I suspect that's the old WWII trick called a gazogene (sp) engine -- they had a gas generator in the trunk that burned wood or charcoal in an over-rich atmosphere to form producer gas, which is roughly 1/3 carbon monoxide and 2/3 nitrogen, with some hydrogen plus whatever hydrocarbons distill off the wood directly. Pretty bad fuel with all that nitrogen, not to mention that it's deadly poisonous. If you add steam to the producer you get a much better reaction that yields 50/50 monoxide and hydrogen -- but I'm almost positive that the auto-mobile generators weren't that fancy. I have no idea how they buffered btw the generator and the intake -- well, I have a nasty suspicion that they vented any excess over the side. If anyone cares I have a cross-section picture of an industrial gas producer ca. 1925 that I can scan and pmail them. david At 15:00 4/1/99 -0500, Seth F Gordon wrote: >I recall seeing a vw trends with old old bugs in Germany that were actually >wood burning, that is the vehicle was fueled by wood. David Beierl - dbeierl@ibm.net |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.