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.
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
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
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
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…
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
Hi Tom
have you checked the air mix valve at the breather, something might have happen and it staying closed more than you think, that would make it pull a lot of vacuum on the gasifier. also make it run bad on gasoline.
You should be good for the Argos trip.