HI all,
I have a customer that has requested me to install our new E-1 gasser on his Farm All M tractor. It will be here at the shop in a few weeks and I will post this conversion as I go. Im sure there will be a few hick ups along the way so any input will be welcomed.
Thanks
Matt Ryder
Vulcan Gasifier
 Photo By Brian Ham |
 Photo By Neil Clements |
 Photo By Steve Unruh |
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Here is the M-II gasifier Im working on for this conversion. It is built of the same architecture as the little M-1. In the pic is both the M-II and M-I for size comparison. So now that I have added to this series Im going to have to change the M desigination from Micro to the Multi Purpose Gasifier. lol
Also here is a close up the new condensor Im working on. It will be fan cooled. This is the one for the JD conversion. The Farm All will be getting a larger version of this.
This Farm All has been update with a Turbo kit. Is there any thing I should know for doing this conversion?
HEY MATT, I AM GETTING READY TO BUILD MY COOLER/ CONDINCER, LOOKING AT YOURS HELPS ME TO VISULIZE WHAT I NEED TO DO, THANKS FOR POSTING THE PHOTO,S
Matt, Just make sure you have your client jump on and off the tractor a few times on both sides and also show you what attachments he uses so you can place your equipment. Good luck with the conversion. Are you driving a vehicle yourself ?? Mike LaRosa
Thanks for the reply guys.
Any time David :) If you look at how I partitioned it, the gas goes in at the top and then goes down through the bulk of the tubing and returns back to the top in the last two tubes. You can put mulitple partions in it as well I think this would be more eficient, but it gets more complicated to build.
Yeah Mike, I wasnt really planning on going this route, I (was) more interested in stationary applications and possibly some farm equipment. But It is looking like I am going to be headed in the direction of converting a car or truck. The only vehical I have is my Buick Regal tow door. I am thinking of setting up my trailer and use it as a test bed to see what the limitations of the gasifiers are. Finding to time to do it all is the hard part. So as soon as I get a chance I will be doing some sort of vehical converition. I think the big tractor will be a good learnign tool.
The Farm All is here!!!!
I love how they did things back in the day. Very simple and every thing still works today.
This bad boy has a turbo on it too. So it should breath in the producer gas just fine and still make good power to boot. Probably wont do any thing with it for a week or two. I need to drive it around and get used to how it sounds and drives running on petrol. Plus I need to brain storm how I want to tackle this one.
Its getting the new M-2 gasifier I have built. But I havent punched any gas ports in it yet untill I figure out what I want to do with filtering.
That oil centrifuge idea had me thinking and I have an idea for a water powered version that will use a high volume water pump. These are made for drag cars and make about 20 gpm @ 7 amps and are 12 v DC. I built a proto type proof of concept and it worked!!!! Well at least how I evisioned it any ways. Basically I have a tube inside of a tube. The inside tube terminates just a few inches inside the outer tube. I introduce water where the tubes over lap and flow is perpendicular to the direction of flow of the tubes creating a vortex of water inside the tubes. The water sticks to the inside of the outer tube. What I want to happen is I want the water to twist the gas flow and create centrifigul force whipping out debris and also cool the gas. Another cool hting is it acts like a venturi pump. So it will help the engine pulling the gas. I have a few ideas for using this idea, one is building this onto a cyclone at the gas inlet and I have another idea that will be a vertical system that is a little simpler to build. This will go after the condensor.
that tractor is in beautiful condition....a friend of mine that is a nutcase collector of old machinery has three that look identical to that one....there were very few of them imported here in New Zealand....the tricycle wheel configuration doesn't do hills very well, and we are nearly all hills.
is the turbo on that a draw thru or a blow thru?....i would think with that age of the tractor that it will be a draw thru the carb type turbo which will have a carbon oil seal...which will be fine pulling thru a gasifier.....if it has a blow thru carb setup on it, it will probably have a dynamic oil seal and might be worth checking that the seal in the turbo is able to take extra vacuum of the gasifier.....dynamic seals don't like holding against a vacuum and leak oil into the inlet airstream if there is a vacuum present....a dirty airfilter will cause enough vacuum to form once the engine is under load and pulling.
