Thanks for the honor.
You are really trying to blow my image of being a recluce.
Any way, I tried to film my ride into work today.
What a trainweck!! I don’t know how you guys do it.
I need more hands, another body, or a helmet cam!
I’ll keep trying.
Hi all, I just passed 550 miles and I thought I should peek inside the filter to see how it’s looking. I found some small char about .080”dia. to my surprise. I do pull a lot harder on this producer than the other. Even so, I was expecting a lot smaller particles. Looking into the cooling tubes they look pretty clean. Maybe they are getting “char blasted”? Any ways, I need to detatch the cooling tubes to look into my vertical rise. Turns out, it’s about 1/3 full. I’ve considered putting a cyclone or dropout box here, I wanted to wait to see the result. With the cfm going through here, this passage might just stay open, but I feel it does need a little work here.
I want to put slightly finer media into the filter also while I’m at teardown. Sould I double my filter? Decisions, decisions…
I’m in the process of putting a cyclone on her. I decided 6.5" dia. I don’t have enough height to make it proper, but it’s got to be better than nothing.
Terry
Hey all, I feel like I’m not doing project of the month justice.
I’ve had the cyclone mounted about a week now. I am surprised of the condensate I’m pulling out with it. This is what I was expecting lawn mower to do. So, all my dumps fill at about a hopper’s worth. This is fine for me on my everyday driving.
I’m afraid I’ll have to get to Argos on petrol though, this engine won’t be able to keep up on the interstate pulling the lawnmower and supplies.
Terry,
That is great news on the cyclone. Since I last commented, I have picked up a 4cyl Toyota I am going to do. I got the wiring done this weekend to shut off the pump, and the injectors, works great. I was eyeing up your pics of how you did your mixing under the hood. You are running two valves besides the throttle body right? I assume the one in the gas line is to shut off pulling air from the gasifier side when your running on gas. The one between your mixing chamber and stock air cleaner is for blending off the woodgas correct? Does your ranger have a MAF in the air cleaner housing? That is where mine is. Toyota calls it an AFM (air flow meter) I am just trying to wrap my brain around how to pull it all together on my truck. Thanks in advace for the input. Can’t wait to meet up in Indy.
David S.
speaking of soot filters, i have been wondering recently if one used those oil furnace filters, maybe spraying them with a vegetable oil spray to make them especially sticky might be a workable approach. they are fairly cheap and could easily be installed in multiple layers, removed and replaced, etc., and inserted between the hay filter and the engine? (i’m still a long ways from building my first gasifier, but i’m still thinking about all the issues). would this help any or just add too much resistance to the flow of gas?
David S,
I know what you are going through. It’s a LOT of planning before even thinking about building. You will do fine. You know exactly how my valveing is set up.
Robin,
I assume you are talking about air filters? If so, I don’t think they would be fine enough. Some use baghouse filters which have fabric for the filtration. Also the cardboard would have to be pulled off(it would get soggy). You don’t know till you try it!
Terry
So I pulled out some char to see how my hearth is doing. You can’t tell so much by the picture but I’ve got some warping going on below the nozzels.
If I straighten it out, it will just warp again. I might cut off the top hourglass.
Maybe I won’t do anything but load the char back up and be on my way!
Yikes Terry,
Well I have been here before more than once. I don’t know for sure I think I am the one that has built,tested,operated and blown up more gasifiers in 2 years than anyone one else in Woodgas. I am on gasifier 8 now 5 of them bit the dirt to lack of experience and poor design. 3 of them are still running today the ranger has over 5000 miles on it now my f150 v6 that I do haul trailers with at highway speeds has 4500 miles both have no signs anywhere of firetube damage. I urge you not to try and break my record for being the fastest gasifier builder/breaker. Move your project to the builders section the information you need to address these issues is there. Regards Sean French
Thanks for the reply Sean,
I want to keep this thread public, so sorry it’s staying here. You fellows on the “inside” sure know how to tempt a person. Following a link that says premium membership required sure does make one reconsider.
This is only #2 for me after great success with my lawnmower. Vehicle producers are quite a bit different. I realize there is oxidation too close to my funnel. Not wanting to tear it apart, I do have limited options.
Terry
Terry,
It is difficult to watch someone suffer needlessly. The money spent so get on the inside is way offset by one or 2 tanks of gas let alone the time. It costs me $60 to fill up my Ranger. If you have a steady wood supply with Wayne’s gasifier you will drive on wood everyday without much headaches. Your hearth looks like it will fail if you keep pushing the truck hard.
We found out you can’t repair that steel once it gets recrystallized. Distortion is the first sign.
Woody, rest assured it’s not a money issue, not suffering either.
Call me strange, but I enjoy working out the bugs, once conquered, it is something “I” can be proud of.
People get too wound up over this hobby. Surely you can’t say there is only one style gasifier with a couple year life expectancy?
Terry
“Surely you can’t say there is only one style gasifier with a couple year life expectancy?” No I can’t. U are right. I look at your hearth and I look at mine and I can’t believe they are both gasifiers doing the same thing on the same size truck both with 4 cyl. engines with radically different results.
Terry,
How thick of steel did you make that out of. I was sure you had made it out of stainless correct? I made mine an hourglass hearth also out of 1/8in stainless. I figuered if it don’t pan out I could easily switch it to just a lower hearth tube with a flat plate restriction on top of that and let the char form the cone. It is working it alot of other guys units.
I am curious Woody, How different of results are they? I keep up with traffic, haven’t had a need to go over 65mph(I think that’s about tops though).
Anything from a match all the way to Wayne’s system, it’s all gasification. Pretty cool!
David, I believe mine is 1/16". It is stainless. My nozzles just poke past the cone. I was curious if it could take it. It did for a couple hundred miles. I’m not sure how long it has been like this. Right now I’m planning on slitting the cone under the nozzles about 2" and pound it back as far as I can get it. It should be farther away from the intense heat. If this doesn’t work then I’ll pull the whole top cone off and put a thick ring around the restriction to give it strength. Similar to what you have mentioned.
Hi Terry, a couple of years ago when I was investigating gasification whole house wood stoves, the Garn furnace representative told me that the reason their units were made with ¼ inch plain steel is that they will give a 20 year warranty with that simple material. They had tried a heavy thickness stainless steel, but they could not escape stress cracks which formed around joints over time. Wayne has an excellent tip for fighting the intense heat below the nozzles as told to me last year. You’ll have to ask him. You have a professional looking truck. See you soon, Doug
Terry,
I actually brought my cone to just under the nozzles, so I wonder how I will fair there.
Thanks for letting me know.
David
Thanks for the compliment Doug, I also look forward to seeing you again.
For less intense heat I like Larry Dobson’s designs. Slow flow, large reaction area. I think he mentioned it could have engine grade gas but I haven’t seen any examples.
David, you might want to plan on maybe 1"of char between nozzle and cone???
