Hahaha.. very good.. very dangerous explosive experiment.... similar to the fate of the russian reactor 4 at chernoble... brilliantly hilarious my friend 🤣
comment is spot on, and I don't care what anybody says there's nothing on Earth that's zero carbon emissions. even the finest electric cars have utilized diesel fired engines 4 mining equipment and the production of the materials to mind the necessary metals to produce everything on the car. also the more Plastics memes there's more oil involved in the production of the vehicle. all you do is you just trade one bit of controversy for another.
You can call this already a small success with the very limited knowledge of steam boilers and engines these guys have. There are however a few considerations I have to give with my knowledge gathered as a steam locomotive fireman. First, a steam boiler can be an exceptional dangerous device, more hazardous than cylinders with compressed gas or even some explosives. They want to run the boiler eventually at 8 or 9 bars, at that pressure you get a boiling point of around 175°C. The water volume in this boiler I estimate around 60 liters. Steam has a volume 1800 times bigger than the water making that steam. When that boiler fails (which probably will be the weld holding the halves together) the 60 liters of water will turn into 108 cubic metres of steam in an instance, because the water escapes into atmospheric pressure of just 1 bar where its boiling point is 100°C, the amount of energy in this explosion would be the same as contained in 35 .50BMG rounds. So I would never consider even firing this boiler up to 9 bars with its strange construction and untested welds, the shrapnel from the boiler can easily kill someone. They should have done a hydraulic test first at least, by filling it up with water completely and then adding pressure with compressed air trough the valve at the top to 1.5 times the desired working pressure, which is the easy way, cold water doesn't expand when the pressure suddenly drops so is relatively safe, you could get soaked in the worst case. By this the boiler doesn't have a pressure release valve other than the manualy operated valve, when this valve can't be reached for some reason, or someone forgets to check the pressure; RUN FOR YOUR LIVE! Then there is the water in the steam, the steam is what they call wet, it means that the steam temperature is just about the evaporation temperature, so if the steam comes in contact with colder surfaces or has a slight drop in pressure in the engine it starts to condensate. This can be overcome by superheating the steam, by running the steam pipe between the boiler and engine trough the fire a couple of times, this raises the temperature of the steam without further raising the pressure, then the steam will be able to expand and cool down to some degree without condensation (the expansion causes the steam to cool down as well) Real steam engine also do have drain cocks at the working ends of the cylinders where any water which collects in the initially cold cylinders can be drained trough, at start up these are open and are closed when the cylinders are at operating temperature, just check any video of a steam locomotive starting from stand while expelling huge clouds of vapour from their cylinders. Then there is lubrication, the steam will mix up with the standard motor oil, so a special steam oil is needed.
This guy knows exactly what he's talking about - listen to him! This project was MUCH more dangerous than their usual "Russian" danger levels for many, many reasons. They should really have consulted with some experienced (model) boiler designers/constructors before building their own...
Also no water gauges, no means of getting water into boiler, no fusible plug. This is a very frightening project. Like you Tom I have worked with steam all my life (54 years and counting) and this project scares the crap out of me. They might be Russian or Slavs but this can very easily KILL them and people around them. Lads the footwork has been done, read some books on boilers please as they have been written with the blood of our forebears. You are playing with a bomb!.....
No way of keeping an eye on water level, fire tubes out with the water level, giant seem welds along an un braced seam that leak and no safety valve 😂 its so horrifying but yet so fantastic at the same time 😂
I really laughed at "We didnt think it would run on steam, why on earth did you think that?" I guess he has seen garage 54. I really love these guys so funny and crative in a mad way. Keep up the good work fellas
Merlin Skinner True, but he’s known to do some crazy configurations. I guess he could also put it behind the seat by taking the top completely off...OR, use a truck and put it in the bed. It’s a crazy idea to begin with, so anything goes at this point.
I would say that putting the boiler on a trailer is quite a good idea unless of course you want to set the car on fire and kill the driver, the steam pipe going to the engine will need good insulation and to be flexible on the end to allow for going around corners. Should be good for a laugh if nothing else.
barry phillips Hey , I never said it would be safe 🤣. But he’s done some questionable things in the past, did you see his cabin on wheels with a burning furnace for his sauna. And let’s not forget the girls in bikinis! 😂
I think he is expecting actually good welds that can handle steam pressure and not leak. You want that before you line the pipes with thick insulation to prevent the condensation.
