Correct me if I’m wrong but seems like charchol is much cleaner … But have twice the volume to carry? And of course the extra work preparing fuel ? From what I e read that’s what I have gathered… and lucky for me have surplus of scrap to build both variations to see with own eyes. My thoughts are if so some reason I’m not home the charchol would be easier for kids and wife to operate as far as power generation
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I find charcoal easier to process, I just burn it down in a barrel, snuff and let it cool for a day then toss it in my crusher and sieve it. I don’t have the scrap availability to make a wood chunker or the money to buy a square baler to make a proper chunker out of. Saw cutting is a good way to make raw wood fuel as well but that takes time. Burning wood I can do throughout my day on the weekend until I have a 55 gallon drum full and I don’t have to break down the branches since it gravity feeds. I use a 55 gallon drum tilted a little bit that I just toss wood into. Coals fall to the bottom and the flames prevent oxygen from burning up the coals. If I had a ton of branches and scrap boards to burn I think in one weekend I could make 2 weeks worth of charcoal for my needs.
Charcoal is easier to filter, just need a canvas or wool sack really. But if you don’t filter it enough then you get abrasive fly-ash with the soot.
I got about 2 miles per pound of charcoal, and my density is roughly 6lbs per 5 gallons.
Edit: if I ever find a big enough container to burn in, I could save a lot of time just throwing entire pallets into the fire.
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I have to agree here. On a expermental spin the gases down into a 5 gallon bucket of water test I did. The water grabbed the really fine ash getting by my clycone filter. The gases went across the surface plate into the water. My sock type filters above the bucket stayed clean for many runs on the charcoal gasifier. A bubbler would work the same way scrubbing gases.
Bob
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I have an oil bath air cleaner from an old tractor and was wondering if I could use that with water instead of oil. I might have to have a water supply and a overflow drain into a closed container for extended runs. Worth trying?
Don M
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Just the contrary. The charcoal reaction process is far more eficient plus, you can crack water. By volume and factoring in the higher efficiency of charcoal gasification, it is third more energy dense than raw fuel. I have now proven this solid as my machines can run on both raw fuels and or charcoal.
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I remember my oil bath air cleaner on my 1965 IH Scout iI had got water it the air oil bath cleaner and it still worked fine, it was this creamy color oil water mix when it was operating because of the air bubbing through it. Messy to clean but it worked great. In the bottom of the bath it would have a thick hard black muddy oily gooy mess to clean out very few months. But the intake was always free of dirt. Some old big trucks used these filters too, or the Clycone type.
Bob
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This is the something I found out when I started to mix my charcoal/rar wood in my WK Gasifier back in 2018 at Argros when my gasifier got full of water from the rain storms we travel through there get to Argos. With the help of Kristijan L. , he was already doing this with his gasifiers. We named it, Rocket Fuel Mix. It worked great my WK Gasifer. I have gone as high as 50 to 50 mix. With damp or dry charcoal. It is like putting high octane fuel to a engine that is designed for it.
Bob
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Yup, That’s what I remember too except on a Willys jeep.
But wouldn’t the water make it rust? That’s why I want to use a plastic bucket, abs pipe. I’m cheap!
Rindert
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It surely will not rust if it is plastic.
Bob
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Yes, It will do that.
But that’s not really what I was trying to accomplish. Rob gets me.
Like I said, I’m cheap.
Rindert
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RobW.
Your usages splits statements of wood charcoal for the wife and kids; woodgas for you makes sense. A balanced approach.
No. Two component charcoal made fuel gas does not take up twice the volume of three component woodgas. They are different in engine power though.
Ha! You will see even me (a100% woodgas guy) saying this; will ignite a warring of one versus the other.
This is your topic. Let that warring take place on its own named topic.
Listen to those who have done both. And still use both for different applications. And that would be Don Mannes, Kristijan and only a few others. They are the Reasonables.
