I ran it in my '94 Chev 1/2 T with the V6. It ran good but just to small of a hopper. I put a 55 gal drum on for a hopper and drove it to Argos. On the way home I was catching too much wind so I had to cut the hopper down 7 inches. At the same time I put the new hopper on I changed the air pre-heater to one that was about 15 ft of counter flow 3in pipe covered with 4in. That had to be cut down 7 in. also. I have taken that off. It weighed to much for the good that it did.
This sub-zero weather has completely stopped me from working on my rebuild. TomC
3 Likes
I know what you mean things were quite nice up too when it droped the too the bitter cold record settings about a ( It was a week before christmas.)
Tom i looked again at that small hopper, is that a heated hopper unit.?
yes. The hot gas comes out the lowest pipe on the right bottom of the picture. It turns upward and goes into the counter flow air heater. The pipe coming off the air preheater comes around to the front where it enter the air intake. Back to where the hot gas enters the preheater and the heated air come off the preheater, the hot gas goes up and “U” turns and comes back down half way where it enters the outside mantle of the hopper. The gas leaves the hopper in the back where you can not see. The air enters the preheater just after that 90 degree bend in the pipe where the gas enters the mantle of the hopper. You can see at that point the pipe goes from 3" to 4" and the 4" is open to the atmosphere at that point. TomC
Good morning Tom i gess the heated hopper did not add much performance gain or you would have used on your big hopper unit, correct?
I apologize but even though I have an engineering back ground, I am a cut and try type person. I built the heated hopper and got less than 30 miles to a fill up. Distance between fill ups at that point was my concern. ( driving the super highways to Argos) So the easiest thing to do was jump to a 55 gal drum. If spring ever comes I am planning a shorted 55 gal hopper with some sort of mantle, again. It appears that I have to go to a lot of gizmos to drain water from the hopper OR go to heating the wood. TomC
2 Likes
Hi Tom, you and I seem to have the same problem on the driving distance of our gasifier trucks. When I get behind the wheel to drive, I want to put down some miles before I stop again to take a break. 30 to 50 is just to short, give me more like 70 to 100, now I’m ready to pull over and refill the hopper with wood.
But putting that much wind catching metal above the cab, causes to much drag for highway and toll turn pike and freeway speeds.
Building it bigger in diameter and keeping the hopper low and still getting the wood chunks to flow with into the burn tube is the problem that I see. It gets really sticky with black tar when it cools down. This what I am dealing with. Looking forward to your solution to this.
Bob
2 Likes
Sorry Bob, I have no solution yet ( haven’t made the hopper yet so haven’t had the problem) The big thing is, I have come to the realization that I’m NOT driving to Argos everyday, but I am driving to town often, so I will stop more often on the few long trips I take. TomC
4 Likes
I think this is the realization of DOW for everyone. I hoping someone will come up with a solution.
Bob
1 Like
I save my hard wood for long trips and us my pine for around the farm and short trips . Pine OK for long trips if I have planed more stops .( stopping anyway )
3 Likes
How about this? Excuse my rough sketch, it’s meant to represent an extension of the volume of a barrel, somewhat in the form of a monorator hopper. I sketched it with 2 filler lids, but maybe one set back a bit would allow decent filling with adequate access to the firetube?
It would greatly increase fuel volume without greater height.
6 Likes
I like it Wayne! Its similar in shape to what l had in my Chevys sistem.
1 Like
Garry, that’s funny! was working on hopper for the Ranger project today, and can up with same idea, because of having to keep everything low as possible.
2 Likes
Wow Garry, I have the Same sketch in my note book, that is amazing.
Bob
That’s good enough confirmation for me to build. Thanks Garry, Kristijan, and Al. That’s my next hopper design with gutter and monorator cooling tubes on the sides.
Are the two arms spring loaded so they go up forming a funnel for the wood to fall through?TomC
1 Like
Close. Puley or some other way mechanicaly operated. They must be released at refueling.
1 Like
Hi,Kristijan!
18.1.2018
The “flap shelves” could even start a bit below the horizontal plane, for the sake of collecting condensate…
But here is a risk, that wood-bits at the periphery might strangle (brake) the movement upward. The outer cylindrical surface may need a cylindrical cover-plate moving up with the flap, and avoiding the wood-bits to have ANY contact with the “silo”-wall.
Also, if both flaps are allowed to start bending upward all together, they can lock each another, by compressing the wood lots against each another!
This will be avoided, if only one at a time is allowed to rise up to ~60 degrees – what the moving “periphery plates” allow until reaching the center-line.
This 60 degree position could automatically release the other one to start pushing upwards.
Just a scenario “fantasy”…
5 Likes
Lowd, Lowd!!! The Chevy runs again!!! It was a battle getting running again because I didn’t remember what all the gizmos and thing-a-ma- bobs were suppose to do. Didn’t load the hopper up in case I had to take it apart again. I drove down the road a little over a mile and going, it was slightly down hill so I got into 5th gear; coming home I had to stay in 4 th. Previously either way I had to run in 3 rd. 
I changed the fire tube, put in 10 nozzles, modified the reduction zone and went to an insulated grate. Had several other items on the outside that I plan to change, but I HAD to stop re-engineering everything and just get it back to running.TomC: 
16 Likes
Good job Tom, I know what you mean you can re-engineer your life away and never get anything to run. It Looks like I will get to see your truck at Argos this year. RIGHT.
BOB
2 Likes