Wood burning truck!

[Paul_H]

It's hard to call someone shtickhead  :D

shtickhead,

I never kept track of the hours but I have no shop to speak of,just a shed with a work bench by the house and a welder some 800 feet away out at the mill and the truck in the driveway and I seem to spend a lot of time wandering back and forth and between looking for misplaced tools or tools left at the shop when needed at the welder,etc.I couldn't even hazard a guess but I can tell you that a lot of hours after work and on weekends were put into the whole truck but the gasifier was started in January and I think it was done by May and then the cooler was done by June-ish and the summer was hit and miss.Lots of time was spent scrounging parts and in between times was family obligations and social life.

I'm not sure what the burners life span will be althought the unit as a whole should last but metal near the hearth may need to be replaced at some point.

I had read somewhere recently that a turbo isn't so good at drawing air for something like a woodgas system.Jim Mason,who builds and sells the GEK gasifiers has built and sells blowers as a complete set or will sell the fan itself and I remember correctly is a 5 blade radial fan and the blower motor is the type which drives the cooling fans on a automobile radiator.

[bandmiller2]

Quickie question,how do you guys with the mobile gas generators get an inspection sticker on your truck,if they have to sniff the exhaust.I can see an inspection station operator getting awfull nervous.Frank C.

[SwampDonkey]

I don't think they have mandatory inspections in BC. ;D

[shtickhead]

It's hard to call someone shtickhead  :D

That's just 'cause you don't know me!

Seems like I'd better get the 'you promised me you were going to...' list pared down quite abit before I started on something like this.

I was thinking about the bridging problem and wondering if a window sash weight in a piece of bike inner tube ( to muffle the sound) could be rigged up as a pendulum like a grand father clock. You would hand wind the spring so when the motor was idling the weight would bang the side of the burner. 

[woodmite pj]

Hi  people for gassification go to KnowledgePublications.com with Steve Harris got some of his books there great .

[Paul_H]

There is so much woodgas knowledge out there for free if you look.Of course lot's of the experts that share their info will guard some secrets but the good guys share more than enough to get a gasifier built.

I've posted links all through this thread to some pretty decent guys and here is another person generous with sharing knowledge,Jim Mason from Bereley California.I think I mentioned him to JPGreen awhile back but Jim's been busy so it's time for a update

Here is a truck him and his friends built a couple years ago a little before I finished mine.





and a link to more of the original projects they had done.There are a lot of pics and links if you look through the site.
Woodgas Truck

They've got a place in an industrial park that is built from shipping containers and he's been fortunate to have a good crew around him and they've come up with a lot of interesting changes and concepts like the Escape from Bereley Challenge last Fall.

No fossil fuels were permitted and they had to scavenge or barter their fuel along the way in the 3 day trip from Bereley Ca to Las Vegas NV.

Wayne Keith from Alabama,who was the man that Ellmoe had originally started this thread about,found a sponsor and entered his truck.Wayne drove from Alabama to the east coast,then drove cross country toward Berkeley,entered the race,came in 2nd place and then drove back to Alabama all on wood fuel,only.
The guy that won the race is a writer for Mother Earth News.He had a veggie oil car and he simply bartered t shirts for veggie oil outside of grocery stores.Like a kid outside the liquor store waiting for a boot.Wayne had to scrounge and process wood scraps along the way and was a fairly close 2nd just the same









This was Wayne's first truck.






Jim organised the event and it will be happening again in a few months.

Here is a link to the race last year with some more pics

The Great Race


Lately they've been working on a project called the Gasifier Experimenters Kit(GEK)

It's a well designed gasifier in kit form that allows easy adjustments and access to the gasifier to make changes and experiment pretty well as the name implies.

The Gasifier Experimenters Kit (GEK) offers beginners through experts an easy way build, compare and customize a wide variety of gasifier reactor types and configurations. Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or a university researcher, the GEK will get you over the starting hurdles of biomass gasification, and on to the more rewarding work of refining specific architectures, testing fuels, and making power.

GEK Link

I've been impressed with Jim's openess with his knowledge, ideas and experiences and he's made gasification a lot more accessible to schools and researchers that want to study gasification without having to build a gasifier.

We're also getting a lot of participation from
researchers, with GEKs now in at least five universities around the
world, including: Lambton College, Ontario; University of Alaska;
Aston University, Birmingham, England; University of California,
Merced; Maharashtra Institute of Technology, India.

[SwampDonkey]

That's great stuff Paul.  8)  smiley_clapping

[Fla._Deadheader]

Who'ad a thunk it ???  Burning wood gas in Kalifornicatia  ???

  I used to subscribe to the woodgas yahoo group, but, recently dropped it, because of too many e-mails in the inbox.  : : : :

[jpgreen]

Thanks for the update Paul ..

I'm setting up a machine shop here at the homestead and learning machining to add to my bag of tricks. Woodgas is next on the list.  I've been wanting to give Jim a visit in Berkely.  Drove through twice in the past few months, but didn't have time to stop.