i'm looking foward to seeing how well it runs on wood lol
Cheers
Callum
Louis, a passion that lasts for 88 years, he has a passion toujour intact farmell Louis before his tractor, drawing from his dolly, his tractor in profile, and the dolly he did with his own hands, his brother carpenter made him die of wood and iron he worked for the bending and carried out its welding. good work.
cartoun
tractor
diabolo
A fun project. Does the individual, that owns the tractor, plan on taking it to any of the shows around Grand Rapids?
Hey Matt and Francois ,
Thanks for posting the pics. Always a eye catcher.
Thanks all!! Some very good info!!
The turbo pulls on the carb. So far the plan is to replace the tube that goes from the carb to the trubo. I want to have a bypass for the wood fuel so it doesnt go thru the carb and Ill have a butter fly in it so it will be easy to switch over from petrol to the producer gas. I was planning on building a controll panel to be placed up by the seat so the opperator can adjust everthing at the seat.
Yeah this customer is pretty excited aobut what we are doing. He has expressed interest in investing in us as well. Ive been a bit reluctant to through out any numbers though. At this point I just dont know what would be practical for a private investor. My accountant is working on a plan to make it work.
Yeah Wayne, he has some plans to show it off after it is built. Dont know about any GR showings, he is from the other side of the state. Ill try and talk him into the tractor show in Ionia next year. :)
Outstanding pictures you have put up PalP. You are very fortunate to have such a good friend.
Outstanding advice you have given CallumH. You make NZ proud.
MattR I think on this trycicle row cropper best to put your hearth/hopper unit on then one side; cooler just like Louis's in front of the engine radiator/fan shrouded for air flow; and all of the other equipment on the other side of the engine in tight and low to try and balance all of the weights. Like Louis mount low, low and give up ground clearance for tipover and visual seeing safety.
Every year some guy or kid kills them selves here trying to work one of these flatland rowcroppers on a hillside hay field trailer pulling or even just two bottom plowing. Please be very careful with your tooling around. No boots/shoes with laces. Shag your pant hems off so they will tear loose; and always remenber the old advice: "You Bail OUT Off the Back!". I was that kid once. When these hillside roll they continue down a long ways. You do not want to be in the rolling path.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Yet the tractor of louis, and a caterpillar are caterpilar second gasifier that louis because of its hands, the red tractor are fourth with his hands.
caterpilar
Is that a diesel Caterpillar? Has he done special work to make the engine work with woodgas?
Hello chris, I think he AHU walls with gasoline, the caterpillar tractor worked during WW2 and after the gasifier because gasoline was scarce and expensive.
Thanks for the pics, that is a big help to see one done already.
Yeah Steve Im not a big fan of the tricycle set up either. I really want one of these old tractors now. I'd like one of the little ones though no need for a big one just want it for a toy. :) But I would definatly look for one with the conversion.
But this Farm All was definatly built to be implemented. Lots of mounting holes it is a great machine for this. This tractor is very impresive too, lots of power.
unless i miss my guess that is a Cat R2 'dozer.....they run on petrol and are a nice size for doing the garden lol...... i'd love to find one in that condition here
A few years back I sold a TD-14 international dozer that I had converted to a 350 Buick motor. (What a mistake selling it )
I have a D-6 Cat but can’t afford the diesel to run it
hi wayne
what kinda diesel you want I have junk laying around
IH cummins and two stroke detroits don't think i have any cats at the moment
tom
hey wayne as always i miss read your post although thats probably got a 3306 which is a good one for pilot injection
in montanna they got about 85% wood gas for there saw mill
tom
I think I mentioned this some where on here. I am kicking around an idea for building a water driven cyclone filter for this tractor. Just wondering if any one has ever tried this. I dont like media filters of any kind, running syngas we already loose power and a restricted media filter just adds to it. I am thinking of getting one of the electric water pumps from the automotive aplications for driving it. They make about 20 GPM @ 7 amps, so plenty of volume. I was thinking of building two of these one after the gasifier and one will be placed after the condensor.
