Hi, I’ve been lurking for some time and I’ve finally built up the gumption to make an account and build a Charcoal gasifier for a vehicle.
My only issue is, my 1986 B2000 uses a manual fuel pump driven off the cam. How would I go about cutting off the fuel supply to the carburetor without ruining the pump? I’m sure making it operate and not run fuel through it would wreck it or maybe I’m just wrong. Should I get a 3 way valve that just redirects the gasoline into the fuel return line? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I feel like this is the only issue barring me from doing a long lasting dual fuel conversion and it’s the only vehicle that I want to convert, as much as I’d like to see my 2007 Honda Fit run on charcoal.
Someone who knows more about manual fuel pumps should answer this I know more about electric than manual. I think you could just put an electronic valve before the fuel pump to kill the supply to the pump. But I don’t know if that would hurt the pump to run dry.
I have used both , an electric gasoline shut off valve on a 87 dakota and a 12 volt electric fuel pump on a ford 460 F250 . My choice is the electric pump and you should plug the fuel line to the manual pump.
Cody,
I have done what you are asking about with a 1989 Toyota Corolla. It is only an occassional driver, but has worked well so far. My mechanical fuel pump has a return line back to the gasoline tank. In gasoline operation, when the float bowl is full, and the needle valve cuts off the gasoline coming into the carburetor, the gasoline then flows from the fuel pump back to the tank.
I added a gasoline cut-off valve in the rubber gas line between the fuel pump and carburetor which I connected to a cable so I could control it from the driver’s seat. When that valve is shut off, the fuel pump then pumps gasoline from the tank and circulates directly it back into the tank. Then I can run on charcoal gas.
Those are usualy membrane pumps so l think they shuld be fine runing dry. Its the same on my Škoda.
When l get to it, l will probably just cut the line between the pump and carb with a valve, then petrol will just bypass the carb all together. No need for a 3 way valve.
Some carbs have a cutoff swich. Closing jets when driving downhill etc… look for those, if it has one its an easy job.
Ofcorse, there is no way to hybrid as is. I was thinking to use 1 of my carb barrels for woodgas and one for petrol
Update to this project, I’ve finally got my Mazda fixed. This project was put on the drawing board due to being in a fender bender at an intersection. Now that I’ve got the old girl road legal again I’m going to continue on with this conversion.
I was thinking of doing a downdraft charcoal gasifier so I can use TLUD made char, snuffed out with my garden hose. The brainstorming going on in this forum never ceases to amaze me.
I now have a tubing/ring roller so I can make an air jacket that I can then weld the nozzles to. I’d like to use black iron/steel plumbing pipe as much as possible just for the comfort of having thicker walls. What inside diameter of pipe should I use for the air jacket and the nozzles, considering this is just a 2 liter 80 horsepower engine?
I was thinking of using a 55 gallon drum as the main body of the reactor, with a 30 gallon drum as the hopper and a 20lb sized propane tank for the reduction zone and a bog standard chain suspended grate. If anyone can think of a better setup please don’t hesitate, I prefer to learn from other’s advice instead of my mistakes
I was mulling this over before decided efi when I asked about this here for my toyota woodgas project. Just a thought I had, would leave the fuel system as is, the needle valve in the carb will shut down fuel when the float bowl is full and return the rest. Some diaphragm pumps have a return on the pump, the toyotas have a return off of the carb back to tank so it functions perfect as is. I know Chris had a chamber under the carb to mix with and I was thinking of maybe building the same chamber the carb could bolt on top off for dino uses, but a spring loaded damper style valve just under the carb built into the top of the mixing chamber that would act to shut off the carb air/fuel flow. Effectively remove the carb from the system for when running on wood gas or char gas. Now hybrid driving would be a different idea altogether, but I’m sure enough stirring of the pot it could be done. I’m still thinking a vaporizer setup would be a great supplemental hybrid drive, a simple y pipe on top of the motor with a shutoff valve to the vaporizer would let the engine vaccume pull both wood/char gas in while pulling vaporizer when a switch is flipped to open the y pipe. Not sure how much fun getting the mixture right would be pulling both fuels and setting the air mixture, but it reminds me of a time I drove my toyota home with a dead fuel pump. Pull the plug out of the tank and filled a bottle with gas, emptied the bottle into the washer fluid bottle untill it was full and ran the supply line into the air cleaner and drove the damn thing home squirt fuel, windup, shutoff fuel, shift, squirt fuel, windup, shutoff fuel, shift…ect for about 20 miles home.i BECAME the needle valve in the carb and made it happen. So playing with a few air adjustment handles would probably be a breeze compared to that
Marcus, you are saying “vaporizer”. Do you mean for using propane?
