Gotta love Dr Seuss… 
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I’m 76 and I remember the day my Aunt Ann gave me a pile of
books and " Bartholomew and the oobleck" was my favorite.
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There’s another, Bartholomew and the 10,000 hats?
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I haven’t seen that one, but I found this,
“THE 500 HATS OF BARTHALAMEW CUBBINS”.
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Yes, sorry for the misquote. It’s contemporary to “Oobleck”, one of the first, and very worthwhile reading.
And sorry for hijacking the thread, but how about “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”…
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There is a curse on me it seems. As soon as l fix one problem a nother one popps out. Not to bother you guys with details, the summary: l did DOW today! Feels so nice after allmost a year. But l only drove about a mile. I had great power and l felt realy optimistic then suddenly power droped. Turns out moist char is more prone to bridgeing plus l used more corse char, and l emptyed the firebox with a half full hopper with a fuel bridge forming. But hey, thats a minor thing! It runs 
Second problem is with the RTV seals. I dont know if the problelm is the weather or a bad batch but l have been using the same brand for years and allways had it set in a days time, even in winter, today l wanted to open the filter box l installed 3 days ago and l found less thain 1 mm of the seal cured! Same story with the ash cleanout door. The later was from yesterday and seemedwell cured but when l fired the gasifier and the seal heated (nowhere near the rated 300c) it just started to boil and foam! I am beting on a bad batch of silicone.
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Congrats to the longed-for DOW, even if it lasted only a mile. Seals should be an easy fix with a new tube of silicone. Fresh char, less moisture, and you’re back on the road again
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I had some regular silicone sealer that would not cure. It was unopened but had been purchased years ago. I think it might have been the “paintable” formula. I had an idea about your hopper to put a vibrator motor on the sloped chute portion, but that might just pack it into a “non-Newtonian” mass lump.
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I had a mixed couple of days. 2 days back it was frustrating. I finished and asembled the system and try to light up but the run was a disaster. Hot gasifier, no reasonable power, moist gas… l let it cook over night and emptyed everything, from filter to gasifier. What l found was all the bad performance was human eror, my fault! I must of swiched the charcoal, instead of fresh char l must of taken old char from the previous gasifier, it was full of dusty ash. Gasifier pluged and worm holed.
Second was l forhot to make a weld in the gasifier! Between the air preheatpart andthe gas part. Fixed them both today and l performed my first sucsessful drive to work and back! What a drive! Details later but for now l can say l am pleased. Most of all l am pleased with the idling ability and fuel economy. On the way to work l burned 10l of moist char and on the way home (uphill) l used 13l for a 20km drive to work and back. This means even with this small temporary hopper (about 40l) l can expect a range of about 70km!
Anyways, still lots to do on it before l can say its done, but for now it all works great!
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Thanks for the report Kristijan .
Glad you are back on the road 
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Congratulations Kristijan, looking forward on the report on chargas/fuel kmpL, compared to just straight fuel kmpL and monies savings. Of course not figuring in all the building cost. It must be nice driving home with no more slow driving up the hills. Got lemons?
Bob
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Congratulations! I hope the videos will soon start popping up 
Time to start fuelprepping.
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Kristijan most of my lemons are still a bit green apart from these few , so i shall save them for you and a few other smiley looking things !
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Sorry guys, l think this grin isnt lemon-wipeable. Fantastic lemons btw Dave!
Did a oil, filter, sparkplug and cable change today. This old gentleman is reddy for some serious chargas now 
A nother sucsessful drive to work. But l toped up unscreened char this time. Straight from the char crusher. Since the char was milled moist it has no dust but does contain some fines. Acording to the Swedish gengas book such a gasifier shuld work ok with some dust, but we will se. I hipe no constipation occurs.
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Believe it or not, I saw lemons growing in LARGE containers in a greenhouse in Northern Connecticut in January.
I believe it was near Putnam, since I lived near to it in Webster, Ma. Surprised the heck out of me.
I have had some problems, some sucsesses with the project, some euphoria and quite some cursing but it seems its all folowing the learning curve well.
Some pics
This is all that can be seen from the outside. Note cleanout door.
The grate fromabove
Stainless nozzles got a slight brown colour on them otherwise they seem intact. I took a lot of effort to weld them on the firebox well for a good thermal contact so that the preheat air cooled firetube can pull heat from the nozzles. Otherwise l am sure they wuld be gone by now. Looking trughthe heatexchanger, the firetube wall around the nozzles glows red showing the heat sink effect.
I have been useing damp charcoal as fuel. Not soaking wet just moist enough it doesent dust when crushing it. A WAG of 15 - 20% water. Anyway, this is a fantastic way of making realy rich gas without any fuss of driping and metering water in. No risk of freezeing. Dust free! Hands are clean after handling this fuel!
Problem. Steam does come in the hearthand gets reduced as water boils from the char above the glow zone. But it does litle to cool the part in front of the nozzles, where reaction tempering is most neaded. Thats why there is dusty ash in the ashbin (shows optimal hearth temperature) and drops of slag forming at nozzle tips.
This means l will most likely inject a bit of water still in the heatex. Shuld allso improve gas quality.
I experimented using unscreened char, stright from the chrusher. Works for 100km then the firetube content starts looking like this.
Nope. Perhaps it might work for highway driving but mixed driving pluged it shut. Or it shuld be frequently grate-shaked but thats not practical either becouse of small ashbin.
Note the slag droplet in the char.
There was so much dust in fact l neaded to rinse the cooler/tubing too. The system barely produced enough gas to run at idle yesterday! Cleaned the gasifier, filter and tubing and it purrs rock solid again.
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Kristijan i think that even those in the know would be hard pushed to see that your car was a charcoal powered Merc .
I guess as time goes on you will have the few small running problems all sorted and a daily/weekly routine sorted out to combat the dust and slag , well done indeed .
Dave
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I went from hardwere to softwere now. Instrumentation. I urgently need vacuum guages on the system. I made some research and l got blown away by their price. I am NOT paying more for a couple of guages thain l did for the whole system! 100$ for a guage??? Plus a 02 sensor, thermometers… no way.
There must be a nother way. A DIY way ideas wellcome
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Very nice and tight fit, Kristijan. It could be the stealthiest build we ever saw.
About vacuum guages. I can’t think of much but transparent hoses right away…
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It was not pretty, but I ran for a couple of years, with a vertical board at the dash with clear plastic tubing running from my gasifier to the dash. A mix of ethanol and water in the tube, and a scale marked out on the board. Thermocouples have been a real problem for me. The Chinese thermo couples and the reads have been a PItA. The best I found was an “instrument” that would read two TC channels. My problem was, it would only stay on for a minute or so and then about the time I looked at it, it had turned off. I had to turn it on and pick the channel and *C or *F. By then I could be in the ditch for not looking where I was going. If a good tech could make it so it operated just by an “on”/ “off” switch it was very accurate and dependable. TomC
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