Charcoal burner on trucks ?

Look up Diesel Gas Australia. They do kits and have lots of info on their site.

Yeah I’m aware that a lot of medium sized trucks have gas from the factory and after market conversions but The Mack was done by the owner in the eighties for extra ponies in the hills not economy , you would have thought a super liner would have some torque...I’m not sure if it was a 400 or 500 V8

That is what Wee Allis and I meant, not full gas conversion but supplementary feeding of gas in to diesel engine for more go.

Lang

Oh ok , old mate reckoned it worked , What I was getting at was I don’t think that there were to many places in the eighties that done to them , at least that’s what I was led to believe .

Was an Acco with a 903 in it, fully set up on interstate maybe in the eighties, but on continuous low volume supplement. Was given quite a write up in the weekend copy of the Sydney Daily Telegraph when they had a bit of a blurb in the cars addition. What little I recall of it, was set up so you could "tweak" the throttle and increase the boost when engine started working hard. Testing was done mostly on the Hume, I think. Would have been interesting to see/ hear what difference would have made on say the New England where you worked whatever direction of travel. I always thought it would be a similar principle to introducing nitrous oxide to a petrol burner, although not having the same clout as nitro. Don't know about a 500 Superliner, reckon they would have more than enough grunt in the hills standard. May have been similar to the 903 where they would be trying to squeeze a bit more economy rather than how much quicker they could march up the hills. Like a lot of things, I would imagine that initial cost versus savings may have come into play. More things change. More they stay the same. Wasn't that long ago they tried water injection again on a turbo intercooled engine. Willys-Knight successfully had that system pre WW2. Be interesting to see how some of these earlier designs would go with modern materials likeceramics etc. Dave

Rattail 1927 wrote: Thanks guys I’ve got a ides now , I imagine if they were hard to keep going it must have been a nightmare to get started , people are ingenious when they need to be aren’t they, it obviously was a last resort I imagine otherwise everyone would be still using it ? And are briquettes charcoal, ? I remember when I was about 11 or 12 lighting the hot wAter heater and using briquettes to run it... in the mid 80’s when gas was being put on cars but everyone never thought about gas on trucks , a guy I know was carting milk from Deniliquin to Sydney twice or 3 times a week as a driver and I don’t know how it came to be but he had a couple of 9kg bottles of lpg and had a micro switch on the loud pedal and it injected a small amount of gas but apparently he reckoned it gained 100 hp .. this was in a bonneted Mack super liner I’ve no idea how much gas it injected but I assume it wouldn’t be much ,1 or 2 psi .I never seen the setup I had past it a number of times but was totally unaware of what it had going on .. I’d do it to the Acco and probably blow the intake manifold and carby clean off it ...

Briquettes are compressed brown coal dust. They take brown coal remove the moisture and compress it into a mould.

Gas producers were used during the war years due to rationing of petrol, my Uncle said it was similar to driving a motor starved for fuel. Charcoal was usually produced by lighting wood in a pit, when all burning smothering it with sheets iron then soil on top.
These photos look to predate that time as there is no evidence of motor vehicles, they maybe thought it easier to do it above the ground.
Mr Liebe from Wubin WA photos.
David.

Here I was thinking old mates Mack was sPecial , when in reality he may have copied Someone else , the charcoal burner doesn’t sound like it was much fun , coping with a engine that’s starving for fuel either, I know now why it’s not a alternative to pEtrol or diesel hahaha

Kurt Johanssen??? book on early road trains from Hall of Fame ( Big Bertha ).
In his later years traveled the bush in an old US Dodge v8 wagon fitted with
his design of gas producer. Called it Mulga Express. Was at Hall of Fame 2011.
Book has diagrams of his design and how to operate it on mulga wood.
Look him up. Paul.

Speaking of hall of fame does anyone know who built the truck the truck with two 6-71 gm side by side with a special bell housing was it Kurt johhanson ? It may have well been him ? I’m sure the truck was at the hall of fame , I went there in about 2012 or 13 (I’ve been told by my eldest daughter that my 3 months is about 2 years)

I think at the time it was the first Road going truck to have 400 horsepower in Australia , simply because at the time 200 horsepower was big