Im thinking of liquid cooling the condensor tubes as well.
Seems like this would be a great system if it works as planned. Every thing should be self cleaning and the cyclone design will actually help pump out the gas to the engine.
So If any one has ever tried this Id like to hear your experience.
I have to put together a price list for the components needed to complete this build. Still brain storming a bit, but probably first thing next week Ill start laying out the full plan for this and get things going.
i like that idea of the centrafuge filter but don't know that it would be more effective than a venturi scrubber.....it would depend on how much contact you would have between the water flow and the gas stream.
a liquid cooled condensor should be able to be alot smaller.....the radiator to dump all the heat out of the water may however need to be alot larger than you might think.....unlike a radiator on an engine that only needs to dump enough heat to stop the engine over heating, a gas cooler HX will want to dump the maximum heat possible....water returning to that condenser at 140F isn't going to cut the mustard lol
it will be interesting to see how it works in the real world
my dad has a farmall H just like that, we blew the pto and bought a new tractor but he will keep the farmall forever bc his dad bought it new, i think someday i might do something like this to it!
OK here is the very first flare off, of the new M-Series II gasifier. This is the gasifier that Im planning for the tractor conversion. Im going to run it for a couple days and mointor the flare and see what happens before I make any adjustments.
Looks like the build is ticking along nicely
looks good Matt
Im getting closer to actually mounting on the gasifier. Im hoping to have the M-II mounted on tomorrow. Im building my own lid for this one to see if we can do it. I have to finnish up the seal and I think Im going to hinge it on the machine this time. Im going to relocate the condensate troft to the hopper instead of building it into the lid and will also enlarge it a bit. I also enlarged the hopper for this build and will offer this machine with this hopper as an option. As soon as we can get the gasifier mounted then we can start fitting on the new filtration system :)
Matt, what kind of run time are you expecting with a unit this size? What size fuel is this designed for? Looks good so far.
Don M
Id like to see an hr run time out of it, but we wont know till we fire it up. This will be my very first large engine build. Yeah I think this is where HP is not a very good way for sizing a gasifier. The engine is about 230 ci and makes just 30 hp. So for this build I developed the M-II that features a 12" heath with a 4" restricter. So it should be able to eat up just about any thing. The first M-II I built ran some pretty large chunks with out issue and after running it I thought it was pretty impressive. I ran it for about 16 hrs and the flare cleaned up really nice and it ran very consistent.
The grate spacing is 3/8. The Hopper is 14" in diameter and is about 30" tall from 4" above the jets. So if run times are to short then I guess we just build a bigger one :) For the filtration I decided to convert my existing condensers to liquid cooling. We just built a water jacket around them and will have the radiators in between the two. There will also be two hydro clones one after the gasifier and one after the condensers. Then we will have a mixer dryer and possibly a media filter.
Soon we will be building much bigger stuff. I have the materials to build 16" and 20" machines of both series machines. We will be building some stainless into these machines and will also be playing around with heat re circulation and a vacuum sealed reactor soon. We are now making very large quotes with lots of zeros before the deicmal piont :))
Ok I got it mounted up there. Yeah I spent a whole day trying to figure out a new puffer lid design. I ended up going to a simple 12 dollar cam lock latch and hinged the lid. Ill just simply put a blow back plate in the lid.
But any ways it will really start to come along this week. The filters are mostly build now just a matter of putting it all together.
Hey Matt, what's the latest on this build? Your tractor conversion is very interesting, as I'm looking at a Ferguson TO-30 right now for around $2,000.
