He might be referring to the fact that gasification is 75% operator knowledge X experience.
In other words:
SWEM = (experience X knowledge) + solidDesign
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It seems that about 25% is the machine and the other 75% is the operator with his experience , knowledge and dirty hands. 
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Hi Steve,
I saw the same movie with the gasifier on top of a school bus. Then I thought
it was a Hollywood gimmick
Storyline
During the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, an assorted group of refugees, including an American soldier, an Army nurse, a priest and a group of local children, try to make their getaway aboard a rattletrap, creaky bus.
Starred Doug McClure.
The Longest Hundred Miles (1967) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ53DdHA3Y0
There’s a mention of gasification at 18:00 and at 38:48 on part 1 above.
I was 25.
Pepe
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Jeff and Wayne, thanks for the possible explanations of the 75%. i kept thinking Kristijan would chime in eventually with his explanation. Perhaps y’all hit the nail on the head.
Pepe, interesting how little experiences early in life plant seeds which eventually sprout and produce fruit. I can remember several similar encounters which sparked life-long interests.
Probably those of you interested in charcoal gasification have seen the Pedrick manual. If not here is a link to it: https://www.build-a-gasifier.com/PDF/PederickManual.pdf. I find it neat that this WWII era commercial updraft charcoal gasifier operator’s manual makes a good operator’s manual for the Simple Fire type gasifiers. I keep a copy in my car.
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Steve, what Wayne and Jeff sayd.
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Finally had good driving weather for a CharCar trip on a low-traffic Saturday morning. I drove to Lowes, Walmart, and $Tree in Henderson, the next nearest town to Oxford. The engine did stall at the first stop light, but started OK with an air mixing valve adjustment and ran fine after that. Started fine after each stop of 10 to 20 minutes on residual gas. No gasoline used today. Used water drip, which appeared to have a partial blockage, and used no exhaust gas—system still heating up too fast. Total trip was about an hour and fifteen minutes from start-up to final shut down. Used nearly 9 pounds of charcoal for the 14 mile trip—not very impressive. Next time I’ll use some exhaust and make sure the water is flowing properly. I hope that will do an adequate job of keeping the heat down. I thought the power was good. I think I’m getting 50% of gasoline power—typically 45 mph on up hill grade, 50 on the flat and 60 on the down grade. The new cyclone filter works OK. I’m not sure it is any more effective than the first one, however. Overall, I was pleased.
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Steve, Thanks so much for the updates. I’m jealous. I was down under the barn looking at my MG yesterday. There is still about a foot of packed snow in the barnyard that needs to melt before i can drive her out.
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Bob and all, here is a short SWEM video. My friend who was behind the camera is educated and experienced as a meteorologist. That explains why between showing the gas station and panning around to view my smiling face, she got distracted by a cloud in the sky and included that in the video with comment: http://www.tabbscreekbaptistchurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/3-24-19-SWEM-Video-for-Web.m4v
The video was done Sunday afternoon when we motored on chargas to my former workplace, The Masonic Home for Children, and went for a walk on the farm. I suppose there was a layover of 45 minutes or so and I was still able to restart on residual chargas for the drive back home.
Now that I’m driving in traffic and trying to keep up, I’m noticing more often an issue when the automatic transmission shifts in and out of third gear (the highest gear). The change is often not very smooth and I’m wondering if an adjustment in the kickdown cable would help. I am thinking that the throttle is more open when driving with chargas than it would be with gasoline thereby causing the kickdown effect to occur at lower speeds resulting in me driving in second gear more of the time than necessary. What do you experts think? I recently adjusted the cable according to specs and during the Sunday drive the problem seemed to be worse. So, today I went the opposite direction in the adjustment. I don’t know much about the operation of an automatic transmission, so your comments would be helpful. Does the transmission sense the reduction in engine power running with chargas? Does that affect at what point it changes gears?
Bruce, be patient, you’ll be able to get the MG out from under the barn soon—spring has sprung. I have been chomping at the bit all winter, searching the weather forecasts for good days to go for a ride and those days have been few and far between.
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Hi Steve, my truck was having issues like what you have mentioned. When I went to Argos last year I talk it over with some of the members. When got home I tighten up the play in my linkage. This did not help. I made a cable adjustment like you are talking about that didn’t help.
