Tone, good idea! Lightweight float.
Just to prevent any potential headackes, any kind of non return valve is prone to sticking as the tar at cooldown collects on it. Usualy a tap with a hammer or a heat with a burner will make it move again
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Okay lets here the Kentucky beer can gasifer fix. Was the beer can full be for the fix and needed to be emptied ?
Bob
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Jakob had a problem of sistem overheating with low power, classical hot leak sindrome. Soon we found that the suspension must of hit the bottom of the gasifier making one weld crack.
Lets not go in to the backgrounds of how we decided we will be needing a beer can instead of a Dr Pepper can but we patched the leak and it held till Argos l think, where Jakob welded it.
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Tone. Are you using glow plugs to get the tractor running? I have a MF TO35 that looks just like your tractor but has a 4 cylinder Perkins engine. I parked it a long time ago because the glow plugs were burned out and unless it was at least 50F it would not start without them. I got all involved in other things and just ignored it sitting there but now you have me inspired. 15 years ago the plugs were 65 dollars a piece. I guess whatever they cost now I would pay it if necessary.
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That’s about how it happened.
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Tom, IMT 533 has only one spark plug in the intake manifold, which releases some diesel fuel at start-up … well, today I added a condensate tank under the refrigerator, …
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That looks similar Jan. When I was messing with it way back when the price was from a dealer. That was the only option and I wasn’t on-line back then. I’ll have to do a search and see what is on Ebay or somewhere. I put all new filters on it back then. That also put a surprising dent in the pocket.
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Hi Tom, as i remember it the 4 cylinder MF 35 was known to be hard starters, pre-chamber engine, around where i live sometimes known as: summer-tractors. Good injectors and perfectly adjusted valve-clearance often helps alot. And of course-good glow-plugs.
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here on the forum we should create a yearly price like as nobel price…
but called " woodgas pope" (georges imbert was the first…)
but maybee the price must be splitted to a lot of inventors-builders here…
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Giorgio, I would say so, for some of us financial situation is not a condition for engaging in this activity, so I would suggest that this “award” be given to help members in trouble, illness and deprivation.
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The tractor has done 6 hours of work , yesterday it was running again to power the stone crusher, I did not fill fresh wood
but I wanted to use all the fuel, in fact it was mostly charcoal. I detected much less power and I had to tighten the air throttle more , the resistance at the limiter apparently became greater . I then cleaned the ash and filtered out the remaining charcoal , so that I could dismantle the central nozzle. In the picture you can see where the hot zone was, here I will make a change so that the air enters below the restriction and gases the charcoal in the lower part.
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Huh? Isnt that the place that you absolutely dont want any oxigen?
Beautiful build Tone!
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Joep, it’s true, I don’t want free oxygen here, but if the bottom “basket” is full of fine charcoal and it doesn’t retreat, I have to gasify it. JO has added a mechanical grille shaker on his Volvo, and I will try gasification, otherwise here we are talking about air supply through a 4mm nozzle.
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Thanks. I was afraid I still didnt understand what is going on in a gasifier.
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That is a very interesting idea Tone, innovative 
Maybe some way to regulate/shut this extra air of when it’s not needed, (full power)?
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Goran, I can close this nozzle below, but I don’t think it will be necessary, because the amount of air through this nozzle will be determined by the vacuum for the restriction opening, higher vacuum - more air, low vacuum - less air. I only need to determine the optimal deviation of the nozzle from the limit, …
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Two different paths - either slip the char into the dump and save it for other purposes - or what you’re trying to Tone, burn it all. Unfortunately at this stage the char will be heavily contaminated with ash and it might be hard to fulfil the reaction. Your experiment will tell.
Btw, what does the diesel consumption look like after six hours? Still 10%?
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JO, thanks for the help with the explanation, otherwise charcoal mixed with ash in the presence of superheated steam is supposed to form a rich gas, maybe even methane, I will definitely keep you informed. I have to admit that I didn’t measure the fuel level right at the beginning, so I don’t know the exact consumption, but without wood gas I would have consumed about 15 liters, I will also report on that.
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