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FLU419 SEE HMMH HME Owners group

Another Ahab

Well-known member
17,991
4,536
113
Location
Alexandria, VA
There are so few things electrical that I would like to remain functional - starter, gauges, work lights front and rear, and the high rpm switch - that I'm willing to take the chance. If something doesn't work afterwards, it'd be easy enough to run new wiring/switches for it.
When it looks like nothing to lose, and everything to gain:

- The Leap of Faith

Go for it, Brother!


leap.jpg
 

General Hood

Member
712
2
18
Location
Fort Towson, OK
Rookie Mistake ---I had removed the rubber air intake hoses to work on the rat chew wiring, with slow but positive success......until today. Sleep deprivation does not allow for this fella to be on his A game. Spliced a few wires and hit the starter button to see if it finally works, engine started, and air intake immediately sucked 2 shop towels through the tube and into the valve cover before I could kill the motor. I removed the intake hose at the valve cover and fished out the rags, but found these rings with the rags. Not sure where they originated, perhaps support rings for the intakes hose? Anyone know?
IMG_20161101_140756894.jpg
Flu Farm, I can hear you laughing in the background
 

The FLU farm

Well-known member
Steel Soldiers Supporter
3,338
1,319
113
Location
The actual midwest, NM.
It was pictured in an article about alternative fuels - largely about wood gas.
Caught my interest since my grandfather had a wood gas fired truck during/after the war in Europe.
 

The FLU farm

Well-known member
Steel Soldiers Supporter
3,338
1,319
113
Location
The actual midwest, NM.
Here's the first article in our new 4 part series on Alternative Fuels. I wanted to share it with you below in this email, and you can also read this one and 142 other articles on our survivalist bog platform, hosted on steemit here.
Alternative Fuels for Survival Part 1

Alternative fuel sources have been necessary many times in the past. During World War II gasoline and fuel oil shortages required the manufacture of synthetic gas from coal, and conversion of diesel vehicles to run on vegetable oil, or animal fat, while some vehicles in Europe and Asia were converted to run on wood gas. Indeed, when we talk about alternative fuels remember that Rudolph Diesel, the inventor of the engine that bears his name, considered the petroleum based fuel we call Diesel to be an alternative and inferior fuel. Diesel’s intention was for his engine to run on vegetable oil or animal fat based fuel.

Solar and wind power are gaining in popularity as alternatives to electricity from the grid, usually provided by coal or natural gas. Natural gas itself was once considered an alternative fuel, and in Argentina during their 2001 economic collapse the value of alternative fuel availability was evident at gas stations. One writer pointed out that his household had two cars. One was traditional gasoline powered with a propane option available and geared for flex fuel, meaning it would also burn alcohol, ether ethanol, or methanol. The other used Diesel, and was retrofitted to also run vegetable oil. He found the five options to be a Godsend since at times he could get gasoline, sometimes Diesel, and at other times only ethanol or propane. He was also saving vegetable oil to use when it was needed.

One option is wood gasification. During WWII, it was common in Australia, the Philippines, and even in eastern Europe to see cars and trucks converted to burn fire wood. But what is wood gasification?

The first wood gasifier was built by Gustav Bischof in 1839, and the first vehicle powered by this method was built in 1901 by Thomas Hugh Parker. Wood gas is related to the syngas produced from coal, which was commonly used in homes in the early 1900’s. The rationing of petroleum during WWII caused some to convert vehicles to wood gasification including trucks, buses, tractors, motorcycles, ships and trains. In 1942 there were about 73,000 wood gas vehicles in Sweden, 65,000 in France, 10,000 in Denmark, and 8,000 in Switzerland. In 1944, Finland had 43,000 "woodmobiles," of which 30,000 were buses and trucks, 7,000 were private vehicles, 4,000 were tractors and 600 were boats. Charcoal was commonly used in China during their oil shortages.
 

peakbagger

Well-known member
734
360
63
Location
northern nh
Those wood gas engines have some fundamental limitations, if there is no alternative fuel and people are willing to maintain them they can be made to work but the devil is in the details. The prime gas produced is carbon monoxide which has low btu value and poor octane number so it works best in low compression engines. Along with the CO is lots of water vapor and a pile of other condensable that are a problem. The wood gas vehicles could go one of two ways, subcool the gas and filter out the nasties or try to keep it hot enough that they stay in vapor form. Both methods have their issues. The need for uniform sized wood with very low moisture content is usually downplayed. In a survival situation most folks have access to green logs and they don't gasify very well. Add in a chipper for survival supplies and method of drying the chips. Chipping and piling doesn't work very well as the various crude sugars in the wood feed natural bacteria and if the wood pile is not turned over often enough they tend to spontaneously combust. At least one company has built a few combined heat and power plants that update the technology http://www.nexterra.ca/. Their equipment works but the economics are such that they only make financial sense when someone is writing a big subsidy.


These guys are very close on liquid fuels http://www.ensyn.com/news.
 
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