Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

   / Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank #1  

Blue hood

Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2016
Messages
34
Location
Port St. Lucie, Fl.
Tractor
LS R4041
My respects TBN members,

I'm purchasing an 1963, 135HP Cat D4D crawler tractor to pull a 4 Ton farm dump trailer on a sandy soil to build up a 1.75 acres, 25,000 cu-yd irrigation reservoir plus other chores, (clearing 40 acres land, pulling out around 700 trees, building trails etc.), added reason I'm installing at it a 2 way Leon 10 reinforce dozer blade and a 18,000 lbs. winch attachments.

Buying a true dozer without doubt will double my budget and my 40HP, 4X4 LS R4041 loader-backhoe tractor will not make the cut soarting the 30 degrees reservoir slopes.

My concern is the diesel cost because it will take me an estimate of 1,750 to 2,000 hours to complete the whole project, meaning a US $55K to $60K expense where I'm located.


The help I'm looking for is to find who builds wood gasification units to use firewood as an ecological and low cost fuel alternative.



"Wood gasifiers can power either spark ignition engines, where all of the normal fuel can be replaced with little change to the carburation, or in a diesel engine, feeding the gas into the air inlet that is modified to have a throttle valve, if it did not have it already."

Thanks,

Blue Hood



Please look at the next links:



Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank



youtube.com/watch?v=_tA0stq9rjg
 
   / Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank #2  
stick with the diesel.
 
   / Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank #3  
How to make a million dollars: First, start with a million dollars...

If you can't afford $60K on your project then you can't afford the lifestyle you want to become accustomed to. Erase any notions of such dreams and go rent a small apartment in town.

If you still have champagne tastes then marry a rich woman to be your sugar momma.
 
   / Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank #4  
The idea of using wood fuel is interesting, the functionality of it on a D4 dozer isn't.
 
   / Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank #5  
That's an interesting concept.
I'm going to move this thread over to our Build It Yourself section.
 
   / Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank #6  
I've seen wood gas engines, pretty interesting. I'm not absolutely sure, but I think one issue is that you can't make it and store it. It's an ongoing process and your wood gas production has to match your i/c engines need.
But I'm all ears as it's very interesting especially in a catastrophic weather or other event for producing electricity at home.
 
   / Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank #7  
If you can't t fill it up then you should not of bought it.
 
   / Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank #8  
it's for certain a cool project - I read a bunch on it a decade or so ago and there's a guy who published a how-to book with it spelled right out for a specific engine and vehicle type, and I believe that was a Dodge Dakota with a 318. What I remember was that you ended up netting about 1/2 the power that the engine produced normally, so it favored larger displacement to a point. It is a novelty project, or potentially necessity if the tinfoil hat wearers end up getting it right. The guy who did this had tried and tested and had a combo that really worked well, but that took him a lot of time, not to mention a lot of time to prepare the fuel in a precise size to make it burn the most efficiently. Many of the gasifiers I saw - all spark engines - ended up starting on real fuel and switching over once everything got burning well. I would think that going grease car or homebrew biodiesel would be easier than a gasifier, not to mention fuel being able to be stored.

If you have a project that will take you 2000 hours on a dozer, then it's got to be a substantial property with an epic bit of work to do. I would have to assume time is not an issue? retired or the property is your job? spread the project out of a longer period, take on better paying job / second job to offset construction costs maybe? I'm thinking you will have a hard time keeping good dried fuel chunks at the ready, even if you get it figured out. Also, gasifiers are dirty and a lot of people have done engine damage setting them up.
 
   / Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank #9  
Stick with diesel. If you can’t afford the diesel you can’t afford the rest of the project. And your numbers don’t pencil out unless your diesel cost is insane. Locally red diesel is somewhere around $3 a gallon and that’s the highest it’s been in a long time. Using the rest of your numbers you’d have to burn 10 gallons per hour. A D4 is going to burn 2-3 GPH. Also a trackhoe is going to burn half the fuel a dozer will. A 1963 crawler isn’t where I’d be for a planned 2000 hour project either.
 
   / Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank #10  
I looked into wood gasifiers years ago. I had to do my research at libraries. There was much information available. I was curious after seeing some pictures of cars and trucks in the USA and in Europe running gasifiers. Then I saw some info in a magazine, probably Mother Earth News. The upshot is that the gasifiers were used only because there was no other good choice. The gas was dirty, contained stuff besides flammable gases, like water, and was hard to clean. The flammable portion consisted of several different gasses as well as heavier components that were vapors when hot but condensed into tar like substances when cool. These tar like substances tended to clog stuff up. The type and moisture content of the wood also made a difference in the quality of the gas produced. And a lot of wood was consumed. I recall seeing a picture of a late 1930s or early 40s vintage car with a gasifier hanging out of the trunk and the back seat full of wood.
Eric
 

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