Hi Tom,
Hope your Dr appt went well and we see you at Argos. My dad had a saying- “Getting old aint for sissys”. So true!
Regarding your gasifier problem: While I know little about gasifiers, I’ll throw in my 2 cents worth. If I was a betting man I’d bet your problem is something simple. (Yeah, that helps a lot!). You’ve mentioned the high vacuum readings which point to a restriction somewhere. The high gas temps might appear to be a separate problem but maybe not. I think Tom Ws analysis is close. While you don’t have time to tear the whole gasifier apart I think you can narrow the problem down. Can you drill some vacuum ports into the hopper and several points along the air inlet portion of your inlet air heat exchanger? This would show you exactly where the restriction is and you could troubleshoot from there. I would also do a quick check on your vacuum gauges by swapping the lines to them to make sure they are reading correctly.
Hope this helps. Keep us posted. We’re all learning from this.
Kevin from Suamico.
Tom,
One thing you mentioned to me last Saturday was that your inlet air temps were lower than normal. I don’t recall you mentioning that on the forum, but correct me if I’m wrong. That fact might be helpful to others also.
Kevin from Suamico.
Hi, Tom!
18.05.2016
Cyclone once more…
The inlet to the cyclone seems to be high and flattened as the side-photo reveales…
This gives the possibility to plug the inlet, even if not much is collected in the bottom jar!
As the flattening does not pass as big bits of char as the rising tube, it can start collecting other bits, as soon as one bit is stuck in that passage!
Max
Thanks Max I stripped the gasifier down to the cyclone yesterday and kind of sorry to say, Every thing looked clear.
Two days ago, I cleaned out the char and inspected everything. A few items came up but nothing dramatic. I sifted the char/ash and dumped it back into the gasifier. Tried to get it running and it was not making any smoke from the Kirby dispite having a hopper full of brown smoke ( I had added wood by this time) It flared The engine fire up so I took off down the road. In a very short time I hear a big kaboom and the engine die. The top of my hay filter blew off and the foam was sticking out half way… OK!!! We see the problem, the foam is p;urged. Found the lid and put it back on without the foam. No better. I pulled all the hay out and the vacuum was still high and the grate was back up to 1500 degrees F.
The fact that I didn’t get “smoke” out of the Kirby really bothered me. Yesterday I took the cyclone off and inspected it and flushed the cooling rails, and took the hay filter apart ( not there is much to it with no hay in it.) Was putting it back together when I ran out of gas yesterday.
Thanks for the help TomC
Get it to Argos by hook or by crook… we’ll get you running right! 
Hey Tom, sorry I must’ve missed your thread, just catching up now.
heres the link to the thread I posted a replacement motor for the bilge blowers
unfortunately the product is no longer available but hopefully with the specs listed on the old listing you will be able to source a new supplier. I will mic some more specs like the distance of mounting holes and post them when i get them.
Try searching RS360S/ RS365S 6~12V motor in ebay
and the video of the blower replacement
talk to you later
Dustin
I’m sorry to hear. I sence your feelings between the lines.
Ask your wife if she can allow you some lawn mower gasoline to get you to Argos. You will DOW on your way home.
Well DOW friends; Unless lighting strikes between now and 5;00 tonight, I am out of the trip to Argos.
I haven’t tried building a fire in it since working on the cyclone, cooling rails, and hay filter, I did take a couple of rides on that liquid stuff. With the valve closed so the truck had to breath through gasifier, I still got high readings on both the cooling rails and the grate area. I laid down and thought about it because of course my mind would not sleep. I opened a valve to allow air to the nozzles, directly and bypass the heat exchanger. No difference. Then I opened the hopper liid as Paul and JO suggested. STILL no difference. Now how can that be. 12 inches water at the grate with the hopper lid open.
So for right now I am burned out You all have fun. I sure wanted to talk to the guys on the darker side. That seems to be where everything is happening right now. TomC
Tom, listen to me… if it still runs on gasoline, drive it down. We’ll take up a collection if you need gas money. We want to help!