Regards
Steve unruh
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Hello Rob, you state that you have equipment for processing engine parts, which would allow you to adapt the engine to wood gas. As Rindert told you, a compression ratio of 1:14 would be almost ideal, I have 1:16 on my tractor. High pressure and high gas temperatures allow the combustion to spread quickly and thus good engine power. My tractor has a diesel engine where the gas is ignited by injecting a small amount of diesel fuel, the engine develops good power and is easy to use, but it is not 100% wood.Regarding fuel, or charcoal, or wood, there is a thread on this topic on the forum, … I am for wood, because it allows me more powerful gas and less work with fuel preparation, tar gases are not afraid to get into the engine, I think that they are not actually harmful to the engine …
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About the hydrolock. The latest Engine Masters show was about basic Nitrous. With Richard Holdener as a guest mechanic.
During the show, dyno monitoring different tuning and jet configurations to optimize the nitrous they had a problem with the system running to rich. Down to about a 9 to 1 AFR. There was some concern that at that ratio there could be so much raw fuel that it would hydrolock the cylinders. I never thought it would be possible with just fuel delivery but they are a lot smarter than me.
On my larger charcoal updraft system with the modified Don Mannes hearth I can either draw through the system with a blower or pressurize the plenum under the hearth and it seems to run the same either way. There is no really noticable soot in the overly large filter and very little trapped in the catch jar for the cyclone. For ease of operation for unexperienced operators the simple fire is the best system.
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Forgot the link for the free trial of the Engine Masters show I cited above.
https://www.motortrendondemand.com/detail/nitrous-for-noobs-the-150-shot-walkthrough/3776732/1177
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Hi tone,
I have alot of equipment for doing engines yes. But also a stockpile of parts. I hope to be done with wk variation unit by end of July. My first priority is a quick engine swap on my black diesel burner because buying gasoline at 6.00 gallon just doesn’t work for me…lol.
Anyways I just got a set of hyoerutectic pop up pistons on clearance for 90.00 that will take my tbi 454 from 7.5 to 1 to almost 13 to 1. Right now the 454 is about 40 percent down on compression in 1 cylinder and got pistons because another shortblock is sitting here needing rotating assembly. I want to get running in bone stock form and datalog changes made to engine in a scientific way,. Acceleration using a draggy and miles per hopper ect. Alot of other testing like chassis Dyno are in works as well. But between all the parts I have I can vary compression with this shortblock from 12 to 1 to possibly near 15 with cylinder head changes. I’ll have to sit down and cc my heads and copper head gaskets to get actual numbers. I have many variants of open vs closed chamber, peanut port, large oval port and rectangle port. As well as about 7 different camshafts . 2bbl tbi , 4bbl tbi and fee versions of mpfi. The cost will be near free because I have many parts laying around. May also build a couple diffent stroker gen 1 sbc and eventually an LS style.
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I always use the Farmall H’s oil bath filter as the filter of last resort. I used used engine oil. I was amazed at how much water that filter captured. Draining the oil bath was a horrifying experience until I just saved it all in a vegetable oil cube, and burn it on the brush pile.
I like the oil bath filters so much, I went around and rescued the old ones off the Autocars, FWD trucks, and old bulldozers.
I like the renewable aspect.
Lol if the tractor doesn’t start in the winter, it may be that the water in the bath has frozen and is plugging the intake air…not that that ever happened to me or anything.
Gas producers are a lot of maintenance, so changing the bath every time, was just part of routine.
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Yeah build that stroker!! Ive been wanting to see this for years. I would be very careful with the LS motors unless you cut reliefs in the pistons. They are not very tolerant to any tar or even soots. Maybe put some stiffer springs on the intakes I dont know.
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Are you using O-rings with those copper head gaskets Rob? Do you have the means to machine them yourself.
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I don’t know about copper head gaskets with woodgas. Woodgas tends to have a little sulfur in it which is corrosive to copper. It’s also corrosive to zinc throttle boddies @JocundJake and @mggibb will tell you. I’d stay away from bronze valve guides, the new iron type ones should be good. The new aluminum bearings they have now should be better than the old layered copper/babbit. There may be a few other copper parts I’ve forgotten about. Woodgas is considered a ‘sour’ gas. Oil patch guys will tell you about hydrogen sulfide. Bad stuff!!!
Rindert
http://forum.driveonwood.com/t/mikes-95-f250-gasifier/2238/202
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It is a little corrosive to the zinc , but i believe Mike’s son is right about some of that being caused by burning out the intakes.
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