Wood chip burning vehicle?

[dwtaylorpdx]

I used to have a 3.5 HP rototiller engine that had been re-tuned to run Kerosene. It ran a water pump, it was amazing how long it took to burn a gallon of fuel through that engine, but it did smoke a little.

Dave

[Christ]

Originally Posted by dwtaylorpdx

I used to have a 3.5 HP rototiller engine that had been re-tuned to run Kerosene. It ran a water pump, it was amazing how long it took to burn a gallon of fuel through that engine, but it did smoke a little.

Dave

Dave -
There is a section in the shop manual for older Briggs and Stratton motors that details how to convert the gasoline engines to run on Kerosene, which can actually then be converted to spark-ignited diesel, thus making them capable to be run on HomeBrew BD!

[aerohead]

Military history book catalogs will have illustrated books about the WW-II German vehicles available.The books I have on Opel/Ford/Mercedes have very clear photographs of the wood-gas units.They may have technical info on construction/operation/efficiency,don't know at present as I was interested in other aspects of the vehicles.
I suspect Japan had similar tech,as they were doing technology transfer with the Third Reich and were also running out of petroleum,ending up digging pine roots for fuel.

[pgfpro]

Originally Posted by aerohead

Military history book catalogs will have illustrated books about the WW-II German vehicles available.The books I have on Opel/Ford/Mercedes have very clear photographs of the wood-gas units.They may have technical info on construction/operation/efficiency,don't know at present as I was interested in other aspects of the vehicles.
I suspect Japan had similar tech,as they were doing technology transfer with the Third Reich and were also running out of petroleum,ending up digging pine roots for fuel.

Thanks for the good info!!!

[jmf]

I ran my 97 dodge on wood-gas last year. I mounted the gassifier on the front and got a lot of crazy looks.
[IMG][/IMG]

[fidalgoman]

A number of years ago Popular Mechanics ran about an 80's Malibu wagon with a gassifier unit mounted on a trailer. They went across country from New York to California using only free construction wood scraps. Ash in the gas required them to change their oil often, but other than that there were no problems.

By the way these units can be made to run on coal as well. The more successful units had a gas scrubber to remove the particulate matter and thus solve the ash problem. This can be in the form of an element filter or as simple as bubbling the gas through a water maze. The Russians continued to use this technology many years after WWII because it was cheap, it worked and they had little in the way of fuel production or distribution infrastructure. The manifold mechanism is similar to using propane, NG, etc.

It does require you to bring the gassifier up to operating temperature before taking off so those five minute jaunts for a gallon of milk might take more like twenty or so. For those homesteader types it makes a viable electrical alternator fuel source for living off grid.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by fidalgoman

A number of years ago Popular Mechanics ran about an 80's Malibu wagon with a gassifier unit mounted on a trailer. They went across country from New York to California using only free construction wood scraps. Ash in the gas required them to change their oil often, but other than that there were no problems.

By the way these units can be made to run on coal as well. The more successful units had a gas scrubber to remove the particulate matter and thus solve the ash problem. This can be in the form of an element filter or as simple as bubbling the gas through a water maze. The Russians continued to use this technology many years after WWII because it was cheap, it worked and they had little in the way of fuel production or distribution infrastructure. The manifold mechanism is similar to using propane, NG, etc.

It does require you to bring the gassifier up to operating temperature before taking off so those five minute jaunts for a gallon of milk might take more like twenty or so. For those homesteader types it makes a viable electrical alternator fuel source for living off grid.

Any way to make the gas and store it to be used later? We have lots of trash/debris/clippings/etc. that get burned and nothing ever comes of it except smoke. It's terrible, really. I would love to be able to make something of it and save it for future use, if at all possible. If not, I guess a gas-making-thingy might be a good idea to make/store electricity anyway, eh?

[alohaspirit]

ill think about it when it gets this big

[jmf]

Originally Posted by Christ

Any way to make the gas and store it to be used later? We have lots of trash/debris/clippings/etc. that get burned and nothing ever comes of it except smoke. It's terrible, really. I would love to be able to make something of it and save it for future use, if at all possible. If not, I guess a gas-making-thingy might be a good idea to make/store electricity anyway, eh?

You can only store the gas in it's wooden form. A pound of wood takes up a lot less space than a pound of gas and is a safer way to store it.

[thatguitarguy]

Originally Posted by jmf

I ran my 97 dodge on wood-gas last year. I mounted the gassifier on the front and got a lot of crazy looks.
[IMG][/IMG]

Do you have some details on your gasifier?

I experimented with different configurations of soup can sized gasifiers last summer for camp cooking. They used pencil sized twigs, and I was amazed at how much more efficient they were than building a campfire for cooking.