A Rather Gloomy Update, I'm Afraid

I had hoped that the next time I was able to make an update to this, I'd have much better news. Unfortunately, however, it hasn't worked out that way. After about two months of working 50-60 hours a week at work, I was suddenly laid off on Thursday, with no warning. (Admittedly I wasn't the only one to get the ax, about a quarter of the workforce was let go as well.) Needless to say, this puts a bit of a crimp in my plans. I've filed for unemployment, and I should get it, but I won't know for a week or more.

On the upside, however, I'm going to have a bit more time to work things out on paper now. (I doubt if I'll be able to find a job before the election, and it quite possibly might not be until next year, with the way the economy is going.)

About the Lack of Updates or Anything Else

I've been busy with a number of things, including work, and items related to working on the designs as well as a bunch of other things. While I hope to be able to update this a little more frequently in the future, it all depends upon my work schedule and how progress goes in other areas. I will, however, be posting a great deal more, starting around the end of November, if everything goes according to plan (or even close to plan).

Not Quite the Post I Wanted to Make

I had planned to do a fairly big post this time, however, I seem to have royally screwed up my right shoulder. So much so, that my entire right arm hurts pretty bad. I've got a heating pad on it, and I get to go for X-rays next week. I really hope I don't need surgery on my shoulder as I can't afford it in any way shape or form (not to mention being out of work for however long, I'll get disability pay, but it won't be enough to take care of my bills).

I do have a bit of news that I'll post. I have managed to yank the engine off the old push mower that I have so that when I get scale model engine built, I can hook it up to the mower and use that as a test bed to try and work out as many of the kinks I can before converting a car. Here's a pic of the mower sans engine.



And here's a shot of the engine:


The mower and engine are currently sitting in my storage shed. I'm not going to hazard any guesses as to when I'll get the engine and boiler built for it at the moment. That'll have to wait until after I get my shoulder looked at and figure what I have to do with that.

Just a Quick Note

I'm going to try and do a big (relatively speaking, anyways) update this weekend, depending upon my work schedule. I actually managed to get a little bit of overtime, so that helps. When I haven't been working, I've been dealing with a PC problem, so I haven't gotten as much done on anything as I would like, but I'm inching forward, ever slowly, however.

If I have time (and if I've got my computer problems sorted out) then I'll have some photos and information this weekend. It looks like I might be working Friday (I have a 4 day work week, normally), in which case, it'll be Saturday, at the earliest, that I'll be able to post the pics, etc. that I have. If I don't have to work, then I'll definitely be able to do it on Saturday, if not Friday. Now, if I have to work on Saturday as well (which would be nice), then it'll be late Sunday before I can post anything.

Quick Update

I think I'm going to skip transcribing most of the Doble notes about the boiler, as many of them just seem to be little more than insignificant details about the unit, and only a few of them discuss things like modifications to the boilers, performance, or other information that one would really need to build one.

Brief Update

I did win the eBay auction on the Stanley book (Yay me!). Of course, shortly after I won the auction, I discovered that I could find it cheaper somewhere else. Not a [i]lot[/i] cheaper, but still a few bucks. Ah well, live and learn, I suppose. Now, I'm going to get back to transcribing more of the Doble notes. With luck, I'll have them all done and posted by the end of next month.

Stanley Steamer Manual on eBay

Given that I'm planning on cribbing from their automotive engine design, I figure that this is worth bidding on. (No, I'm not going to link to the auction. I don't want anyone who reads this to outbid me. ;)

A Little Good News, A Little Bad News

I don't even really know how to begin this entry, so I'll just start with the basic facts of the matter. My landlord, who is, in all respects, a great guy, hasn't been exactly happy with the Chrysler sitting in front of my place, so I've had a "for sale" sign on the car for about a year now. In that time, I've gotten a grand total of three people expressing interest in the car, until today. Today, I had a guy offer me nearly as much for the car as I paid for it, even though it hasn't ran in over a year, and the transmission was shot.

One of the problems I've had with this project is that I just haven't had the money to do much of anything. I couldn't even really afford to promote it to raise more money, much less buy the things that I needed to actually build anything. So, I had to make a choice: Keep the car, and maybe never get anything done, or sell the car, use the money for promotion and supplies, and then buy another car when I'm far enough along that I can do the work in a relatively short period of time. Given that the car was in rough shape, and that they're fairly cheap on eBay, I figured that it made more sense to sell the car and use the money for promotion and supplies. Cold comfort, I'll admit.

Still, I'm not giving up on this idea. I'd much rather drive a giant luxoboat than a Mini Cooper.

So there you have it. I could have kept my mouth shut about this, and most folks would probably never known that I sold the car. Maybe I'll benefit from my honesty, maybe not.

