Marat_Lysenko
(Marat (East of Ukraine, 70 km from Donetsk))
#21
Rindert, thank you for this video!
The experiment was done very well. Good comments, subtitles, all stages are shown in detail. Professional!
In light of the above, it was terrifying to watch him start the engine… If that can of oxygenated gasoline vapor had popped, it would have been very tragic.
But this video made me think again about eliminating backflash of gases in the engine intake. It turns out there is a solution! This is a fourth-generation propane-butane gas equipment - where the propane vapor obtained after the reducer is supplied by gas nozzles to each cylinder only during the intake phase of this cylinder. No explosions!
Now this made me think about how to turn diesel fuel into steam, for burning from an ordinary spark … Then the engine can become truly multi-fuel - only the controller firmware will switch. Sometimes it happens that a person who has many different cars refuels the car with diesel fuel instead of gasoline.
However, I still want to finish my wood gas generator so that I don’t have to stop at these gas stations at all! Here are the best fuels for cars and for goats:
Turning diesel to gas can be done but it will not prevent the bigest problem of diesel in a gas engine, its suseptibility to compression ignition, “low octane rating”.
If you are making your own diesel fuel you are already adding methanol. Increasing the quantity of the methanol will increase octane. I can’t really see any advantage to trying to run diesel in a sparked engine. Seems like long before it would ignite the plugs would foul.
The methanol added to veg oil is to convert the end product to a Methyl-ester oil and separate the “Sugery” component Glycerol. I don’t think adding more free methanol. would be helpful to make it run in an SI engine. Might even make things worse by drawing in moister.
I don’t think it was ever a thing in the USA ( its was not in Canada ) but in the UK they had a special tractor only mostly farm off road fuel called TVO.
It was a mix of diesel like gas-oils and lighter fuel in a cheap no road tax blend to help farmers.
You needed a special tractor with extra low compression ( like 5:1 ) and an intake manifold heater.
I doubt its been sold commercially in 30 years, so at rallies in the UK they mix their own from a blend of diesel and gasoline and the old tractors run quite well on it.
As you will note in the comments one of them says you can’t beat the smell…
Yup there is a smell to buring K1 or TVO in a spark ignition engine.
Tom,
Back in the late '70s I mistakenly dumped 5 gallons of diesel in a Farmall M. It smoked, but it continued to run. The farmer I worked for adjusted the mixture screw to make it stop smoking. As the diesel fuel got used up and gasoline was added to the tank the mixture screw had to be readjusted. This probably wasn’t very good for that engine, but it did not foul the spark plugs.
Rindert
As i work with cars, and “neighbor” is a gas station, we sometimes help their customers that has put the wrong fuel in their cars, after draining the tank i often have this “mixture” for free, bring it home for my Ferguson tractor, since it has a kerosene engine it often runs ok on this diesel/gasoline mix, if it smokes little i can adjust it by mixing in more gasoline.
About spark igniting diesel you can look up the Hesselman engine, a low-pressure, spark ignited diesel, invented by Jonas Hesselman.
This engine gained somewhat popularity, anyways in Sweden, but i remember reading somewhere that Waukesha made them under license to. These engines was known for fouling the sparkplugs, working best under heavy load, some types was made to cut out half of the cylinders at idle, to keep some load at the working cylinders.
Marat_Lysenko
(Marat (East of Ukraine, 70 km from Donetsk))
#30
All spring and early summer I was busy creating a grass mower. A lot of different little things had to be done. And when I finished, it turned out that the mower was very heavy. About 300 kg I think. Even on 4 wheels it was very difficult to move it on the grass. The cars we have available are too fast for haymaking. Therefore, I had to disassemble the mower in order to bring it in parts to the storage room. Too bad I didn’t take a picture of it all together.
It became clear that we already need a four-wheel drive vehicle on a frame. And since there is no large amount of money to buy it, it was decided to borrow money for further hours of work from familiar farmers, and collect it in parts. Today we already have: 2 drive axles (front and rear), 4 springs, a transfer case that can be repaired, a gearbox that is not worth repairing, a whole frame, steering and a disassembled and washed engine from our gray large passenger car , which is well suited to our future truck, because the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant at one time put such engines on its SUVs. Even the wheels from our gray passenger car fit on the drive axles of our UAZ, which has not yet been assembled together.
In the meantime, there is no cabin and a working gearbox, I decided to watch videos about WoodGas. And again it caught fire to make at least some practical steps! Now I have a neck and a grate. It remains to scald the seams well, check the tightness and scald the seams again, heat in the oven until red, check the tightness again and, possibly, scald the seams again.
What Goran said. This is my favorite kind of project.
8 Likes
Marat_Lysenko
(Marat (East of Ukraine, 70 km from Donetsk))
#33
We drove 25 km from the car dismantling to our house with this frame for 1 hour and 40 minutes! The trunk is designed for 50 kg, and the frame weighs 150 kg. We loaded and unloaded it with our youngest son with the help of tall trees growing nearby and a hand winch. And its length is 4.5 meters - it doesn’t even fit into the farmers’ dump truck.
When I was about 6 years old we went for a visit to my grandmothers brother’s farm. I thought all farms had horses and was making a pest out of myself wanting to ride one so my father hoisted me on to the back of a dairy cow. It didn’t appreciate the cargo and walked over purposely and leaned my leg into the electric fence out of nothing but meanness. They are not as dumb as they pretend. Took two men pulling on it’s tail to move it and me off the wire. I haven’t eaten flesh in 35 years but when I was sitting with a belly full of beer eating a bar hamburger I always thought about that cow and hoped I was enjoying one of it’s relatives.
okay that cracks me up. I have no idea how you got the frame on top of the car. It is low-riding, muchless drive it and still have tread on the tires. Then I noticed the stick propping up the frame.
Good luck with that build, I am sure you will get it done, but you have proven you need a four-wheel drive.
It remains to add a central air supply pipe. And the question arose: do I need to do active cooling of the nozzle for firewood? Or is this only true for charcoal?
However, the design is collapsible and I can add something later.
Wow, you’re a fast builder, are you going to use a single, center nozzle? Pointing down?
No cooling needed, but you should use a good material, with thick walls.
Here is a pic of old Swedish downdraft wood gasifier with center nozzle.
Here the nozzle can “slide” up and down, to adjust the hot zone, and compensate for nozzle “burn off” the nozzle tip are also replaceable.
Just posted this if it can give you some ideas?
Then the engine can become truly multi-fuel - only the controller firmware will switch. Sometimes it happens that a person who has many different cars refuels the car with diesel fuel instead of gasoline.
