That is beautiful workmanship
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Well, I told you last night I was about finished. But, you know how it is. Always something you forget and all the last minute fixes took me until noon today before I was able to light up.
Lightup was easy and as fast as the Rabbit’s. Away I went and the Mazda ran really well. No highspeed testing because the gasifier ran a little hotter than I liked.
Coming home again I remembered I forgot to silicone the fitting between the cyclone and its dump. I hope that’s at least part of the truth since the outof cyclone temp climbed to 300 C without pushing things very hard.
The vacuum ratio was ok, maybe a little low. Down to 2:1 after some accelleration, back to 3:1 or 4:1 after idling for a while. (The cyclone collected half a gallon of pea sized char in only 30 km and one bag of wood.) Another reason for running a little hot. I’ll have to wait for the charbed to settle some before I can say for sure. I guess I’m still expelling char I prefilled for flaring before Christmas.
Another setback was I discovered the Mazda is syphoning.
At first I was a little confused when idling and I had to lean the mixture out to make it run clean. Closing air inlet and woodgas valve it was still idling. It can’t take touching the pedal but it seems to syphone enough petrol to idle. Also it’s possible it syphones only at idle when the intake vacuum is the highest.
This is a return line system (twin) and from what I understand I will need a fuel shut-off valve to go with the switch to be sure of running 100% wood. Unless…I remember @SteveUnruh mentioned another solution to these dual fuel line systems a couple years back…but I can’t seem to remember what it was or where to look it up.
Sky was clear and temp was falling fast as dark caught me. -20 C and no daylight I suddenly remembered I hadn’t eaten all day. So, here I am - tummy is full and I’m on my back in the couch and at least partly satisfied with today’s ashievments.
One more thing today - my mistress (the boiler) needs some attention. I’m sure she will appreciate to be fed a couple of baskets of logs.
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Great looking rig, “Factory looking fit and finish.” Hope all the bugs go away and it runs as good as it looks.
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Yes what everyone has said, that is a number one winning work of gasification art on wheels. The like button on my pad is wearing out.
Bob
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If there was a road from Sweden to Argos and you took this truck there, I would have to borrow Wayne’s saying and hide my work behind the barn! That is a sweet ride!
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Whooraa! Another great build!!! Beautiful work. I am so envious. I can’t wait for a walk about. TomC
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Hello JO .
As Don has said , if your truck ever gets near mine I may have to park out of sight behind the barn 
Great work !!
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Wayne, after looking at Jo’s new build, I keeping 92 Dodge Dakota under the green trap for awhile.
Bob
Hey J.O.
I do not think it was me commenting on DOWing with return line systems.
Your analysis does seem plausible. High intake manifold vacuum does lift open the gasoline fuel pressure regulator orifice. With fuel in this line that fuel could be siphon sucked backwards.
Stil for the fuel to get into the engine cylinders it would have to be passing through the fuel injector orifices. It is the normally at atmospheric large trottle body injectors that seem to have been the worst for this once the upper throttle body is woodgas converted to be at an abnormal intake vacuum.
Always inside the intake “port” runner injectors have seemed to have enough spring closing pressure to resist vacuum opening and suck siphoning.
But this is a Mazda system.
New game. New problems, eh?
Regards
tree-farmer Steve unruh
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Those are some nice little old trucks, rare find in the nothern usa, EXCELLENT WORKMANSHIP and nice and low profile for less wind drag.THE way you use recycled parts leave no excuse for cry babys caint weld or find metal.
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Were you useing both nozzle planes and still run hot?
How is the monorator working?
Are your injectors electronic or fixed like on K jetronic? If electronic, you culd just swich them off? Pull out a fuse?
I have no dubt you will smooth things out.
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Thank you for all the nice comments, but don’t let all the fresh paint fool you. When it starts to flake and all the shiny spattered with tar I may not even be allowed behind the famous barn without a tarp cover.
I did however try put some effort into looks. Not only magpies and women like shiny, so do inspectors. My goal is to try get the Mazda legally registered in the gengas vehicle category. That would make things a little easier at annual inspections in the future.
@TomC I will make a walk around as soon as the weather allows. We’ve had a nasty cold snap lastning for several weeks now. Last night was -22C, something like -10F?, and it’s not much better today. The sun is not high enough in the sky to help much, but it soon will. Heating both house and garage makes the boiler eat loads of firewood and wheeling it inside weekly is about the time you want to spend outdoors.
@SteveUnruh Hm…injectors do there tick-tack opening anyway, right? I mean even with a non-pressurised fuelrail. That would mean injector spring closing pressure doesn’t need to be the problem.
I think I’ll try Kristijan’s suggestion to pull the injection fuse to see what happens. I just hope ignition doesn’t get affected.