More Drilling Not Really Possible, It Seems

I'm laid up with an eye infection (please forgive any spelling errors, as I can barely see to type), so I've been catching up on podcasts that I've missed. One of which mentioned a New York Times article which says:

As President Bush calls for repealing a ban on drilling off most of the coast of the United States, a shortage of ships used for deep-water offshore drilling promises to impede any rapid turnaround in oil exploration and supply.

In recent years, this global shortage of drill-ships has created a critical bottleneck, frustrating energy company executives and constraining their ability to exploit known reserves or find new ones. Slow growth in oil supplies, at a time of soaring demand, has been a major factor in the spike of oil and gasoline prices.

In short, even if we were to open up ANWAR and other places for drilling, the oil companies wouldn't be able to take advantage of them. Current estimates have it taking something like 5+ years to get a well up and running, one can only assume that with the shortage of equipment, it'd take even longer to get the oil out of the ground.

Nice Newport for Sale on eBay

Its a 1971, and nearly identical to mine. Between 1969 and 1972, Newports had only minor cosmetic differences between them and I had a 1971 Newport in high school, the 1969 I have now, is nearly identical to the one I had, save for the cosmetics and a few options (grandpa actually splurged for the A/C and the rear window defogger, sadly, he didn't get the record player or the 8-track recorder. I bring this up, because I want to point out that I'm not married to the exact car that I have, and if I had the money, I'd happily plunk down the cash for that Newport and use mine for parts (at least those that won't be replaced by the steam engine). That could, potentially, save me some money, depending upon the condition of the vehicle, it would certainly come in handy when it came to replacing hard to find items.

Cash, however, is the critical issue. I've got to start focusing on getting some fund raising proposals together. I know that there's a number of folks interested in this project, and if I can get enough information posted to show that I'm not a ravening lunatic, then I might be able to get some more donations. (If I could hit the "magic thousand" number of folks who donate $20, I'd be able to get this project almost to completion in a very short time.) Of course, when you have to "duct tape" your life together on an almost daily basis (or so it seems some times) getting organized is a bit difficult. Right now, I'm sick (again), so I really don't feel like doing much of anything. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. Otherwise, its off to the doctor next week.

Site Updated!

Well, one page, at least. I've added some layout drawings, plans for the engine I'm going to use on the pushmower, to test everything out before I start work on the car. I also put a link up to a graduate paper that proves steam engines beat diesels. It is dealing with locomotives, not cars, but its certainly a strong indicator that I'm not completely off-base with my idea.

Further proof, I think, comes from this story about a Florida engineer who has developed something similar. He's supposed to start building lawnmowers soon, and his system is way more complex than what I'm talking about doing (its also a lot more expensive). I also don't think that his system could be retrofitted to existing car designs, which is really what I'm after. The boiler description, however, sounds exactly like that of a Doble, which makes me wonder if he reinvented it, or cribbed from Doble.

Finally!

I've been without net access for nearly 2 weeks because of a cut cable. I haven't had a chance to update the site yet, but my friend came through with some of the CAD drawings, so I'll have to get those posted as soon as I can. I've also found what I hope are some good steam engine plans. I've talked with people familiar with Stanley Steamers and it doesn't seem that anyone's made the blueprints available for the engines, so I've had to come up with something else for use on the testbed. Apparently these guys are working with Jay Leno in creating some CAD drawings of parts for cars in his collection. Hopefully, Leno will have CAD drawings of the Stanley engine made and make them available soon. Otherwise, I'll probably have to buy on engine off of eBay, and then make a copy of it using modern, lighter materials, which will be expensive, as Stanley engines are going for about $2,500+ on eBay, when they can be found. Still, once I'm done with it, I can put it back on eBay and recoup the costs. If I throw in a copy of the CAD drawings of the engine, I might even be able to make a bit of a profit on the deal.

Speaking of which, I got in a little bit of overtime and managed to pick up an el cheapo digital camera at Wallyworld, so in a week or two, I'll get some current photos of the car up, as well as take photos of some of the parts so I can start selling them on eBay and fund this project a little better.

Car Makers Are Doing Everything They Can, Aren't They?

Whenever someone spouts that the car makers are screwing up when it comes to fuel economy someone else always replies that car makers are doing everything they can to improve mileage and/or develop alternative vehicles. Anyone who claims otherwise obviously belongs in the nutter category and must believe that there's a conspiracy afoot to block new technology. (Truth in advertising requires that I must admit that my mother has worked for a Honda dealership for almost 30 years now, and that I work for an auto parts manufacturer.) Let's take a quick look at some of the history of alternative fueled vehicles, shall we?

In 1973, a modified Opel GT got 375+ MPG in Shell Oil tests. As you can see the car's not exactly practical. Still, one would expect that lessons could be learned from this. In 1974, Car and Driver showed it was relatively simple and cheap to improve a Pinto's mileage by 25%.

