Okay so I finally got the ball valve to work. Cracked it open just a bit to take some pressure off of the ball. Reduced drag greatly. Got her all wired up now, finding something to make into a perch for the handle ends.
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Another new problem arises.
I think the 3/4" is too small. I can only give it about 1/3rd throttle on gasoline or it starts to make the entire truck buck and stumble.
Must be too rich even with the valve entirely open.
Hi Cody, you need to go with a larger gray piling and a larger valve. Just saying. I can regulate my air with a 2" piping and a 2" slide gate valve. In parallel to that I have what you have right now for fine tuning my mixer.
If you will built a 2" butterfly valve you can do it with just one valve. The best valve to use in your position right now would be a butterfly valve right where the ball valve is right now.
You can make one with a 2" pipe a large Carter key and and 2" fender washers. I think it was @JocundJake Jacob or his brother Luke North that made one and showed how to build it on their on the open side of DOW.
I even need to build one and replace my slide gate with it. Because my slide gate cracked from use. A metal butterfly valve will out last the truck. I use that of them in my truck gasifer for wood gas and air control.
Bob
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I need to rebuild that intake spot anyways.
I glued the parts I goofed up on like a dunce.
Do you mean one of these when you say carter key?
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Went back to the 1.5" butterfly since it worked just fine. Welded a valve arm to it so I could move it with the choke cable. Also finally used that 2" spa gate valve as my gas flow cutoff for shut down mode, I’ll get a choke cable for that eventually too.
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Might try to drive it to work on char gas.
For my ember arrestors I have some copper choreboy scrubbers. Relatively loose woven but they should fit just right in the openings to the flutes. Since its an open ended flute, any impedence caused by these scrubbers should be negligible. Not like I’m bottlenecking it by too much.
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If I were to put in a thermocouple or bbq thermometer, where would I place it? Halfway down the barrel? At the gas exit? I’m thinking of adding my vacuum gauge at the lid of the filter, won’t be hard to see it in the rearview.
Drove the truck to work today. About halfway she quit producing so I had to switch over to gasoline. Not sure why, I’ll inspect on my lunch break at noon.
My best guess is the foam filter I put in is clogged.
This is where vacuum guages are gold. Its the only instrumentation you realy need on any gasifier.
Ha, we have a saying that a blacksmiths horse is always barefoot. I too never had a propper vacuum guage 
culdnt get one, at least cheaper thain a 100$ a peace… But, l cheated with a O2 sensor. I had fixed the air setting on the engine, the position l knew works ideal wiith the sistem in good condition. When l started ti detect lean AF mix that culd only mean the sistem is becomeing restrictive, being a plugged filter or a plugged gasifier. But thats exactly what we like to reffer as “the 75%”. The only way to get to the point of calling your self a seasoned woodgaser is to operate a sistem, working out flaws and operation trends. After a while you can literaly smell whats going on with the sistem.
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I do have one vacuum gauge, just not sure where to put it.
Others shuld chim in for that. I dont have much experiances with them. Althugh thinking about it, you now run a updraft. Those rarely ever plug. So your bigest threat of a plugg is at the filter, as you sayd. But here a clasic vacuum guage wount do much good. What you need is a differencial pressure guage. Luckly those are easy to make! A simple water tube guage connected before and after the filter will work. Its what we have at work on sack filters (althugh its oil in them l think). That will only show a plugged filter and nothing else thugh
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How good did it go until it quit?
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It ran absolutely great. Lit very fast and I wasn’t even out of my 8th mile driveway before it was producing enough. Anything above 3rd gear is for flat ground though.
About halfway it just got so weak it couldn’t propel anymore so I switched to gasoline. I could tell it was still producing gas because in high throttle my truck started to go way too rich even with the 1.5" valve open all the way.
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Filter definitely seems to be the culprit.
Soot was lining the walls above the foam, bottom of the foam is caked. The gas comes in from below and rises.
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Hi Cody is that foam open cell foam, the holes look tiny. I have foam with much larger hole cells.
That is good that you figure it out, this is part of the 75% operating curve you are learning.
So you need more filtering surface area to filter out the dusts.
Kristijan bag tube filters work. Or the sock tube filters that I have used. The char dust cakes on but then falls off when running. You just have to remember to empty the filter out before it gets To full and completely plugged up.
Bob
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Yeah it’s open cell foam.
I haven’t gotten around to sewing up a new sack filter since my other ones were too narrow.
I also got some more window screen material so I can make a wide bag and stiffen it up to keep a good surface area. I had thought about making a sleeve of window screen and just using wood chips as my main filter media.
Im afraid that may not be the best option.
The thing is, when it comes to filtration, woodgas and chargas are like pears and apples. A hay filter most woodgasers use isnt realy a filter at all but a coalescer. Its job is to collect soot and mineral saturated fog droplets from the gas, but never all of it. Its why there is always (harmless) soot in the intake.
But with charcoal, there is no fog. And the filter can not collect much because in order to work it needs to be damp.
In comparison to wodgas soot chargas dust contains a lot of ash. Thats not good for the engine and it shuld be eliminated. Its why l like to active filter all the dust out of chargas.
On my Seat l had a towel filter and the engines original paper filter. The towel filter performs so well l still got that wery same paper filter in to this day and it never plugged on me. In the time the car was chargased it only got grey in colour.
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