LPG mixer is vacuum operated but at only ~1/10 the engine vacuum you will need for a gasifer system.
Read some of the drivers wood gasing giving their operating numbers and they are pulling some high vacuums at times.
Be hard to balance these two different needs at the same time.
Why SEFI port injected work out so well to mix with a gasifer. It is not vacuum dependent.
S.U.
Yes that’s my initial idea. I saw that one wisco gasifier a man restored for an Opel, the yellow painted one. I don’t have a paper and pen in front of me right now but I do have some pictures from the blog covering the Opel the guy did.
It wouldn’t have the exact same form factor as his but I took inspiration from that nozzle setup. Maybe I’m seeing it incorrectly and what looks like a donut of steel is part of a bigger intake sleeve?
No by vaporizer I mean a small jug of gasoline with a inlet pipe from the lid down into the gas and a outlout pipe on the lid up to the charges supply line. Much like a percolator
But in this instance using the gas that is vaporized as a detergent cleaner for shut down like I mentioned on dons charcoal lawn mower thread, or for a small booster in combustion for hybrid driving for the mazda here. Don’t know if it has ever been done but just throwing it out there
I’ve had similar ideas, but the bubbler setup only grabs the most volatile of the gasoline. There’s other setups that turn the gasoline into a fog using ultrasonics or heat from the coolant lines.
Norman vaporizing gasoline was tried/done a lot in the mid-1970’s just after the first OPEC oil embargo.
They were heating the gasoline with engine exhaust heat; DC electric heaters; even with out of VW Vans gasoline heaters.
Vaporized gasoline when mixed with air has woo-woo explosives’ speeds combustion fronts. With TOO wide mixture range of possible woosh-boom.
And theses change a lot with underhood temps, outside air temps; sun heating temps . . .
Why you no longer see anyone doing this anymore.
The earliest in the late 1800’s engine mixers were vaporizing types. Slowly abandoned for many reasons of safety, and lack of loads transition power, for liquid droplets making mixer/carburetors.
Then inside the engine the droplets pressure dropping and heat flashing to vapor. More engine power. Much better safety.
Notice the Farm project guy never walks around actually mowing with his vaporizer when with gasoline mixes. Never runs his Farmabego vaporizing, with gasoline mixes.
Fellows doing this all lost to flash-whoosh-backs their beards, mustaches and eyebrows sooner, versus later. I even know personally one guy killed. I TOLD him to use hot engine coolant as his heat source. Never engine exhaust!! Never electric elements. Too slow he said. Blown out shrapnel got him in the neck. Heck of a note. Survived Vietnam.
S.U.
Cody, this looks to be a wood gasifier. I am afraid it may not work as a charcoal gasifier as it might burn out. The design is excelent but l wuld guess if you want this to work safely with charcoal the pipe wuld have to be at least about 8mm thick. I dubt you can roll that thick. There must be enaugh thickness to conduct the heat away from the nozzles and in to the incomeing air.
The thing is it doesent realy matter the HP or engine size, the flute style nozzle (wich this kinda is) needs to be of a minimal size to work, l wuld say 2" dia is what l aim for.
As for the design of the rest of the gasifier, when you get this nozzle ring built, you are preety much done. I wuld keep it as simple as possible. The downdraft charcoal gasifier does not need a restriction. Just a grate. This means the firetube is allso not nessesery.
What you can do is this
Sorry for the roughness you can fix a detachable grate in the 55gal drum, at the bottom. Only weald the pipe going out. Above it you put the nozzle ring. If you have it, put a cheramic wool blanket to shape the firetube but if you dont, mineral wool moistened with sodium silicate will allso work. Over time, even ash will and fine charcoal dust will naturaly form a firetube.
Needless to say, this will greatly simplify your build. Less seals equas less air leak potential! Allso the extra large ablmount of insulation around the firetzbe will keep the heat where its most neaded.
As for size. Depends a lot of what size fuel you plan on useing. If we talk about engine grade charcoal l wuld say the internal diameter of the ring (nozzle to nozzle) shuld be around 8" with the height from nozzles to grate at say 7" or 8" for your engine. But generaly the answer to your question is no. A charcoal gasifier generaly has a smaller glowzone because the heat is higher (makes no sence at first does it )
One more thing. Do make the air supply come in tangently on the ring. I had a gasifier fail on me because air slamed in the nozzle opposite to the air intake, making it overheat. A tangential spining supply of air will asure equal distribution.
