I donât know anything about your mower but getting an engine to run on charcoal is fairly easy. I made something based on Koen van Lookenâs Thailand gasifier. Some school in Thailand - #21 by k_vanlooken Mine ran the first time. I couldnât believe it. One time I tried grinding up the charcoal. Donât do do that, it just plugged the filter. just keep it in chunks about the size of a thumb. This charcoal was made in the coffee can tlud.
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delete entry. wrong thread
What filter are you running? Bag type?
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my mower is a homemade pull behind i got tired of push mowing it so i took an old riding mower deck and mounted two push mower engines in the place of the belt pulleys then a hitch to pull behind the cub cadet the problem i have is one engine sips fuel the other drinks it so keeping both going and the cub cadet is a chore but it beats push mowing its a racket noise wise so i wear ear protection lol but im only mowing a drive and a small area if i can get it going on charcoal i could mow more areas to help get rid of that nasty thorn bush called multiflora rose its vicious with hook type thorns some call them saw briars
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Hi Ryan , isnât the cub cadet a ride on mower anyway ? they are here in Australia , or do you not have a deck for it , i would love to see some photoâs of it set up .
On your fire pit idea , why bother pushing soil around the fire ? once you start pushing soil into the fire it will bake it into hard lumps that will get mixed into your charcoal fuel , if your having a open burn then just lay some tin sheets on the ground and build fire on top and as they burn down to charcoal use a shovel to fill a 55 gall drum up , Trigaux has the best idea if its simple easy contained fire then just use a open drum of as large a size u can find and burn baby burn while warming and cooking and afterwards just shovel them coals into the drum too cool down .
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I wear ear protection too. Makes me think you are using old flat head Briggs stuff like me. :o) Sure wish I could see your rig.
Not sure I would recommend this, but I drilled a bunch of holes in a plastic pipe and then pulled 4 socks over the holes. Like I sacrificed two pair. 
The pipe goes through the white plastic bucket lid that you see, then a vacuum cleaner hose takes the gas to the engine. Soooo janky, but it works. Iâm laughing. You can too.
I didnât know about Joniâs chip filled filters at the time or I would have done it that way.
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I cannot do it. Sacrificing holy items just doesnât sound right.
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I started out with a sock filter on my generator. Now I am using swimming pool filters they work very well and are washable. The sock filter for me would plug up after about 4 hrs of running. I can run it on the pool filters for a couple days without washing, but I tend to wash it once a day . Keep in mind this is on woodgas that has already been through a hay filter and a set of cooling rails. this is just a final filter to take out the little bit of soot that makes it there. Still I think as long as the gas was not hot they would work on a char gasifier quite well.
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What does your pool filter look like, Jacob?
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Is it one of those mesh screen filters or the foam filters?
This is a picture of the five I have connected together for the generator. they are made out of this very fine mesh with some foam in them as well.
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Thanks, Jacob.
I will test with sawdust like Joni, see how this works.
I have half a barrel with leca balls, and it seems clean quite well, and easy to wash out.
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if you saved those disposable mask that everyone handed out you could make a bucket filter lol
but a shop vac filter or diesel truck air filter would work
im useing a tractor oil bath filter but i cant get my onan to run right on gas i think maybe the carb is flat wore out i dunno its been a fickle thing im hesitant to try and fool with running on charcoal with it running poor on gas
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the carb is the walbro i dunno why they dont make all carbs with a high and low this has a main and an idle air screw i can adjust the h/l ones but i never had much luck with the air screw kind
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Might be some serious tinkering involved to get the governor working with a homemade carb. But I was able to make a simple butterfly mixture control if thatâs all you need. If the existing carb has a bunch of old varnish in it, I ran a slug of e85 thru my 7hp briggs to clean it out. It had the filler neck ripped out of the tank when I first got it. So I silver soldered it back on. Didnât run good at all. I think it might fave sat for 20 years or more. Then I put about a pint of e85 in and ran it with enough choke so it was blowing a little liquid fuel out of the exhaust. Then I turned it off and let it sit for about a week. Smoked a little at first but then ran perfect.
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I got a generator that would not run at all on gasoline but fired right up and ran good on woodgas - (chargas).
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Don,
I have found that my lawn mower and Corolla both run better on charcoal than they do on gasoline.
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Trial number 6048. Maybe this time charcoal will be engine grade. How long should the barrel be roaring?
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Ha. She is on her Way.
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