here some pictures found in the net from historic motocycles with gasifiers…
some interesting details: on the penultimate foto the startup air pump in brass…
on the third and fifth foto: startup ventilator , turned by the rear wheel ( system like a old electric dynamo is turned)
some of the motocycles are two stroke engines…the lubrification is by separate lubrification oil adding (dropper systems or through the carburettor?).
oil tank is the not used gasoline tank…
if someone has more fotos would be nice…!!
best wishes giorgio
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Hi Giorgio, i can contribute with some bad photos from a Classic car magazine, this is about Sperco, a Swedish make for small motorcycles, these light-weight motorcycles where extremely popular in Sweden before ww2, they where only 98cc and anyone over 15 years of age could use them without a license, they where often nicknamed as “skull-breakers”, and after the war they become classed as real motorcycles then licence was needed.
This one is from Norway.
From manual.
Mixer. as you mentioned oil was drip-feed, often with a sight glass for tuning.
Start-up fan, powered from rear wheel, must be hard to pedal-start this
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I am currently working on building a small motorcycle that runs on charcoal. Thank you for the photos it will help me with figuring out how I’ll lay it out.
I’m assuming a lot of these are updraft gasifiers and some maybe cross draft?
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Giorgio and Goran; Thanks for bringing this old information to us, most of who never knew this information was still available. TomC
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The man with the drawing seem’s to be mr Svedlund himself, he seldom let a smile light up his face, he dedicated his life to gasifiers.
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Most of these gasifiers seem to be a manufactured product. Is that right? Some obviously are. Also they all seem to be downdraft. Pellets, Charcoal? I’m wondering what Rost means in front of the clean out door in the picture above and what that nozzle could be made of.
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Tom, rost or roster means grate.
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The nozzles was often made of Kanthal, a ni-chrome alloy, same as in ni-cr heater wire.
It could withstand much heat and was very popular in swedish made gasifiers.
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hello cody
i guess the design on the foto is downdraft…on the left side of the gasifier you can see it is double walled. i think this is a cooler and a kind of dropbox… the gas comes from down upside and goes on the other side of the wheel to the filter…the box on the right side of the gasifier is probably the air intake…the hot area is obviously on the part down where the colour is different…
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When I began to follow the Holtz Gibt Gaz forum (Wood Gives Gas) forum: “rost” and “roster” kept Google translating as rust. Iron oxide.
Very confusing.
By purpose it should have translated as roost. Something to stand up on. Something that holds up.
Because that is what it does in a wood gasifier: holds up the wood charcoal to remain in the hot active zone.
Our “grate” word really describes a form-shape. Same if we used the name “grid”. Form- shape, not so much it’s use purpose.
Allowing the ash to separate from the charcoal we could call this a “separator”.
A command active movement separator plate could be called a “sifter”.
Ben Petersons book system grate system. The Imbert wiggle-waggle, back and forth, grate system. Sifting.
Oh well. Grate is good enough.
Steve Unruh
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here is a design i would prefer, bigger coal hopper , and the whole unit looks like metal rettangular saddle bags…a stealth or hidden design because of the sherriffs…
maybee the bee-smoker- found the idea in the internet - can be a good idea for a simple start up pump?
best wishes giorgio
keep us informated with your building progess , cody!!
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That’s right Steve,“rost” means rust as well, but from what I know “roster” is more commonly used for grate. At least for furnaces and boilers.
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The gas coming out of the AsBrink reactor has to be super heated going to the filter. I can’t figure out what kind of filter media they could be using or how they are cooling that gas much before it gets to the engine. Seems like an updraft would have been a much better design.
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That’s what I’ve been mulling over. There’s no way I could use rubber couplers unless I built an updraft for this bike. 196cc box stock go kart engine.
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I like the idea of those canisters. I’d like to put something like that on my sawmill but it’s only got a 420cc Preditor engine and I don’t think it could stand the drop in power.
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Hi guys; Just a little babbling by an old man. This subject kept me awake last night. Right after the war, a mechanic shop across the road from where I lived took on the Wizzar motor bike franchise. Wizzar built a kit like is shown here that mounted on a bicycle. But they also contracted with Schwin bicycle manufaturing to build special bikes to be made into bikes like these. The Schwin had heavy duty spokes to support the large belt pully that was screwed onto the spokes. I wanted on so bad, but I was only 9 or 10. Back then when they said you had to be 14 to get a driver’s license that was the law and without a driver’s license you could NOT operate anything with a motor, period. I would stop in that shop about once a week to see what was new and to dream about having one. At that time I was riding a girls bike because with the men’s cross bar, I couldn’t reach the pedals, so it was all dreams of a future. And then one day I stopped in and they had gotten a new shipment. They had gotten a Wizzar that was mounted on a special Schwinn frame that was small like what I guess we would call a BMX bike. Oh man!! My heart jumped out of my chest. I could sit on it with my feet on the ground. I think in the next few weeks I just about wore the seat out on that little motor bike, just sitting on it in the shop. I never got one but these pictures look so much like the Wizzar that I couldn’t get them out of my dreams last night. TomC
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