@KristijanL That answers one of your questions.
About heat I hope yesterday’s fix of sealing the cyclone dump will lower the temp some. Running around with fire in the cyclone is no good.
Yes, I did try both nozzle planes and I felt extra power at lower vacuum. It’s too early to tell about heat after only one testrun since I experimented back and forth and I don’t really know what is what yet.
The monorator collected maybe a cup. Nothing in the rear tank. But again, it was a short trip and too early to tell.
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Over the years I have made so many changes to my gasifiers and none of the changes have been something where I said, " wow, that is much better" or “oh crap, that didn’t work”. The reaction is always very subtle and I have never had a way of definitively evaluating them. Will be interested in hearing how you evaluate your changes— or if usual you’ll just take off with a well designed and built gasifier that doesn’t need modifications. Good luck and waiting for more info and — of course, PICTURES/VIDEOS. TomC
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Well, this is the current situation:
Videos will have to wait, simply because I haven’t made any yet. Pics from the building process I can upload as soon as I finish typing this.
I put down another 40 miles today. Slow speeds, 50 mph max, constantly keeping an eye on the temp guage. I can feel there’s a lot more power there, but I don’t want to push it until things carbon up and the charbed is properly settled.
With the Rabbit gasifier I could go full throttle, running 55-60 mph for 10 miles to work and the sheet metal cover around the gasifier was still cold to the touch when I parked.
With this gasifier the sheet metal is about two Mississippis hot in 10 miles and that’s running slow. Temp outof the cyclone reaches 300 C (572 F) fast. That’s when I back off. Running this slow with the Rabbit I would expect about 150 C.
It was my thinking using this grateless design the huge bottom charpile would soak up the heat good. I realise I’m running a bigger fire inside the same size vessel. Maybe I’ll just have to accept this system is running hotter.
I ripped off the crossover cover today, pressurised the system and blew cigarette smoke around the compression fitting to look for air leaks. I’ll have to try again tomorrow because the tennisball inlet valve let pressure out and the char woke up and heated things up again.
Vacuum ratio:
Experimented with shutting on and off the upper nozzles today. (The lower 5 nozzles are always on. The manifold for the upoer 10 nozzles I can shut off.) When all nozzles are used the vacuum ratio increases. Keeping the pedal steady and letting air into the upper manifold lowers the hopper vacuum. Ratio goes from about 2:1 to 4:1. It doesn’t affect the total (rail) vacuum, which surprised me. Maybe making the charbed a couple inches taller evens things out.
Fuel supply:
With a high idle running rich on woodgas I pulled the fuel injection fuse today. Shuts everything down. It seems it affects the ignition as well, so this is not the way to go. Sorry, Kristijan! I’ll try experiment with the vacuum hoses to the check valves for the fuel rail tomorrow. I was surprised to discover I have two. One on each side of the rail??? If that doesn’t work I can think of no other solution than an old school fuel valve.
The monorator is s success though. I collected almost a full gallon today. Quite a lot of wood was left in the hopper after shutdown (covered the funnel) and after cooldown another 1/2 gallon was collected.
Pew, my typing finger is running hot. I’ll switch to the phone and upload a few pics.
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I can only echo what everyone has said, a real “beauty”! Do you ever sleep?
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Thanks Pepe! I sleep just fine after a day in the garage. The downside sticking your head into a project like this is you skip a lot of socializing. I have some catching up do in that field.
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I looked under my tarp, it is staying covered up. Beautiful build. So much stainless steel it hurts my eyes.
Bob
Are you ready/willing to play Tom’s 20 question and a couple of comments??? Oh hell! I can’t do it now. My first question was did you build the head rack behind of the cab. I knew you posted a picture of the truck as you got it so I went all the way back to see if it came with the head rack. I spent so much time re-re-rereading your post of the construction, that it is now time to go to bed.
Couple of statements-- your welds are absolutely beautiful ( I have not found a source for 3/32 stainless rod, not that I really think that would make my welds look anything like yours.)
Cleaning and painting the inside of the box and that Aluminum floor plate, add the touch of class.
You have two or three levers between the seats— what are the hooked to.?
Is that tennis ball covering a “flare” port? Won’t that be to hot with the pre-cooled gas and the hopper there? TomC
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No it’s stock part of the bed.
The white knob levers are hooked to main air inlet tennisball valve and the upper nozzle manifold valve. The blue handle stickig up through the floor is the woodgas valve.
I have no flare port. A plastic T-pipe prior to the hayfilter is where I put my blower for vacuum or reverse. If I wanted to flare I could put on a piece of pipe on the blower.
I may move the tennisball spring to the outside of the air inlet which would allow me to push too.
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