The double flute charcoal gasifer

A Reese hitch system is way to expensive than it is worth to me to hang a gasififer on the back of my car or truck.

OK thanks Robert-i forgot you putting in the trunk or hatchback of vehicle.If my head wasent sewed on- i would forget it too these days-i feel like worse than some 85 year olds and i am only 64 till june. Since they put me under for sergery- i hope they dident over medicate me- it could be i drink to much coffee-i think that messes with memory a little.

Has any body put a wood gasifier in a dodge carivan or the chevy mini van-i seems like maybe one was built here on dow.??THANKS I might build a lighter wood gas unit and put in a mini van- maybe just big enough to get like 60 mpg. MY pontiac vibe barely gets about 25 mpg average on cheap gas around here.

One of the guys here ran a Simple Fire on a Chevy Lumina minivan.

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THATS the one i was trying to remember- no wood gasifier yet in mini vans then THANKS.I was surprized my dodge carivan van got good mpg for the utility it had. seem like it would make a low wood consumption vehicle if the timing could adapt to wood gas.18–22 mpg.

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Kevin,
this is the topic:
Charcoal Powered Lumina APV Minivan - Small Engines / Charcoal Gasification - Drive On Wood!

Guilty as charged. :blush:

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Dan, You are Guilty as Charred. :grinning:

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Thanks mike for posting the charco powered mini van- i was thinking i might put a wall behind the front seats on one, open up the roof to let any smoke out , and put a light duty wood gasifier behind the front seats,and cooling rack on the roof. if i run across a deal on a mini van anyway. THANKS

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Finely after much scratching my head. This is what I have come up with. As you know weight is a big problem on the back of any small car. My double flute has some heavy duty parts in its build. So mounting it as close to the back of the car is very important. I have the two channel support piece bolted into place and welded a channel across the back.
In the pictures you can see the center balance point of the gasifier. It will pivot on this spot and it looks like it will only need to pivot back 25° to clear the hatch back door when open up.
Using my overhead crane for support hanging the gasifier so camera shots are not that great. But you can get the idea of what I am trying to accomplish here.





Now back to building the tilting part of the frame that the gasifier will sit on and hayfilter if I choose to place it there, not sure yet because of weight. It still might go up front of the bumper of the car like they do on the other side of the great pond.
Oh one more thing I just thought of when looking at the last picture. With the gasifier tilted back like that, it would make it much easier to load the hopper if it were taller.

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I finished up with under the car frame bolting to the gasifier support frame.
And now I can jump up and down on it with my 165 pounds. It is solid.
I welded the pivot points on for tilting the gasifier bottom bracket that the gasfifer will be mounted to.

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I think this tilt platform for the gasifier is going to work.




I still need to level the whole system under the car so the platform is coming out the back of the Subaru level or tilting up a little with the weight of the gasifier and filter on the platform mount.
When I stepped on to the back of the tilting platform with the gasifier, clycone and hayfilter barrel on it, it dropped a half of a inch. But it held me.

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Looking good Bob! Is the platform a part of the cooler?

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Are you reading my mind Kristijan. Lol, I was just thinking about that, how I could do this with being tilted up and down positions. No cooling rack on the roof of the car that would be nice. The only problem I can see is weight back there. This gasifier build is probably twice as heavy as it should be. Because of all the extra stiff I built into it to make adjustments to it. A simple barrel hopper with a insulated ammo box would have worked, with the two flutes in the bottom of the barrel and a ash clean out ammo box welded to the bottom of the barrel like you said before. Wrapped it up in insulation to keep it hot. Right!

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Bob, I was going to ask about the cooler too, but Kristijan beat me to it.
Maybe you mentioned, but what’s your plan on the hayfilter? I noticed there’s a part in the front missing.

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That looks awesome mr Bob :+1:
And it really would help to empty the ashes, open the clean-out door and tilt it.
Well, i really like the idea, and found some old-timers, maybe some inspiration for you?



Only bad is they don’t show how they solved the piping?

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GorenK I think your first picture does show their gas piping solution.
Rigid piping with a V-clamp loosening slip joint. In-line with the lower right hand platform pivot joint.
The pipe joint no doubt high temperature greased.

Loosen pipe clamp before pivoting. Wooden mallet tap it loosened.
S.U.

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Hi SteveU, you got good eyes, i saw it when i looked closer in the book where i snapped the pic, probably as you say, some kind of clamp, close, just below the pivoting point.
I also like how they mowed the bumper backwards, probably to step on when tilting the gasifier, because it’s weight is front of the pivoting point.
The Lion gasifier has it’s weight behind the pivoting point, and “wants” to tilt back when released.
Interesting fact is the first gasifier should be a wood unit, i cant confirm this, but searching facts about it, pretty compact wood gasifier for the time.

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I bought a few rolls of this flex pipe a while back. Haven’t gotten around to using it on anything yet but it would certainly still allow a tilted gasifier to connect to a roof rack cooler.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=flexible+exhaust+pipe+2+inch

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Thank you Goran for the pictures. I knew it had been done before and you found the prove of it. With those big wood and charcoal units on the back of the cars with cooling, condensation tanks and all. I know they built them heavy duty back in the WWII days.
Steve, you do have good eyes. Yup a V clap at the pivot point.
Yes JO, I am still thinking of putting some of the weight up front like the condensation tank but the piping would then have to over the top of the car. Nothing is final yet that has not been built and mounted.
The newer cars are not built like the older heavy duty cars were built. Engineers have now made them like beer cans easy to crush to absorb impact in case of a accident.
Here is a question for everyone, who built the first-time ever unibody type car? It was in the 50’s.

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