ideal nozzle tip circle and the other closer to the rim wall to make sure tar gasses don’t sneak past.
There is one other way I can do the hearth zone, I could shrink the hot water heater tank and weld one of the demountable rims inside the tank, and weld part of a propane tank for the restriction and reduction containment zone.
Edit:. My filesize is just way too freaking big, I’m not used to having a better camera.
Okay so you can see how what is currently an oil catch pan nests perfectly into this car rim. I’ll cut the center section out and just use the rim portion. Weld the nozzles into there, maybe a double row like I mentioned earlier to ensure no tars drift between the longer nozzles. I’m thinking 5 main nozzles at the correct tip circle diameter and 5 placed slightly higher that will be shorter, clocked so they’d be between the main nozzles. Gives me the benefit of having an odd number of jets to displace the heat between each other.
Top row jets(short length) I will probably make with a smaller bore so they don’t pull as much air demand as the main nozzles.
The rows would maybe have an inch between each other in terms of height. I may even have the upper nozzles point up at a 20° angle.
I will weld the golf cart rim into the catch pan’s bottom and it will have plenty of room for ash insulation that I won’t be terribly worried about getting the lower section too hot. The car rim is a very thick steel and is actually brand new, never used or stressed from the road. The rim fits on the hot water heater tank with a bit of room, rim is slightly larger than the tank body. The restriction donut drops into the cart from very loosely, but it should seal with ash.
After crunching numbers if I don’t cut a hole in the bed and don’t let the gasifier protrude past the roof I have about 40" of height to work with. I should have about a 40~gallon hopper volume including the inside portion. Definitely more of the volume is in the monorator side but I have a good 9 gallons of hot hot hopper zone to really drive the moisture up.
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Is your image uploading problem a file size issue?
I am mostly reading and posting from my phone. So i dowloaded a free image resizing app that seams to work out pretty well. I have been resizing to 500kb. What size images is everyone else using. I thought i read a post from chris once saying it helped form run smoother to do this…
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I haven’t had issues before, I almost exclusively use my phone because it’s faster than my laptop. I’ve been having signal issues all day so it’s probably from my end.
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Getting the engine plumbing finished, I still need to get more steel tubing for cooling rails. I may just put in two rows for now but leave room for expansion. The charcoal gasifier shouldn’t run too hot in exit gas temps provided the distance from grate to nozzle is long enough.
I’ve been waylaid with cleaning up the property and getting some plants in the ground, mom really doesn’t comprehend how bad vegetable prices will be.
Sidenote but I’m still waiting on the trade with my friend for the Cavalier, he’s pretty busy but I’m in no rush to get it.
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You are a smart man Cody. Get as much in the ground as you can. Most people are suffering from the boiling frog syndrome.
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Ive always liked that analogy
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Since this is a charcoal gasifier, and I have a long bed, I think this single U shaped run of cooling rail will be sufficient. 2" diameter, 21 feet in total. I think the bit going across the tailgate will get a lot of cool air.
I’m not crazy about the pipe union, mostly because I don’t have a flat table to make sure my welds are 100% straight. I might just use a bit flex tubing if I have air leaks there.
Just mocking it up, the cooling rails will be strapped down with galvanized fence post clamps bolted to the bed rail.
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