Hi Troy,
Its sort of on hold, every time I try to work on it our schedule gets in the way and redirects my attention. I have time with this customer because this is a custom set up. We are going to do some RnD on it too. But very soon I hope to have it up and running and ready for delivery. We may even offer a kit for this tractor once it is complete.
Hi Matt......has this progressed any further or is it still on the back burner?
Every time I get ready to start work on these specials something always seems to get in the way. I have been down a guy since late last November and he has been hit and miss showing up to work. I have some big investors coming to the shop from abroad and now have a demo that trumps every thing we have going at this time besides our scheduled builds. As soon as I can get some time I will be working on this.
no worrys...i was talking to my friend that collects vintage tractors about it....he was interested but likes his machines shiny and in the condition they left the factory too much to consider woodgassing one of his....lol he won the concourse-de-tractor awhile back at the regional A&P show because the second place getter didn't have the right markings that the OEM bolts have on a transmission inspection cover....lmao them guys in white coats are Waaaaaay to picky for me
Matt, I'm just skimming here. I think I saw some of your stuff in Argos last year. A "young" fella was hiding in the shade of a building there with it. It looked very well built but was too small for anything I run. The hopper on your late september pictures would be good for around 10 miles or so in a typical car or truck. I suppose it would run that tractor for 15 minutes or so with no load. Take a look at the size of the unit on Ron Lemler's tractor. He has many miles behind him now. I have built many units that are good for the typical 20 mile round trip drive and have also built units to do the 60 or so miles between fill ups. Johan has a video on his site vedbil.se somewhere where he runs his tractor into the woods to cut more wood for his tractor. He was using a gasifier he built to power a toyota in England for a movie thing and then he managed to get it back to Sweden but couldn't register the truck there so he put the gasifier on a diesel tractor that he converted to spark with the gasifer .. I'm not sure what he is doing now but my guess is he is making babies or at least that is what I hope he is doing ..
http://vedbil.se/indexe.shtml
is his english site but I couldn't find the links to his videos ... If I find them I will post them here at some point .. He had a nice one where a friend of his was riding behind him with a moped that was running on ethanol .. They were cutting disks and chopping in the field .. Chain saws were also on ethanol ...
Mike
I think Johan's movies are here. Look on the left side. I can't do them here with the dialup
http://vedbil.se/dagbok/mera/36e.shtml
He's a card ... ML
5 years ago already .. Hope he's doing OK ..
Thanks Mike,
Yeah I have kinda figured this machine was too small for this tractor and after talking with Ron and now with your input it is settled. This tractor is going to get a much bigger unit with a capacity of 4.5 cubic feet. If this is still too small please let me know before I build it. This tractor will be my first large engine conversion; however, we have learned a lot this last year and I agree this gasifier would only power a 20 hp generator for 1 1/2 hrs at best. So run times on this tractor would be very short. I will be getting new materials for this build the next time I order steel.
Matt, Keep up the good work. Ask Ron what he has for a hole in his tractor unit and the nozzle circle. I am happy running between 3" and 4" on most of my stuff and 8 or 9 inch nozzle circles. Biggest I've ever run is 5" hole and around a 13" nozzle circle. Wayne has gone beyond that but he is not running a planar zone. His stuff really cooks things up. His is maxed out and requires extra heat sinking to protect the fire tube. It's in the "premium" section not that I'm plugging that. He's gone beyond the imbert. I like the imbert thing as it is steady eddie and for the general population .. Actually, if you look at Imbert's patents he had a bunch of slotted air inlets in it and not the nozzles we all relate to. Keep on diggin .. Mike
This tractor was brought to me not only for the gasifier, but more for product development. This customer is planning on becoming an investor. I am planning on adding to our M-Series machines and this will be a good opportunity to further develop these machines. Im thinking with this tractor though I may skip over the M-III and develop the M-IV for it. This will be a pretty massive machine once complete. I may have to build a plat form on it so it can be filled.
what is the displacement on that tractor Matt?