Way back in 1899, a guy by the name of Ferdinand Porsche invented the hybrid. (IIRC, hybrid trucks were built up until the 1920s.) In the 1980s, Briggs and Stratton as part of a government program built a hybrid prototype and if you were a reader of Mother Earth News at the time (and still to this day), you could get plans telling you how to build your own hybrid.

In the late 1960s, Toyota tested an "idle cutoff switch", which automatically cut the engine when you stopped at a traffic light, and then restarted the engine when you pushed on the gas. This didn't show up on production cars until the Prius. Mercedes just announced they were going to be installing one on non-hybrid cars. I imagine that all they have to do is change some of the software in the engine computer and put in a slightly beefier starter. Fuel savings are estimated at around 9%.

In the 1930s, Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion Car was 19 feet long, seated 11, got 30 MPG, did 130 MPH, while running on a 60 HP Ford V-8. Bad luck prevented the car from going into production.

Remember GM's EV-1 electric car? Yeah, it was a piece of crap, but did you know that GM built a couple of "conventionally powered" prototypes? Interesting performance on them:
The CNG prototype:

The maximum range was 350 to 400 miles, and fuel economy was 60 mpg (in gasoline equivalent) .

The hybrid prototype had better numbers:

A fuel tank capacity of 6.5 gallons (24.6 l) and fuel economy of 60 to 100 mpg (3.9 to 2.4 L/100 km) in hybrid mode, depending on the driving conditions, allowed for a highway range of more than 390 miles (627.6 km).

You'd think that if GM had an ounce of sense, they would have brought those variants into production as that would allow them to recoup the development costs since they couldn't get the battery technology right. I wouldn't put much faith in them getting the Volt out any time soon, either.

Now GM has officially announced that, even with a less-aerodynamic body (a Chevy Malibu), a suboptimal drive unit and "rough calibration" it is consistently going more than 40 miles on all-electric power with its current batteries. GM's VP of product development, Bob Lutz has said “I can almost say the battery is the least of our problems.”

In general, this is good news. But there are reasons to remain skeptical. First, the initial announcement of a $30,000 price point has already been raised to $35 and it's been hinted that it could be "closer to 40." Second, there is still nothing extremely firm about their November 2010 release date.

IIRC, it was going to be the Spring of 2010 they were going to have them on sale. Oops.

In 2003, Accenture claimed that for $300 billion the US could convert the entire US vehicle to CNG in about a decade.

Under Tolan's pedal-to-the-metal scenario, the country could completely wean itself off imported oil by 2015 by flooding the market with fuel-cell vehicles. Most of the hydrogen needed to power the cars would come from plentiful North American natural gas piped to existing filling stations, then processed into hydrogen. Imagine: In little more than a decade, half the cars on American highways would run on clean-burning hydrogen costing 40 percent less per mile than gasoline. Yes, Tolan agrees, some unusual things would have to happen first: You'd need annual federal subsidies of $10 billion to $20 billion in the early years to make the cars affordable and to scale up production. Oil and gas companies and utilities would have to plow some $280 billion into hydrogen infrastructure in the United States alone. Press Tolan a little and she'll acknowledge that she's calling for a radical transformation that could expose some of the most hidebound industries in the world to daunting technological and commercial risks.

The speed of the transformation Tolan envisions makes Internet time seem glacial. Starting in 2005, automakers would introduce fuel-cell vehicles, ramping sales up sharply to 8 million units by 2009, with the help of at least $10 billion in annual subsidies to help defray the initial cost of about $40,000 per vehicle. (If $10 billion seems steep, Tolan counters that the Apollo space program at its peak ate $17 billion a year.) The ambitious scheme, Tolan calculates, would put about 115 million fuel-cell cars on the road by 2015.

To meet demand for hydrogen, oil companies would have to hustle to install hydrogen pumps at 30,000 filling stations, enough to supply cities conveniently. The handiest source of hydrogen in North America is natural gas--there are huge reserves in Canada and the Gulf of Mexico--and producers could link filling stations to existing pipelines quite readily. Other potential sources include ethanol and hydrogen extracted from water using electricity in areas where power is especially cheap. The result: U.S. oil consumption falls from a projected 28 million barrels a day to 6 million by 2020, eliminating the need for imports. That alone would save the nation about $200 billion a year--not to mention a lot of geopolitical headaches.

Not only would that make us self-sufficient in terms of energy, but if you lived in Utah, you could fill your tank for about $5.

Troy Anderson was at the gas pump and couldn't have been happier, filling up at a rate of $5 per tank.

Anderson was paying 63.8 cents per gallon equivalent for compressed natural gas, making Utah a hot market for vehicles that run on the fuel.

