JO's gasified 92 Volvo

Have you had your gasifier laying on it’s side when doing repairs?
Sometimes a tar pocket starts to move :thinking:

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Yes, it’s been on it’s side for months :smile:
But still - several feet of dry air path away from any tar ???

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When I started driving on wood gas with my tractor, smoke appeared under the gasifier, if I took off the gas or down a slope, my eyes watered and I held my breath, :joy: I quickly realized that it was necessary to install a non-return valve, which it is made from the bottom of a beer can and the spring of a ballpoint pen, it really works well and prevents the smoke from escaping and the accumulation of tar in the air intake, well, when stopping, as you already know, I open the smoker at the top and burn the tar gases.

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Haha, I really like that kind of tecnology :smile:

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Now that you have a clear open intake path for the air. Did the Volvo run better with the grate lowered a little more and the extra nozzles?

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Bob, thanks for asking, but I still can’t tell any difference. I haven’t had the time to really put it to test yet. Apart from the maiden voyage I recorded I’ve only been DOWing back and forth to work on small icy roads, that’s all.

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Spring is coming soon JO, with no snowing road conditions and then you will be able to give it a longer road test. Keep us posted.
This will be some good data on the changes you have made with the Volvo gasifier.

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Hi J-O, just a question, do you have afr-meter (lambda) on your Volvo?
I put one in mine, but remembered there are some difference with regina systems o2 sensor, i havent tried it yet, but got the feeling it maybe wont work.
If i remember correctly regina uses a resistance metering sensor, not the more common narrow-band 0-1,2volt. (Zirconium/titanium sensors)

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Göran, I’ve never used an afr guage. I’m not even sure if the oxygen sensor works properly. The car runs the same with or without the sensor on gasoline and it’s unable to trim back the fuel when hybriding. The light does come on if I’ve been running rich on woodgas for a while though.
However, the fuel pressure seems to be very proportionally delivered - according to the pwm voltage. A 1/4 inch on the air-mix cable equals a 1/4 turn on the pwm. :smile: Makes hybriding easy enough manually.

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It’s been over a month now and about 400 miles. The lower nozzles and going back to the 4" restriction made me get rid of the intake puffs. Occational small amounts of tary fumes was probably the cause.
But, the hesitation sympthomes are the same. Any accelleration seems to produce bad gas for a little while. I need to constantly pull about 4-5 inches on the gasifier not to notice hesitation when I start asking for more. That equals about the power of cruizing 50-55 mph. So, that’s the minimum speed :smile:

I do have my suspicions. The only place I wasn’t able to check for leaks was the upper half of the heatex. Outgouing gas does get hot. 400 F only a minute or two of running the mattress blower isn’t right. Maybe I eventually put the small flame out when pulling harder. I’ll try find some time later on for major surgery.

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Thanks JO, well, i tested and the gauge don’t work with regina system o2-sensor :rage:
I can live without afr. It would be nice to have when first “tuning in” the gas/air mixer though.

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Thats too bad, perhaps weld in another bung to put in a separate O2 sensor for the gasifier. Skipping afr is of course the easiest

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I don’t know yet, but i have a new o2-sensor and a bung (the fine-threaded nuts for trucks air-brake cylinders fits perfectly) so we will see how i do :smiley:

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Short report on neglected maintence.
This is the first time I’ve experienced a noticeable difference in performance when replacing the filter media. The wollen bag and lower parts of the hay were completly clogged with wet soot - to the point I’ve been unable to idle for some time now and smoke backing out the air inlet as soon as I didn’t pull hard enough. City driving was annoying.
Washing the bag and a pile of fresh hay into it made for much more relaxed driving.
Still no time to investigate the suspected heatex leak. Have been running with the rail thermometer unplugged for some time now - not to have the alarm beeping all the time.

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+31C…so, what’s up? Tar draining of course.
Except for a woodgas ride early this morning, the woodburners had to stay put during the day to do their business.

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JO, your climate never seases to amaze me. You shift from polar to tropic. We live half a hemisphere apart yet our summers are close to the same. 30c forecasted tomorow. The gulf stream seems to do its magic well

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Yeah, hard to get properly dressed in the morning. Some days a wollen hat and long johns are needed and somtimes a wooden cone with a string around your waist is enough :smile:

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Pretty near close to our climate as well.

It’s been consistently 35°C in the warehouse all week. We just barely got a little rain today. I keep cruising in my forklift to keep a breeze going.

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Ok, the rain suddenly stopped and the sun unexpectedly showed. I rolled the gasifier out and cut away the air shroud on the heatexchanger.
Lots of tary flakes on the finns in the air path - as expected, but after blowing things off with compressed air, I couldn’t find any obvious hot air leak but.
I remained seated in the thinking chair for quite a while, then rolled the equipment inside and shut the doors. I will have to sleep on this one - once more.

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Do you think it may have difficulty getting air due to soot or tar?
Mine goes up in temp by about 50-80 degrees c, when the unit and the cyclone start to get full.
Could be why it hesitates too, you have to remove the preheating, and test.

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