[headquarters]

should be renamed the FUEL THREAD

seeing as fuel is a scarce commodity in T2k ,getting it is a priority .

gazogene or wood gas generator

A "wood gas" generator was used on Norwegian vehicles during the occupation 1940-45.

Its principle is simple :

wooden chips or specially kerosene impregnated wood blocks are burned slowly in an oven /combustion chamber with insufficient oxygen supply for full combustion.

This generates CO - carbonmonoxide- a gas that if mixed is volatile (!)

The gas must be cooled on its way to the combustionchamber in the engine to disperse its water content , and cleaned through a filter for soot particles etc .The gas is then let into the cylinder by a special valve and ignited through running a little bit of ordinary gasoline and starting the engine or if it is already hot - or already running smoothly on the gas/wood gas .So some gas/petrol or other more energy dense fuel is necessary.

hard woods like birch are best,all wood can be used though .They must be stripped of all the bark and be 100% dry as possible .Old drivers state that they could stop and cut dry wood in the forrest and add to the special kerosene/wood chip blocks to run the car .It really can run almost entirely on wood !

the oven needs an hour or two to heat up /produce gas before starting the drive -i.e starting the engine with petrol to get the cycle going .Also stopping once in a while and cleaning the oven with brooms etc for the excessive soot build up is necessary.Depending on the combustion rate maybe once every 100-200 km. The heat up etc would have to begin anew after this .

Some busdrivers talk about needing app 1 liter of gas pr 3 kg wood -but this could be less with more modern engines.

Speed and power is adversly affected -40 km /h seem to be common operating speed -but some cars could go faster-alot faster.

Also the vehicle gets very sooty and driver and passengers too.

here is a picture of a wood gas generator ona bus in eastern Norway during the war.Notice the wood piles left out to dry.

making a wood gas generator was mainly done as cottage industry in Norway ,but parts like the filter and the special valve were normally factory made in France,Belgium and other occupied countries as well as in local factories. It would seem that the fitting and modification could be done locally ,but that the parts were somewhat harder to make . (As anafterthought for the GM who now gets questions about making one from his players)