Kalifornication has good wood I'll have you know ... ;D 8)

[Paul_H]

Hi Pat,

good to see you posting,you've been fairly quiet but I knew you were busy.

[Ron57]

   I finally got the gasifier on the truck and got some pics posted in my photo gallery. I hope they turned out ok. The gasifier is not hooked to the carb yet that is my next project as soon as it is running my childrens school wants me to bring it up and give a demonstration of wood gas power its going to be interesting.
                                                                            Ron L.

[Paul_H]

Fantastic! What a great looking woodgas truck  8)



Is your cooler,liquid cooled?

[SwampDonkey]

That's great Ron. What ya get for mileage? ;D  8)

[Paul_H]

A PTO wood chunker built by Wayne Keith.It's a short video of some 9 seconds that dial up users may be able to easily watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djaSTzDKb3k&feature=channel_page

[Ron57]

         Thanks ; Paul have you tried to run chips of any kind they had a discussion on yahoo about the void between fuel pieces being 15 to20% I measured what I was using and it was almost 35% Interesting.

[Paul_H]

Ron,

I haven't used chips at all,the blocks are working well but there is some sawdust a.d smaller pieces that mix in with the chucks.My monorator plugged up this year on the side closest to the cab and what I found was when I dump a bag of chunks in the top,the sawdust would screen out into the monorator and block off the condensate from running out so the plan is to begin to screen out the sawdust from the chunks.

How about placing some pics in your post and giving us a description of your system.I really like the styling with the coolers running down the sides of the box.It reminds me of a fire truck.

[beenthere]

That wood chunker looks pretty smooth.
Been trying to figure out how he holds onto the pieces when they get a bit shorter... : :

Maybe a chute would work, that would gravity self-feed the pieces.

[Paul_H]

I was wondering that too.

[isawlogs]

Maybe he stops at 30 something inches and cuts it in two for the wood stove in da house.  ;)

[jpgreen]

Woo hoo on that one Paul .. 8)

Nothing like farm engineering. Now that is a concept that can easily be expanded on without much expense. You could rig up a deck, that used gravity to drop the small diameter stick wood at a good length of your choosing into a shute. Then use a simple hydraulic system to continually push the sticks into that cutter.

Then the cat's meow would be to have a conveyor under to catch the dropped chunks, and send them off to a pile, or truck bed, etc.

I just bought a small conveyor, long enough to load a pickup with firewood for $100 from a surplus dealer.  Things like new with an electric motor on a right angle gear dive.

I'm really excited about that cutter there, as it's the best concept I've seen short of a $20,000 Laimet.  ... 8) 8) 8)

[ellmoe]

  Re: Post number 1 on this thread. On the eoad again, the newly rechristened "Termite".
From Fox News.

'Termite' Truck on Cross-Country Journey Burning Wood Chips for Fuel
Saturday, May 23, 2009 


PrintShareThisLEWISTON, Maine  —  A pickup truck that was modified in Alabama to burn wood chips for fuel is headed to Maine with its new owners behind the wheel of the vehicle they call "Termite."

Auburn, Maine, businessman Ford Reiche and his son George left Birmingham, Ala., on Tuesday. The Lewiston Sun Journal says a device in the bed of the truck roasts chips to form a wood gas, which is cooled, filtered and fed into the engine.

Reiche's blog says the truck has a gasoline-powered backup system.

The truck burns one pound of wood for each mile driven, or about 5,000 miles per cord.

Farmer-inventor Wayne Keith has driven 15,000 miles in the vehicle, including a trip from Alabama to California and back last year. He's working on a new prototype of the vehic

[gengaswerner]

Hi every one!
Paul!
Hav`nt seen you at woodgasbuilder in a while now! I hope everything is good with you and  all!

(I read some old posts about me and Pauls truck hihi! and I can soon say that my hair realy starts to begin to turn gray here and there!!! But I don´t know if it´s age or just the fact that I´m still is in Sweden???)

S-E Werner!

[bandmiller2]

How much trouble is it to get an inspection sticker if they have to test for emissions??Probibly best to use an older truck exempt from testing.Frank C.

[Fla._Deadheader]

Welcome to the FF, Mr. Werner.  8) 8)

[jpgreen]

Hi every one!
Paul!
Hav`nt seen you at woodgasbuilder in a while now! I hope everything is good with you and  all!

(I read some old posts about me and Pauls truck hihi! and I can soon say that my hair realy starts to begin to turn gray here and there!!! But I don´t know if it´s age or just the fact that I´m still is in Sweden???)

S-E Werner!

Welcome SE ... 8)

I love Sweden.Your country has the REAL craftsman,. I've been wanting to build gassers for about 10 years, and finally built a decent shop, and put together a machine shop this year, so hopefully next spring I will start building a unit.

Paul and I both want to build a stationary gasser to power a small engine to drive an auto (Delco) alternator for a backup DC generator. I use the DC to charge my solar system.