A lot has happened today. I made it to Corvallis Oregon. I am at Robert Winiarski’s home now. I will post more Later today after a few hours of sleep.
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Being retired it’s no problem for me to devote a lot of time to wood processing. I guess it would be different when I was working ten-twelve hour days. I think I have spent about four hours cutting up Jacobs wood including going out to find suitable sized, dry branches. No chunker. I have cut up 650 pounds on a chop saw, so 4 hours is not too bad.
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Jakob gets the gold medal as the fastest woodgas service stop in the WORLD!
The other surprise was the amount and relatively clear condensate.
Mine is usually black
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Nothing is free in this world. WHY They even are charging you for the air you breathe, carbon taxes being started.
Since I started wood gas building and making fuel and all the other related things. I have not needed a gym membership and that will save you a lot of monies in those fees. Lol. My wood chunker was necessary that I built. In minutes I can chunk up many miles of wood to drive on.
The pruned cherry wood has to come out of the orchard anyway. It might as well be pile up and chunked up and burn up for my use and not just go up in smoke.
Hundreds of piles of wood burned up every year in this area alone.
Jakob is helping me burn up some of this cherry wood and put it to good use. Thank You Jakob. BBB all the way around the USA and back home again.
Bob
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Hi JacobN,
It is 7:30 Pacific standard time Friday as I write this.
You will be within 25 miles passing by one-or-the-other of our now two places driving up from Oregon up to Michael Gibb’s.
We are in the process of 60 miles, county to county moving now . . . with berries, garden and fruit trees to harvest. Busiest time of the year.
Sorry. No time/energy to make you fuel wood.
I can drive out to I-5 and buy you all Lunch. Woodland Washington. I did this with Dr Larry when he was traveling to Seattle Bio-mass conferences.
If so call me: 1-360-601-6391
Regards
Steve Unruh
Hey! You lucked out with the recent rain here.
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First of all i would like to say NOTHING is free! everything cost you something. Wether in time, money, relationships, stress, etc… Every decision to do or not do something has a consequence and everyone must deal with the consequences of their actions. Everyone is right. Woodgas is really easy for some and very convenient, others it is a good hobby but not practical for everyday use due to fuel supply or whatever the reason. Bruce you are right it is way better than the alternatives. I have lived with only a bike and a horse and buggy. I will take the woodgas power work any day.
Last night we go into Corvallis at about 10:30 pm. It was so late because we didn’t get out of Burns until almost two in the afternoon. I went out in the morning and lit and fueled up the truck went to start it to leave and i noticed the gauge said no oil pressure. eventually I figured out the oil had turned to jelly. I believe I blew a head gasket unless someone can tell me something else that would cause it. If i blew a head gasket the leak was vey small because there was only about a pint of coolant missing from the system. So we were parked across the street from a napa. I went and bought the stuff i needed and sent grandpa to get a gallon of diesel fuel. I spent the next 5 hours trying to drain jelly out of an engine. I flushed the system with atf and diesel fuel a couple times and then used one bottle of sludge flush at the end. I got most of it out. I changed the oil and filter on the last round and it was sitting at 50 psi of oil pressure I topped of the cooling system and we drove here.
I had another repair stop along the way. We were just west of bend OR. It was crawling hills, running very weak i was closing off the air valve as much as possible but still running lean. I get out and turn on the pusher blower to find the leak and nothing comes out anywhere even when i open up the hay filter no smoke. I pull the hay out of the filter and find about 5 gallons of soot and fine char in the bottom of the hay filter basically completely clogging the pipe. I get that cleaned out and my average speed went from 40 mph down hill to 55mph up hill.
We came down a mountain in the Cascades It was a 6 percent down grade for over 11 miles and very curvy road. I waited at the bottom for them for about 7 minutes. It was the longest i have ever driven down. Not to mention it was dark so it was a lot of fun.
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I am 70 miles from the coast but Larry’s memorial is tomorrow and i have stuff to do today so it will have to wait till sunday.
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That’s pretty impressive that char made it all the way to the hay filter, must be pulling with the motor pretty hard? Was there anything in the bottom when you did your hay filter change the other day?
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Hey Jacob I think not a blown head gasket.
You do not complain of a compression pressurized cooling system.
Do not complain of head edge external coolant or oil leaks.
Do not complain of single cylinder fouled spark plugs.
Or massive pressure blow by out the crankcase. Putt-putt listening in the oil filler cap.
BEFORE PVC’s systems in 1967, the standard oil life change was 1500 miles. And this was on relatively clean burning gasolines. Ha! With lots of leads in them! One of the combustion blow-by oil contaminants.
