Also getting more parts for the Honderson Dual Fuel bike.
Going for a V Belt primary and a chain secondary.
4" pulley to a 7" pulley on a jackshaft, which spins a 10 tooth 41# chain centrifugal clutch going to my 48 tooth sprocket on the wheel. Assuming engine plateaus at 6000 rpm that gives me a top speed of 55mph. More than fast enough! Gives me a very comfy cruising speed of probably 35 or 40mph.
The advantage of the v belt primary is I have a little bit of slip on takeoff and won’t overheat in high rpm like a chain primary could. Also means my drive shaft on the engine has room for a second pulley to drive an alternator.
Guy on the motorized bicycle forum has had good success running a similar Predator 212cc Hemi on a beefed up Schwinn Panther frame, and he lives in San Francisco so I know he can climb those hills. That also means the centrifugal clutch won’t be spinning right next to my leg and burn the bajesus out of me or grab my pants leg and pull me in, both have happened to me before on another bike I built using a chain primary.
Next I need to figure out what kind of charcoal gasifier I want to build for this bike. Do I want to take a page out of Mr Van Lookens book and go for a sidecar mounted unit, or try to do a semi faithful copy of the Swedish downdraft motorcycle reactor that I’ve linked before? I have an air compressor tank that I haven’t cut into yet so that would be the body. 10" ID pretty sturdy but not heavy.
If I went for the Swedish reactor I would just need a single nozzle going in the side and use a removable grate, run the gas over to the other side with some cooling pipes in parallel where my filter box would be. I’ve considered recycling my filter from the Mazda because it’s low profile and the flow would be great. Doubling as a drop box and sack filter. Nozzle would need to be very beefed up, I could do EGR or water drip but I want the security of knowing the nozzle wont burn up suddenly. I have those wrist pins and I could double over that using some worn out bevel gears to give a wide surface and heat sink.
The big faced back end of the bevel gear would be almost like a mini Pedrick plate, and give me indication of it being too hot in that area. I’ll weld in a plate opposite of the nozzle in case the jet blasts to the other side.
I’m going to be interested in how you do this, Cody. A 212 cc Preditor still takes a fair amount of gas so mounting a reactor with any amount of fuel storage will be a challenge. I’d definitely go simple fire. I wish the guy from India would update about his little motorcycle. That would be similar. Sidecar? Thumbs down on that. Better off building a trike.
Also wondering if you will still be able to peddle this. If so will you be able to peddle with the engine engaged enough to get the gasifier sucking air?
It won’t have pedals, it’s a light motorcycle. Getting it registered as one too. Also since it has a centrifugal clutch it wouldn’t be able to pull the engine. If I had gone for a single belt drive it could.
I’m just not a fan of trikes. I like the storage of a sidecar.
Edit: also forgot to mention the gasifier from Sweden was made for a 500cc single cylinder engine
I had been rushing all week to get in hay and try to beat the rain. Last night as I set the last roll in the barn it started raining and forecast is rain most of this next week.
Well, I think for my Honderson build I’m going to make this bike safer while I still have an uncracked skull. I have an old Yamaha DT175 frame that I got as a rolling chassis, it’s such a cramped frame for my size but it has halfway decent wheels on it. I’m going to put these nice spoked wheels on this frame. That way I’ll have real brakes. I’m still going to install some skinny skinny tires on here, cheapest ones I’ve found with road tread were 2.75" wide Front or Rear styles. I might need to get a set of new spokes just to be safe, these look pretty rusted.
If I was good at figuring out what spoke length I needed I’d change the rims out to 21" dirt bike rims to make it look a little bit more bicycle-y. It has 18" wheels right now.
Hi All
Soon be time to put this Summer topic to bed and change over to a Winter topic.
I pull started up my engine driven wood splitter for the first time in ~120 days.
I now need the in house low fire wood stoving.
For heat some, yeah. Before the Fall rains started it had been just a one-wood-load break-chill fire in the early mornings. One more one-fuel-load fire; evenings, before going to bed time.
Now the wet driving me into needing 12-16 hours of wood stoving to dry out all of the me, kids, dogs and cats in and out’s coming back in wet.
I’ve learned I can lower the inside humidity by one pound an hour when wood stoving. Woodstove sucked in. Some for the charcoal burning. Most just chimney swept up, out and away.
Have to keep the inside humidity between 55-70% relative humidity for best health’s.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Every month this year we’ve hit freezing days. I’ve lit our wood stove a minimum of 3 days each month. Now we’re entering winter and it’ll be hot continuously. There’s nothing more comforting than a nice wood fire. I get excited when I get to light it especially in the morning to keep the coffee warm.
Last year I had a killing frost in my garden on Sept 12. Kind of a fluke but this year the coldest night we have had so far in 48F at the end of the first week in October. Curious to see how the rest of this year pans out. It was a cold assed spring though. Just like the seasons have shifted forward about a month.
although, Luke spent the afternoon splitting firewood as well.
That just blows my mind. Sounds crazy to me. Someday I want to get up there to VISIT Bill.
We actually had a late frost. We are just now getting the main crop of figs because of the late frost and strange rain pattern this year. Don’t remember ever picking the main crop of figs after the muscadine grapes.
Foreign corporations own 30 million acres of U.S. farmland now receiving subsidies for not growing crops. The Chinese have been buying up millions of acres in the U.S. and Canada. The policies in Michigan have long been to squeeze out the small farmer with regulations he cannot afford to implement in order to benefit the factory farms. The point here being that if you are not working toward serving your own needs by growing your own food, making your own fuel, becoming as self sufficient as possible, the day will come when you will have as much power as a worm hanging off the end of a fish hood.
This weekend I’m hoping to light off my retort and see how well it does with these oak limbs. They’re the thicker part of the branches being about 6-8" in diameter, I cut them into 6" long pieces and split them in half. Outside is a little punky because it was a dead tree but the core is still solid. Trunk wood is more solid than the limbs.
It was Catch 22 where I first read about being subsidized for not growing something. I did not believe because of the nature of the book full of crazy nonsenses. But it seems it was pretty much real.