It's the country's cheapest rate for compressed gas, according to the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition, and far less than the $3.56 national average price for a gallon of gasoline.

"I'm totally celebrating," crowed Anderson, a 44-year-old social worker, who picked up a used Honda Civic GX two months ago. "This is the greatest thing. I can't believe more people aren't talking about it. This is practically free."

Not to worry, however, VW will be bringing a 200 MPG car to the US in 2010.

The VW 1L is so named because, in theory, it only consumes one liter of fuel per 100 kilometers traveled. For those of us in the US, this translates into about 235 MPG. Definitely far and above anything on the market currently. The concept, developed in 2002, actually got better fuel economy, scoring a sweet .89L/100km in VW testing. It’s likely to use more fuel in real world use, but with that kind of mileage in testing it’s unlikely that anyone would complain about an “unsatisfactory 200 MPG.”

A Google search of the term "hypermiling" will turn up all kinds of info on ways people are hacking their cars to get better gas mileage. Some of them aren't practical for everyone, and a few might make the car a little less safe in a crash, but there's still plenty of good ideas. Car makers, like a lot of industries, are fat and lazy and don't want to actually think about how to get better mileage out of their cars.

Steam cars have largely been ignored by the car makers. In the late 1960s, Chevy briefly looked at building steam powered Camaros, but rather than listening to the consultants they brought in for the task, they ignored everything they had to say and built the car "their way." From all accounts, it was absolute junk. They couldn't even manage to get the warm up time as low as the Doble's (and one of the consultants was very familiar with Dobles). I don't know for certain that I'll be able to get dramatically improved mileage with my design, but it's worth a shot. One advantage I'll have over other designs is that I won't be tied to a single fuel source. I'll be able to go with whatever happens to be cheapest (or available) at the moment. Try that with a hybrid.

Wish I Knew a Webdesigner Who Worked for Beer

Had too many other things to do this weekend to get much done. I want to put up a second site with an angry tone to it (to see if that attracts a bit more interest), but the templates for the first site just kept screwing up on me (not really knowing HTML probably doesn't help). So I had to spend the past couple of days looking for a good template, downloading it and then looking at it with my HTML editor as you can't get the info about how easy the template is to work with just by looking at the samples you're given (as they're primarily image files and not the actual HTML code). So that ate up huge amounts of time. In theory, when I get the new site up, I'll be able to easily alter each one, but it'd be a helluva lot easier if I had someone who could knew HTML and worked cheap. Next weekend, I've got to rip that lawnmower apart, so I can get it ready for use as a testbed (once I can find some engine plans I like).

In the meantime, if I get some time during the week, I'll have to go over the Doble stuff I've downloaded and see what I can make of all of it. Now, however, I'm just going to veg out for a bit and then go to bed.

Page Updates

Had to finally say the heck with the file that I was going to upload, as I spent close to two hours waiting for it to get uploaded and nothing happened. I've still managed to get some fairly big changes to the site done, however. I added some more information to the "Enhancements" page, as well as links to the blueprints on the "Boiler" page, and another question and response on the "FAQ" page. Finally, since Matt Mahoney, of Vancouver Wa was kind enough to make a donation to the project (I'm up to almost $60 now), I added him to the "Supporters" page. Now, I think that I'll get ready for bed. It's amazing how tiresome it is doing web stuff (and I'm using pre-made templates, that I modify and do lots of cutting and pasting in). I'd hate to do it for a living (though I'd happily accept the paycheck, as I'm sure it's bigger than mine).

Hit the Mother Load!

I recently found this site, which has high quality scans of Doble's papers. I've downloaded the most important ones, and have started going over them, but it's going to take me a long time to read them all. I'm trying to upload a RAR archive of the boiler blueprints to my website, but it's taking ages to upload. So far, it's been 1/2 an hour and it's still not done. I can't even make any other changes to the site while this is going on, so I'm sitting here in frustration as I can't do much else in relation to the site until that get's done. Grr.

Crappy Weather

I had planned to tear apart the spare push mower today, as I intend to use that as a small test bed to work out as many kinks as I can before I start converting the car, but the weather's just too nasty today, so I'm stuck inside the house. I figure the best thing for me to do is to work on some alternate versions of the site. I'm not much of a salesman, so if I try a different pitch, I might be able to get more interest.

This is just a quick post, as I'm busy working on making some changes to the main site. I will say that so far I've managed to raise $35, which will go towards getting me a digital camera so I can take some updated photos of the car, and enable me to offer the parts I'm pulling off the car for sale on eBay. Ideally, I'd like to keep the old ones so I could display them next to the car at shows and the like, but I gotta do what I can to get the money up, so unless a few miracles occur, then I'll have to sell what I can.