With your PVC system no longer positively sucking out bad vapors; and fresh filtered air resupplying into the crankcase I think you are soots sludging up.
Just change out the oil at more frequent intervals. If it is going to use-thicken on you maybe start with one grade thinner.
No reason to use a super grade synthetic oil either.
Here PNW the two consistent cheapest motor oil suppliers is Wal-Mart and a regional chain: Bi-Mart.
Sunday would be just fine too.
S.U.
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Hi Jakob, this happen to me coming back from Argos three years ago. Mike and I were out of Cheyenne Wyoming and I noticed my oil pressure low at idling. Changed the oil and everything was back to normal. The oil was starting to turn to thin jelly. I was using a high mileage part synthetic oil blend. Went back to regular 10 30 oil.
Bob
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Hello Jakob .
Sorry to hear about the mishap .
Do you have a condensate / trash tank between the cooling rails and hay filter ?
I have never had any char bits to make it all the way to the hay filter .
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Yerp! Those 6.2 diesels I run will turn their oil to sludge. The Farmall h’s will turn their oil too jello all by themselves without alternative fueling.
Steve, do you remember the 400/455 Pontiac engines, or the 455 Buick’s whose head gaskets would leak just enough to make the pistons stick on a hot restart? Whu whu whu, vroom! I couldn’t afford gaskets, so I ran distilled water instead of antifreeze, and it made them easier to start.
I would run straight water in an engine if I suspected the head gaskets were leaking…water won’t gum up the cylinders, and the engine can handle a bit of water in the oil.
Just some memories…
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Sorry for all the trouble Jacob but big thumbs up to you. Not that many people who could be a couple thousand miles from home and encounter those kinds of problems and first, not have a clue what to do about it and second, not find some corner to crawl into and suck their thumb and cry. You are a man.
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Well i checked the oil today it was about the same as yesterday. I don’t think blown head gasket either no water missing from the system. I decided to let it sit and drive it around here and to the coast and back and then if i have problems i can fix them on the weekend at Mike’s or Bob’s place. I cleaned out the gasifier today again got quite a bit of char out of the cross over again but its kinda expected pulling these hills.
Marcus:
I Got a little but not to much but i hadn’t pulled any mountains yet when i did it last.
Steve:
I would like that a lot, On Tuesday i have to go to Oregon carl’s and load wood on the way north and then meet you after that. If that works for you.
Wayne:
I have a small tank but most of it ends up in the hay filter.
Tom:
There were several times I wanted to get discouraged with it. My mind kept going back to a movie about a guy surviving on Mars alone for over a year. At the end he was giving a speech to a group of astronaut candidates. He said one day everything is going to go south When it does you can either accept it or get to work. Solve one problem then the next, eventually if you solve enough problems you get to go home. I know its a fiction movie but it seemed to fit quite well to the situation. Woodgas is work, Driving old vehicles is work. You fix one problem then the next then you get where you are going.
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I’m just going to run this oil change and change it right before i leave Bob’s. Then I will probably change it at Bill’s, Bruce’s or Tom’s in the north east.
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Hi Jakob, I only run my oil to 2500 miles now that I know about the oil turning to thin jello.
Reading up above about diesels and what they can do to oil makes me wonder, my oil is always back when I dump it. Oil cheap compared to a overhaul on the engine. I have almost 2500 on my Dakota truck right now and the oil is black. I going to change the oil before the wood gas meet up at Mike’s.
Bob
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i agree on the oil jake. Change it more often… You’re pulling hard, it’s an old engine, …and don’t use our expensive synthetics, rather some thinner conventional stuff.
I also like the thought about the water instead of anti freeze. probably less likely to gum up. just make sure to use distilled water and be careful when you get up to Bill’s area with the polar bears. After all, it is half past August, they’re probably plowing snow in a week or two. Don’t want to freeze and crack a block.
(still a little jealous by the way)
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Hey Billy, next year it is your turn and Jakob can run things on the farm and deliver the ice too. You and the wife could use a little vacation trip touring the USA on wood. I always have wood for any wood gasifer vehicle that comes by. Bob’s wood refueling station. All DOW members free of charge.
Bob
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hello Jakob, considering how you described the problem, I mostly agree with Steve, so I think that the cause of these problems is not a blown head gasket, but a bad seal of the piston rings and too rich a mixture of gas that burns incompletely, so soot turns into oil. … if the vehicle were possible with slightly higher turns and lower load, the passage will be smaller. For a small leak of cooling water, a sealant that flows into the systems is a great help
https://www.mimovrste.com/aditivi-dodatki/stp-stp-tesnilec-hladilnika
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Perhaps from all the downhill driveing? If motor braking downhill, the engine still sucks gas but may not ignite it… Just a thod…
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