Good information Tom!
Old age is getting to my mind. As you know, I had welding problems that I thought I corrected by checking the voltage at a wall recepticle and I use that for everything. I move anything that needs welding near to that recepticle. I was welding on a drum. To check the welds, I turned off the shop lights, and with my head inside the drum, went around the outside with a drop light. After finding several pin holes ( of course) I laid the light on my table and hooked up the welder. When I struck an arc, the drop light went out. WHAT? I know the recepticle is ok under no load. I struck an arc again and the light went out again. Hmmmmm!!! What now, the drop light cord is to long??? I shut the welder down and took off my helmet. TADA!!! Dummy!!! The automatic helmet was darkening ALL the light in the room, including the drop light. That is what you get when you get paranoid.TomC
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Good luck welding new projects,i have mine fixed for now, it needed beter brakers in garodge any way and the one on the pole was looseing contact from oxidation,i moved that braker over one notch i had left over,and it tighten the conection for now, the trailer braker conection is fine out too the pole. IT sure made the little welder nearly stop poping,only thing i may try next is hanging some dc caps acrost the bridge, some are saying that helped stop the poping.
My plasma cutter dims the florescent lights when I cut.
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HY tom C. am looking at your heat duck plumming on the back of your blue truck,is that actualy part of your heat exchanger/cooling area before the cooling rack.it seems it would burst open with a puff back if it was.?Thanks
Yes Kevin, that is a counter flow heat exchanger. The hot gases come out of the gasifier and goes into a 3 in. exhaust pipe material that makes several trips up and down before it enters the cyclone filter and then dumps into the 4 in. cooling pipes around the bed of the truck. The 3 in. exhaust pipe then has a 4 in. furnace type tubing around it. The air comes into the furnace piping just before the cyclone. It follows the hot gas piping back until just before the point where the piping picks up the hot gas. There is a T there that allows the heated air to then go to the manifold to feed the nozzles I have a thermocouple measuring the temperature of the air going to the manifold, and another that measures the temperature of the gas AFTER the cyclone. I find the air going into the manifold is about 50 deg. cooler than the gas coming out of the cyclone.
I believe your concern is that I am using furnace tubing. Where the hot air goes is solid exhaust pipe. The opening to between the nozzle manifold and the hot air supply line is only 2 1/2 in dia. The pressure coming through that hole is very low compared to the force of the pressure on the spring loaded hopper lid. I suppose there is some puff back, but it has never blown the furnace pipe apart in anyway. Always the lid.TomC
HI TOM C,i had no problem with the way you built it, i was just trying too see what i was looking at, I see what your saying,you do have a preheat area, Thanks for the verification,Neat design.
Technicians / woodgasers; I have a "94 Silverado with a 4.3 TBI engine on wood gas. This week I had to take the TBI apart and clean it. When I get it back together, including the air cleaner, I run the engine and put my had over the horn of the air cleaner to see if it is leaking air. Normally when the engine slows to just about dieing, then I remove my hand and assume it is air tight. Today I thought I would go all the way and see if I could kill the engine. To my surprise, just before stalling it picked up speed and stumbled around until it had a good idle again, with my hand on the horn. I could hear a whistling sound. I assumed the IAC had kicked in. I took my hand off the horn and the engine died-- assuming to lean of a mixture because of the IAC setting.
If the above is correct, my question is---- when running on wood gas should I disconnect the IAC because it is by passing the effects of my “air control” valve on my “mixer”??? I normally run with the “air control” completely closed. I would like to have control of the air by using my “air control” rather than the computer, although the computer seems to be doing a good job.TomC
Interesting thoughts Tom. I like the way you think. Maybe computer controlled air mixing is in our future.
HI tom you could put a switch in between,too turn off when on wood gas and try it,i allways unplug my iac.they over idle the motor when not nesisary when on older astros.and use a stick too idle up in winter.It might set the chech engine light on though,i will pull the little bulb,or put black tape over light.it probbly dont hurt the mix anyway as you can adjust air voluem with the butterflys.Or plug the iac wire intoo an extra iac,so the computor thinks all is normal,may have too ground the extra iac case. THEM motor would probbly go 300 thousand if they dident idle so fast on cold starts.
As far as I know, the idle air control takes its air from the same air cleaner as the rest of the air. Meaning if you block off the horn, it should stall the motor, period.
