So tonight I did another burn on the barrel in the fire pit to get the remainder of the oil out of the inside now that I have a much larger hole in it. I then re-cleaned the outside and inside before cutting more. It still wasn't perfect, but MUCH better.
After that, I rolled it into the shop, tipped it over (where it of course leaked more water out from hosing it off), traced the outline of my stovepipe fitting for the chimney on it, straddled the barrel, and cut the hole out with the plasma cutter. I REALLY enjoy the plasma cutter for this type of fabrication. It makes life a lot easier.
After that, I brought all the components over for mock-up and height setting. I put the deep skillet (aka oil holder) on 4 2x6s for spacing, then the rotor, then the stainless pot/tube on. Aligned it as best I could via eye and put the barrel on top.
After that, I snagged an old 240sx SE wheel I had laying around and put it on my jack so I could dial in the height and angle. I wanted a little bit of a lift from front to back to promote exhaust flow. This made it easy to get it just right.
From there I was able to weld some legs on. I JUST got a new welder yesterday (Lincoln multi-purpose mig/tig/stick), and this was a good opportunity to break it in a bit.
^Yes, I know I'm welding over cardboard. In my defense, it was wet in that area, and I wanted something to kneel on haha.
I'll probably add some cross bars or additional supports in the future. I don't think its going anyway, but it just
looks flimsy.
Once the legs were on, I took it outside for a manual burn. I put a couple "glugs" of oil into the cast iron skillet, tossed a crumpled up piece of cardboard in there, lit it up with my map gas torch and threw it on one of the 2x6s that was on my jack. I sandwiched the rotor and the stainless tube up to the barrel and cracked a beer while I waited for everything to heat up.
I can look through the chimney hole and see the flames licking up.
It was warm, but it was also kinda slow. I figured I needed more air. I was hoping the massive vents in the vette rotor would have supplied enough, but it doesn't look like that's the case. I fired up my compressor and blew some air in through the vents to verify.
The stainless tube got a dark-ish red. I still had a lot of oil left in the pan, so I used it for experimentation purposes.
I grabbed a few of the other 2x6s and propped them up under the rotor to hold everything up against the barrel. I then lowered the jack to open up a small gap between the oil skillet and rotor to allow more air in.
What happened next was nothing short of gorgeous. The tube got bright red. The freaking barrel got cherry red and finally burned off whatever the hell was left inside (and outside). The rotor got hot. The pan got hot. Everything got hot and this thing started SLINGING heat. It started to smell like burning wood. I figured the 2x6s holding the rotor were getting a little toasty. They promptly ignited, followed by the one between the jack and the oil skillet.
I went to re-raise the jack to snuff the heat down a bit but it was kinda too late... the jack was getting pretty damn hot so I had to shut it down. I lowered it down and the assembly fell apart in a pseudo-controlled manner. There was barely any oil left in the pan and none of it went flying.
All in all, I'd say it was very successful. I want to rig up a throttle/port to tune the air/fuel ratio once I add the gravity feed oil system.
Tomorrow, I'm not opposed to cutting a hole in the rotor for oil supply, cutting a hole in the side of the building for exhaust, fabricating the chimney, and testing it inside.
I still need to purchase fittings to supply oil from the bucket to the burn chamber.