Hi Arvid,
I think he said it is something in the ball park of 230 CI. Yeah this is where sizing to HP is a bad idea, this tractor is only rated at 35 hp.
OK bigger it is!!!
Its amazing how much just a few inches adds to the size of the machines. If they get any bigger Im going need to get a crane.
This is a hybrid of the M-IV I added a larger ash pot so this machine will have plenty of ash capacity. The hopper has about 4 1/2 cubic feet of capacity. the fire tube is 12" with 7 tiers and a 3" restricter. Reduction bell is 6" tall with a 6" lower opening. Reduction opens back up to 12" outer diameter is 18" and the grate is adjustable to 4" and can be accessed through a port at the bottom of the machine. Im planning on three inch ports, if I can build a forming tool to get the rectangle opening to go into the cyclone.
After this machine I am planning on re-designing all machines we offer. From this point forward they will all have a heat recirculation mechanism. The internals of the machines will be interchangeable between series as well. This way I can pre build the reactors and shelve them. The difference between an M-Series and an E-Series is the ES machines are modular in there design,they have larger capacities and are better insulated.
The first pic shows the size comparison of the original machine I was planning on installing on the tractor. The other shows about how it will look once it is installed on the tractor, it will be about 6" higher once installed. Im going to build a new mount for it that will hold the gasifier and the media filter on opposing side. This will be a heavy duty bracket that will straddle the belly of the tractor just behind the oil pan. Im thinking of building a remote condensate tank into the bracket as well.
Ive put this one on the back burner way to long, this customer has been great and very patient. But spring is coming and these guys are ready to start using thier machine. So my other customers are just going to have to wait until I get this thing done. Beside that the more I get into this build the more I cant wait to run it.
Hi Mat, now that is bigger. Some have joked about mine needing a counter balance on the opposite side to keep the tractor from turning over.
You get used to it and forget it is even there one thing about farmers they are good at adapting to changes and making the best if them!!
It would be nice if you could bring it to the woodgas meeting in IN. but I have a feeling once the owner gets it it will be hard to get it away fron him again. My tractor uses 4-5gal og gasoline per hour so it doesnt take long to make the cost back burning wood.
getting closer to earth friendly.....plowing?....i dunno if plowing is friendly to earth, cos if someone ripped my skin up and turned it upside down i wouldn't be thinking they was my friends LOL!!
can't wait to see it running....i think i'm most interested in conversions like this cos i have a uses for machinery that can be run as cheap as (wood)chips
Ill have to post pics tomorrow, but I mounted the gasifier and media filter today. I built the remote condensate tank into the mounting bracket that holds every thing together. It turned out pretty slick. I managed to build the three inch ports into the gasifier too. Ill have three inch going into the cyclone for this thing and then it will reduce down to two inch the rest of the way.
But I got to tell ya its been one those days. Everything in the shop broke all at once today. First the band saw blade snaps, so I go and try and use the circular saw with the metal blade and it took a crap. The air compressor is making all kinds of racket now, the welder ran out of wire and when I go and reload it the lining got all messed up. So I had fiddle around with that. So then I get the mount built and put on the tractor and had the gasser up and ready to be welded on to its mounting brackets. So I go and grab the welder forgetting the gun is in the mount in my welding table along with the ground still attached to the table. So I grab the cart and start pulling it over to the tractor and off my welder goes crashing to the floor. So yeah its been a long day and Im ready to call it a night. I update this tomorrow with some fresh pics. :)
Making progress, it is a bit further now than in the pics. I have the liquid cooled condenser mounted up there now and am now working the cyclone. I ran out of wire so Ive retreated to the house to do the cost analysis this is lots of fun. haha. But any ways you can see in one of the pics how I incorporated the remote condensate reservoir into the mounting bracket.
The last pic is a project I may be doing later this year.
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