I think what may have happened is you have a vacuum leak somewhere (the whistling sound), and the motor was able to run on just that leaking air by reducing the fuel flow (similar to Wayne’s hybrid mode). When you suddenly added more air by removing your hand, it didn’t increase the fuel to match, so it stalled.
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Chris; I believe you were correct. I went around the base of the tbi with a propane torch ( without a flame_) and found no signs of a leak. I took a hollow tube and listened to the tbi. Nothing. But with the tube I found that the noise was not a whistle but a whine — coming from the alternator. I started the engine up with the air cleaner off. I placed a plastic bag over the intake to the tbi. It stalled the engine immediately and “popped” a hole in the plastic. Good vacuum. Put the air cleaner back on and covered the entry with the plastic bag. The engine slowed but did not die. I started around the air cleaner and right away found leaks. After studying, it did not appear that the leaks were very bad but I have brazed them up and we will see tomorrow.TomC
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Well a new day and a new problem. I laid the top of the air cleaner on my flat metal weld bench and low and behold, it wasn’t laying flat. It would rock a little bit. I placed it back on the bottom half and although it appeared to fit correctly, when I pinched the lip between the top and bottom, it would pick up the other side. Making a long story short ( not something I do well) after a lot of playing (?) I got it to lay flat. Put in an “o” ring that I had, put it on the truck, and was able to stall the engine by putting my hand over the horn. Never been able to completely stall the engine before so I wonder how long this has been a problem. I wonder, you guys who have had back fires and stomped your air cleaner back into shape, how did you get away with it.TomC
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Well as a famous guy says often on youtube; “run’n on wood! run’n good” After a long several weeks I went back out on the road. SWEM !!!
Now onto my speedometer. I have been looking up on you tube and found there is a gizmo in a GM that you can adjust the speedo for different size tires or changing rear ends and anything else that would affect your speedo. Just got to figure out how to test everything.I put in a new dash that has a tach and the speedo is doing the same thing so it is under the truck somewhereTomC
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Hey Tom, can’t help you with your speedo but you said something that caught my interest when you were lookin for leaks on you system! I’ve used different kinds of spray flammables to find leaks in intakes etc but never propane, good idea, is that what finally told you had a leaky air cleaner cover?
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No Herb; I have a 3 ft long piece of 1 1/2 dia. plastic tube. I put my ear tight against the tube and move the other end around. Kind of hard to look away from the engine and point the tube around. The propane works best with leaks around the base of the tb like cracked vacuum fittings or bad gaskets. When I’m in panic mode, I’ll do everything. Like I said, I placed a plastic bag over the tb and immediately killed the engine and popped a hole in the plastic. That proved I had plenty of vacuum and that the leak had to be above that . The only answer was the air cleaner. I caught the warped lid as I was brazing some pin holes. I always said “I would rather be lucky than good.” TomC
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This morning I would like to thank this group. I just finished a fairly large rebuild. I put a bag of wood in and drove it to the airport and back — about 6 miles. Pulled into tho yard feeling it was running ok, but there were a couple of small leaks. Next day I started it up just to take a ride to town. Before I got to town, it ran out of wood – about a total of 11 miles on an 18 pound bag. Not good. I put in another bag and stopped after 10 miles because I didn’t want to run it down to the nozzles. Sure enough, it was close to out so I put in another bag. On this bag, she started running much better and gaining speed going up hills etc. From your discussions, I concluded even with my bastard design, I have to build up a " char bed" like you have talked about. The last time I had runs like this where it was eating wood, I pulled into the yard and tore the hopper all a part and put a full 55 gal. drum on for a hopper. Thanks to the discussions, this time I am gutting it out and letting the char build. I was SWEM ing all the way home on the 3rd bagTomC
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My views on rebuilding this type of device can go either way…but will it ever be capable of you running in OD? You must ask yourself this. It sounds as if it is a little to small for this heavy of a truck. Now the WK design will work this truck very well 12" X 18" tube, I would even use the new design on top of that, a little more work but that is all in the learning process! BBB Build Baby Build!
Mack
P.S. Did you say Crivitz, WI. ???LMAO
Mack I have concluded that with the differential I have, I will never get into OD,even a WK count’t get in to OD