My father turns 85 this december, last year spring he was on “health control” , he complained to the doctor: i feel tired often, i dont feel so alert nowadays.
The doctor told him: you should exercise a little, take short, slow, walks every other day, promise me you take a little walk already today, when you get home?
My father replied: no time for a walk today, i have two cubic metres of firewood to cut, split and stack this evening, it going to rain tonight.
The doctor just glared at me, he told me. 
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I didn’t own a log splitter until 3 years ago, when I was 72. Of course most of my wood has been Ash and straight grained. Maul, wedges and 8 pound sledge. If I got into something that would not split I just sawed it into cookies. Now I figure just cutting it and getting it loaded in the truck is enough exercise. Dog gets walked a couple miles a day as well. When I can not longer do these things, I have no interest in hanging around.
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@Tone you who know diesel, my zetor is difficult to start and smokes a lot when starting, could it be the sprinklers that are leaking?
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Jan, it is definitely a good idea to check the injection nozzles, the pressure is set on them, at which they start injecting fuel and the quality of the fuel dispersion is checked. The next thing for ignition is a good compression, it would also be good to measure that, well, and last but not least, pre-ignition (beginning of injection). Black smoke means too much fuel, white-blue smoke means incomplete combustion, and white smoke means no combustion at all. A diesel engine needs three things for ignition:
- good compression (good piston sealing, good valve sealing)
- a powerful starter and battery, so that the piston quickly compresses the air to a high pressure and thus also reaches a high temperature, which is a condition for self-ignition of the fuel
- finely dispersed fuel that is injected into the heated air at the right time
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a remark to my post about johan liddel -vedbil.se -…sems he has used a normal ignition system from a car without higher special ignition tension (for modyfied diesel) how suggested in tilmans swiss woodgas book for diesel conversions - very interesting…times ago i found this tractor - a picture in our forum, but not found more
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@Tone , can you help me understand, in my books it says that the amount of diesel should be about 5-7mm3, per stroke, for the ignition to work.
At the same time, it says that the amount of diesel must be so small that it does not idle without gengas.
How much diesel is really needed?
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Jan, it’s kind of like that, as it says in the book, the amount of diesel fuel is not sufficient for idling the engine at low revolutions, but when you increase the revolutions with the same setting, this amount increases slightly (faster pushing of diesel fuel - less leakage at the pressure elements high pressure pumps). As I have written many times before, the amount of diesel fuel per working hour is less than 1 liter, or otherwise approx. 15% of the consumption at max load, which is somewhere around 6 liters for my tractor, if you like math, you can calculate like this, 6 liters of diesel fuel contains 60 kWh of energy, the tractor has a nominal power of 33 hp, which is equal to 24 kW, this means that it converts 40% of the energy of the fuel into working power when it operates on wood, consumes approx. 0.8 l of diesel fuel and 5 -10 kg of wood (I measured this way over a long period of time), which would mean approx. max. 50 kW of energy, if we use the same engine efficiency of 40%, we get a power of 20 kW or 27 hp, or 12% less than with diesel fuel.
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Thanks Tone, you describe it much like in my book, what I am surprised about is the low consumption in my tractor at idle (0.8 liters).
I’m thinking back and forth about whether I should convert my tractor-driven power plant to a gengas-powered one with a gasoline engine.
I want to use it for the sawmill and the planer, but the sawmill has a motor of 3Kw, and the planer has 3 motors of approx. 2Kw, so I would think that the tractor will have to idle with the electric unit as well?
So no point in having gengas on traktor?
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Jan, 0.8 l is sufficient for idling at low speeds (600rpm/h), but you have to take into account that the working hour is at 1800 rpm/h, which would mean more than 2 liters of consumption (even modern diesel engines that show current consumption, they have less than 1 liter per hour at idle at 800 rpm, but if you raise the revs to 2000 rpm, it also shows more than 2 liters per hour, that’s just physics, anyone who thinks it’s different is wrong. There are advantages and disadvantages of using a diesel engine on wood gas, …
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Started on gasoline, then smelled wood gas…
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super!!!..i thought you have no time yet…but with such a nice tool in the garage…who can sleep…soon it has its own gasifier!
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Giorgio, I cleaned up the sawdust and waste at the sawmill and drove it to the landfill, the gasifier on the Fergi was just heated up and the temptation was too great, but now my Fiat is starting manually
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Excellent Tone. That looks like such a fun project, I’ll bet you will find the time to make a new gasifier in no time.
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tone, when you next time start the fiat manually, can you make a video? i have never seen that…only my 1 cylinder engines with wrop starter…
no hurry, when you have time and must start for some reason…
ciao giorgio
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Giorgio, I have one big reason, fun, …
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Giorgio, I’m a little ashamed to perform in front of an audience, but here’s a cold tractor start. I tried to show the mechanism on the magnetic ignition, which enables a good spark for ignition, despite the slow engine turning, I lower the cold start flap on the carburetor, otherwise the closing lever is missing, I check the fuel level in the carburetor and start the engine with my foot.
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Good video Tone.
You show the magneto impulse-coupling well. Many small engines “Easy-start” use a spring-loading then releasing, fast-spin system for starting now also.
Your tractor she like her choke enrichment, yes.
I see you are growing back your winter hairy bear-look again.
Best Regards
Steve unruh
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Steve , Steve , ha ,ha , you wrote well,… hairy bearish appearance 
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Can that starter kick back? I never owned a motorcycle with an electric starter. Back then it was considered sissy. Many times I just about got a broken leg and at least a heavy shot of pain from that kick back. Now I think about how stupid that was when all I had to do was get one with a button to push.
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thanks tone for the nice video!!! and showing the mechanism…smart to start with the leg…better for the back …really nice engine…
at thursday , when all goes well, should arrive my trouser-pocket tractor…walkbehind.motorcultivator…
tom. my honda cb 250 , in my youth time, i had always kicked by foot, though having a electric starter…never kicks back, there was a mechanism what allowed to push only in one direction…the tractor would have the same…?
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