I checked my throttle positioning sensor on my throttle body it was bad. Replaced it and now my down shifting problems have improved. It still down shifts because I am pushing the throttle petal down more on wood gas but it does not shift in and out of over drive like it was doing before. It shifts smoother also and when it is suppose to.
Hope this helps.
Bob
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Thanks for the ride Steve, enjoyed it!
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Steve ,
Thanks for letting us ride along with you
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Good morning Steve .
You can disconnect your linkage and then shift when ever you like just as you would do with a straight shift .
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get the lemons out i would say…
Nice build, congrats
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Thanks for comments Bob, Kristijan, Wayne, and Koen. Regarding the kickdown cable—after looking at the specs again, I realized that I misunderstood the information. The resulting adjustment made matters worse. I have now readjusted it the other direction to specs and then a little. I’ll see how that does on the next trip. Also, Bob, I dug out info on the throttle positioning sensor and will be checking it out soon. Thanks for the tip.
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Steve, Since that was a carburetor engine, with minimal electronics, would there be a manifold vacuum operated kick-down on that transmission? Just guessing…
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Mike, As far as I can tell from the Chilton manual, the kick-down is only controlled by the cable.
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I cleaned out the reactor today to try a different nozzle design and to see how the Lettinger Nozzle was holding up. No detectable deterioration can be seen in the Lettinger Nozzle. That design is definitely a winner. It has been in since mid-October, though only about 128 miles, yet is still in mint condition. There was a nice layer of slag over the nozzle pipe.
I am still disappointed in the run time and distance from one charge of charcoal, The inside barrel vertical dimension is 27 inches and the nozzle connection is located about 4.5 inches up from the bottom of the barrel with about 1.5 inches at the top for the gas exit area. So, there is just not much room for charcoal storage above the reaction zone. I decided to try a side entry nozzle again, but utilizing the large metal mass ratio to nozzle hole size concept which I think is the secret of the Lettinger Nozzle being so durable. Therefore, I am going to try a heavy floor flange which will contact the hot charcoal at the end of the nozzle pipe. I’m hoping that the reaction zone will be lower and the velocity of the gas will not push so much heat up toward the top of the barrel. Koen’s calculations were for a 1 inch nozzle. So, I’m using a 1.5 to 1 inch bushing to reduce to the one inch pipe and flange. The water drip tube will extend into the 1 inch pipe up to the floor flange.
By the way, has anyone actually seen the Pederick (patent) fire plate. I’m wondering if that is a magnified version of my floor flange. Perhaps a half inch thick plate drilled and bolted to the floor flange might make a permanent installation. We’ll first see how well the floor flange handles the heat.
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Steve,
I’m looking forward to seeing how the single hole and flange hold up. AIUI, the purpose of Kristijan’s multiple hole tuyere was to lower the hot zone in his gasifier. It will be interesting to see if the one horizontal nozzle creates a lower hot zone than 4 smaller vertical nozzles.
I use two half-round weights suspended by chains that fold together to push charcoal into the center. My theory is that this fills the depression formed by the consumed charcoal and gives me a little more run time before the top of the gasifier gets too hot. Sorry that I don’t have good data to tell you how much is “a little more.” This may be overkill and unnecessary. Do you find a depression in the center of your charcoal when you open up your reactor or is it kept level by road vibration or other shaking?
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Bruce,
I understood Kristijan’s strategy, but I’m thinking with the air shooting straight up, the heat at least is being forced up through what bed of charcoal there is, causing the system to overheat prematurely. I’m hoping that with part of the reaction zone going horizontally across the barrel before turning up that it won’t go up as far. We’ll see. I have made a crude version of your half-round weight device, but haven’t tried it out yet. I do have the same depression in the center of the barrel you mention. I haven’t learned the art of hitting every bump in the road to shake things up yet. I expect they didn’t have that issue back in WWII.
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Hi Steve, You have really made progress! Congratulations and welcome to a very unique club!!! I’m surprised how well your Kristijan nozzle has held up. The one I made got fried and it was only running a small engine. Your side nozzle with the floor flange is similar to a Pederick but smaller. Looking at the drawings that Jeff has posted on his site, I’d say the fire plate is about 3/4" thick. Maybe Jeff has more detail on these dimensions… I’ll also make the observation that a water drip will give you slightly more horse power, but will not diminish your charcoal consumption by very much. Also keep in mind a little water is OK, but it is easy to give it too much which will just condense out further down the line. Isn’t is fun to experiment? Keep it up,
Gary in PA
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