I have thought about playing with that, but I think roger-wilco-66 is right. for every day use it would be a pain.
Well, it's a "pain" in relationship to your situation. It's the challenge of any alt fuels project to make sure the money saved is worth your time. There are lots of people (especially in the third world) running these every day. I think in a stationary application it's particularly suited; managing your fire is just like running a steam engine or an all-day barbeque fire. Cars these days are supposed to be idiot-proof (though I can't see the benefit of putting idiots behind the wheel) so it makes something that requires finesse to run (like a grumpy old truck) seem like a huge pain.
We don't have a MV running on woodgas at the Shipyard (although we do have a DUKW here), but here's our Honda:
I make these for a living. While we do sell them turnkey, I suggest you download the plans for free and make one on your own.
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Originally Posted by madsam
I think you would have to be a pickup to carry enough wood to run on to get home. At that point maybe steam cars would be more efficient.
Good thinking- your gallon of gas equivalent is about 15 lbs for coffee grounds or walnut shells. Do the math on that one for a long trip. The nice part is, you can scrounge your own fuel. Those bio-degradable cellulose forks will work.
I am extremely interested to hear if anyone has run a deuce off of woodgas. The carb/fuel injector matchup is pretty straightforward- you can just guff dryer hose into the top of your carb and then make a little clothes-hanger choke if you want to do it quick. A clever little geegaw that would feed liquid fuel for lubcrication and supplement it with the producer gas would be awesome.
In Fred Crismon's Book "US Military Wheeled Vehicles" there is a picture of a WWII GMC CCKW 6X6 with a producer gas burner fitted behind the cab on page 333. The trucks had a GM 6 cylinder 270 Cu In gasoline engine. Neat set up.
There is also a reprint of the 1942 text book "Producer Gas For Motor Vehicles" by John D Cash and Martin G Cash. Its about 200 pages of information.
I think it is still available thru Lindsey Publications Inc.
Oh yeah I wanted to say something about diesels. The kits we sell can be installed on a diesel engine with a dual-fuel situation. That is to say, the woodgas complements the diesel and increases fuel economy but you're still using diesel fuel. We've also done spark conversions on diesel engines, such as the 1-cyl Lister stationary engine, which you can find videos of on Youtube. Then you can run a diesel engine on pure woodgas.
Edit: I have tons of pictures of military equipment running on woodgas here:
I was interested in Woodgas for a good while. I went as far as to make a proof of concept gasifier that would blow nice 4' flames when you lit the output gas.
It's a neat concept & its true that a supposed 1 Million vehicles ran on it in WWII, but I dropped it for WVO. The WVO is way more practical. With the woodgas, you're constantly adjusting, there is no start it up & go.
Yahoo has a great woodgas group. Check it out. There are also 2 people near me who are running woodgas. One may have quit, its been a few years. I'm sure the other guy is still doing it. He has 3 or more trucks powered on woodgas & has a pretty nice setup.
If you're really interested, I can probably get you in touch with him if you can't find him on the Yahoo message boards.
You can use it on diesels, you leave the diesel idle injection to pop it off and hook up a throttle valve to control the incoming wood gas for acceleration.
Under the "learn" tab click on "Gasification 101" and enjoy. Ben breaks it down to simple easy to understand sessions on how gasification works and why it works as well as things to look out for, pros and cons, etc.
He actually converted an old dumptruck he had to run on wood gas and posted a video of it here:
When I finally do actually get the chance to buy an M35A2, this is the route that I plan to experiment with.
I have done quite of bit of looking into the process of electrolyzing water too. When split into two separate gasses, hydrogen and oxygen (HHO), it is a very burnable fuel. While it is difficult (if not impossible) to run solely on HHO because of the energy it takes to make the actual split, it does supposedly work great as a supplemental fuel. There are of course those who say that's impossible too. But from a scientific standpoint it is completely possible! Hydrogen is flammable and so is Oxygen.
So . . . my thought is to make woodgas the primary with hydrogen and oxygen (sometime called Brown's gas) as the supplemental. This would give you an increase in mileage (miles per lb of wood) as well as make for a cleaner burning fuel combo than oil could ever be.
I agree, we probably will never run out of petroleum fuel. However, it will most assuredly get to the point where it is a financial issue for some people. We're getting close already!
Electric really is the way to go, but there is a lot of work to do in the available technology having to do with both generating and storing electricity. The lead acid battery is way too heavy and the new aluminum battery, that I've heard is on the horizon, is going to be way too expensive at first.
This is not even to mention all the oil up in Alaska. Problem is the greenies don't want to drill into our precious soil. They'd rather the Middle East have us over a barrel (literally).
What we should do is petition our Reps to push for drilling on our own soil and tell the Middle East to take a hike! We are by far the largest oil consumer in the world. Whoever supplies our oil has us by the brass ones, so to speak. I personally don't like that idea one bit. We could easily produce our own petroleum and the consumer could buy it at the pump for prices that would resemble the '60's. Wouldn't that be nice!
That is all.
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When a man is honestly mistaken and he hears the truth, he can either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest.
I keep having this dream that I wake up one day and everyone else has gone crazy and they come and lock me up.
Fully CNC Machined bullpup stock for the Ruger 10/22 - other models planned for the future.
I built my first gasifier in the fall of 2010 using the FEMA wood gas generator instructions.
I was burning some pretty green wood chips I got from a tree recycler. I had A LOT of tar and goo coming out the business end which I was not impressed with. If I could build a good filter and get a good dry fuel source I would love to hook this up to an old S10 or something for running around town, but I wouldn't hook this to my M35A2. That is what WMO is for.
I sized it using the FEMA instructions for my CJ5. I did test it on a lawn mower engine and it ran it.
Until the zombie apocalypse, it sits in the back of the barn.
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"Pressure makes diamonds." - Gen. George S .Patton
In WWII, England also used many wood gas fueled vehicles, from cars to trucks and even at least one fire engine. Another option was coal gas from the city gas mains - this was stored in large roof-mounted gas bags that were filled at night. Unfortunately, this increased the height of the buses to the point that they couldn't drive under some bridges. I've seen photos of cars with a trailer-mounted gas generator plus a roof gas bag to extend the cruising range. The gas was very dirty and abrasive - no matter what was done with it, it was still very had on the engines. Wood gas-fueled vehicles are still used in places in Australia.
I don't have one... YET! I have the plans for one here somewhere... always wanted to try it out, and see how well it works. I have often thought it would be good for a worst case scenario running a generator.