There will be most of the woodgas brainpower in the country available to look at your truck. Where else can you get that kind of help?
We need stuff to do anyway. Guys who fix things and solve problems get itchy standing around all weekend…
Hi TomC
Your grate.
What grid openings please.
Is it an all gasses flow-trough type? Pure Inbert/Gek/others
Or does it need off the edges, by-passing flow capability too? WK/Victory’s/others
Keep your chin up.
Steve Unruh
What Chris said! I will be bummed if you do not come.
Oh doe-di-odoe!!! The saga of the woodgas goes on. Today while running the Kirby with no “fire” in the hopper I held a piece of plastic to the mouth where the air gets pulled in and the vacuum pulled the plastic in very quickly. So then I opened the lid and put a piece of plastic across the hopper opening. With the Kirby pulling 5 inches of water on the grate, it sucked the plastic down tight. My conclusion is---- I am pulling good vacuum. More than I have ever before. I did have the engine air cleaner off this winter and sealed it up “tighter than a fat girls socks:” I worked on it until I got it where if I put my hand over the “horn” of the air cleaner, it would kill the engine.
Ok so I put in some wood and “fired” up the hopper. I drove it about 20 miles. I don’t have an “richness” gage so I drove it trying to hold the vacuum to 10 inches of water on the cooling rail and 5-7 inches in the hopper. My thinking was that pulling more vacuum would be like “over pulling”. It ran pretty good, but a couple of times it got to stuttering so I richened the mix by closing the air and increasing the vacuum up to 15 and 8 in. The temperature went up to about 1500 F I use to run at about 900 F.
So now what??? I will put more wood in and take an other ride hoping that maybe the char bed will tighten up a little and lower the temp. WK says a gasifier uses about 3 time the amount of wood that it should during the time he is settling the char bed. That must mean he is “burn” more wood which would mean more heat???
Steve; My grate is made of 3/8 th rebar. There is about 3/8 th. space between bars. It is mounted solid and the opening between the grate and the ring that contains the reduction area char is about 1/2 to 3/4 inch. So the char can go off the side of the grate, but it has to be so mall enough to pass through that space. Hope that explains it.
Anyways, I see my lopper lid is leaking when I shut down. I will work on that ( to seal another possible leak) then take it for a noter ride and either it will hold up for a trip or I will melt it down right here at home. Next installment to come. Tomc
Tomc
I’m running dino round trip this year so another $20 given to you to help you get there isn’t going to kill me. Let’s see how many likes this post gets which will mean fellow contributions to your cause.
Thanks Tom It isn’t the money or hating the dino companies so much I won’t give them the money. My truck is a $600 beater with a heater and should not be on such long trips. BUT if it was running on wood I would take the chance.Without wood in it, I just get depressed. Thanks again TomC
Know what you mean I got one also cept mine is only a 400 dollar one hence the dino run
OK Tom, if you gasoline your truck to Argos you’ll be back to woodgas in no time. Think of it that way. Think of all the wood smoke smells you’ll miss…
In 2012 I went to Argos in another vehicle - hint- hint.
I believe you did in 2014 to didn’t you? wheel bearing on trailer or something?
Right you are Jim. You have a good memory!
For you stay at home Gasers; I put another 35 or so miles on the truck It was kind of crazy. I was switching out the hopper lids and poked around in the hopper and there was still the sent of smoke. So I got in and tried to start it. It would barely run on gasoline. Kept sputtering. It got so bad the engine would not stay running. I was pulling on the gasifier thinking I was pulling the temperature and the gas back to life. Finally the truck started running on smoke. I let it die and headed to get some more wood for another test drive. As I passed the back of the truck I got gagged by smoke. I looked up and the hopper lid had been open all this time. I put two more bags of wood in and took it as I said for about 35 miles. The temperature by the grate got up to 1800 F. I figured “kill or cure” and kept driving until I knew I would be almost out of wood by the time I got home. It ran fairly well but I did feel the gas was “week”. I don’t know if I mentioned when I cleaned the ash out the other day there was no white ash in it. I just can’t think it is and air leak. TomC