[Gasification] ideal wood gas engine

[Arnt Karlsen]

On Mon, 21 Feb 2011 5:51:05 -0400, bayent at ns.sympatico.ca wrote in
message <20110221045105.AB585.535520.root at tormtz04>:

> Hi Kevin,
> 
> I am seeing that " ideal " is open to interpretation.
> Ideal for me was a dog bone simple engine that could have a valve
> stick and not knock a hole through the piston and was cheep as the
> dog bone after the hound gnawed on it all day. Efficiency means
> absolutely nothing to me as heat goes into storage.. oh did I mention
> this was not a heating device? Fuel cost is just me dragging out and
> cutting up some blow down. Greg mentioned the 292 Chev and I have a
> 63 version I removed from a neighbors truck 30 plus years ago oh
> yikes more like 40 years when he wanted a 327 shoved in so he could
> smoke the tires. The engine has carb and points so I am dragging in
> out and if it is stuck will try and free it up. I have it so price is
> right. 

..depends, if it's been sitting in a pile of junk for ~40 years,
it'll need work.  You want it _clean_, and with an _even_tight_ 
compression before you start messing with gas.  A gasoline "test"
run is not good enough, it'll "pass" a bad gas engine as "good."

..once you're done overhauling your engine (if you do), run it in with 
gas, gas burns differently from gasoline, slower flame speeds etc.

..run it in with a slightly higher rpm than you plan to use on the grid,
an overspeed event will stretch conrods etc that wee bit further up the
cylinders that breaks the top piston rings as they hit the unworn ridge.

..this unworn cylinder sleeve ridge is _the_ top  WWI, WWII warbird etc
veteran plane killer, the EAA etc fly restored museum birds at reduced
power settings and rpms to minimize wear and costs, which works great
until something causes a wee bunch of misfires, these 5 digit hour
veterans immediately throttles back or shuts down the misfiring misfit,
only to create _much_ more work, pushing throttles etc forward to where 
they haven't since WWII, easily has piston ring bits "pry loose" piston
top bits big enough to block valves long enough to receive another
helpful whack from a new piston part etc, bent propeller blades and wet
things to wash clean of salt after you haul it out of the drink, etc.

..in our case, we're running constant rpms, if we feed the grid,
constant loads too, losing the load will have your genset overspeed 
a very little bit, and the lost load will reduce cylinder pressures
enough to have the piston rings behave during the (reduced) power 
stroke "somewhat like they do on the exhaust stroke", but hotter.

..a cold start commonly causes as much wear as an 8 to 16 hour run.  

> Drove two nails with the right arm yesterday and up all night.
> Not healed yet I guess?

..which bank ran away with your hammer? ;o)

> Have a good day all,
> Charles

..above all, you want _enough_ sleep _before_ you start messing 
around with poisonous gas, CO gas will nip away at your judgement
before it starts feasting on your good sense of humor, is _how_ 
people don't realize they're poisoned.  Best cure is have some 
lazy annoying brat upwind, playing slave driver on you. ;o) 

-- 
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
  Scenarios always come in sets of three: 
  best case, worst case, and just in case.