So pick which poison you prefer. A combustion engine at the risk of the fuel catching fire in a crash, or a steam engine with the risk of a blown boiler.
@@Engineer9736 More violent and instantaneous indeed. But more dangerous? It's hard to definitely say which is more dangerous when both scenarios present a very different risk and very different outcome in the event of failure.
Look at the very last steam powered cars before internal combustion engines they were very advanced I think you would be surprised. I recommend Jay Leno's Garage as he has a really detailed vid of him driving it and it is totally usable even by today's standards, well, apart from start up time..
@@blackturbine Seeing how the average gasoline power engine gets about 25% efficiency I'd say that we haven't gone that far in the past 200 years of "technological development" we've had.
yes but not without changing the duration of the valve opening on the first two cylinders so that a smaller volume of high pressure steam gets fed into the high pressure side to make up for the loss in power of the low pressure side. it's why double and triple expansion steam engines have ever-increasing cylinder and piston size as pressure decreases or you will be trying to compress the low pressure steam.
More like exhaust from 1 into inlet of 3... Still, wouldn't be likely to improve power, only efficiency. Actually, best if they just get it to work first.
Talk about rolling coal. These guys have mad skills with all the work they do. And for those who only watch the English translation, they have a whole lot of videos of all kinds that never make the translation. I love watching these guys even without the translation and always give them a thumbs up
@@ralfhaggstrom9862 diameter of the wheel of my streetbike.. I heared somewhere when you plant more trees than you burn, than the earth is okay with that...
THEY NEED OVER PRESSURE VALVES IN THIS SYSTEM!!! Two or more designed for steam pressures and temps. I am all for these guys and dont want them to get hurt by scalding steam or flying debris. In comments please post this saftey concern. We love them and lets help them stay safe.
Yeah, I think the system would have been fine to run that little car with just one of those pressure vessels. Safer than welding them together like that...
No carbon emissions! It's just as valid as in corporate economy. It's on different accounts and therefore it counts as no carbon emissions, in the car that is. The burner is a complete different story. This was one of the funniest and most ingenious project I've seen in a long time! Love it!
You'd have to collect it and pump it back into the boiler for best results. I gets more complicated to be efficient, I used to take car of a simple low pressure steam boiler at work. This setup is crazy dangerous, really no good way to shut off the heat quickly, and way to small a relief valve. It is really cool though, I wouldn't want to be around it.
@@MrTommymxr but Grant is right. The boiler is under pressure. The water wouldn't just "run back" into it. You need to pump it under greater pressure or shut the heat off.
I would have thought the main priority would be efficiency. How to minimize fuel use yet still get the same amount of work. Last I checked water is available literally everywhere that people exist and should be free, actually it damn well better be. If you had a steam powered car with a total 50% thermal efficiency instead of 10%, would you really be bothered by having to periodically refill the boiler?
Taking the steam from the exhaust and routing it into the smoke stack will increase draw on your fire. It will make the fire hotter. Kind of like a turbo for a steam generator
You people are insane ! Just LOVE IT 😊 Priority 1: make sure you fit a safety valve guys! 2: and some kind of injector so you can add water to the boiler while it's running. If you run out of water with that big fire underneath you'll kill the boiler, and probably yourselves with it. Basically check out what makes up a steam locomotive 😉 Most important of all guys, stay safe - and alive! We need you on RU-vid 👍
I wish these guys would go take some tours of steam plants on older naval vessels that have been turned into museums. They are the highest efficiency examples of this technology and have a lot of innovations that could be adapted.
I've said it before, but there really needs to be a Garage 54 themed racing game, there's so many silly conversions and wheel variations made by them that would make some silly combinations. Imagine driving the sauna mobile with the manhole cover wheels.
I love your show and the projects that you do. However for safety sake on the steam engine project, please add a safety valve to the boiler, to protect you from a steam drum explosion. Also, you need a way to tell the water level in the boiler. A "gage glass" , or at least a cock to tell where the water is in the boiler- that its not too low. ( or high )You could add a pump to be able to add water into the boiler while it is working. If you already thought of those things, sorry for butting in! We dont want you gentlemen getting hurt you know- Keep the shows coming!
You need to put safety valve on there at least and a water pump to inject water. And add a boiler water gauge. So you can at least control it in some way. Run the exhaust steam pipe back up the chimney to create draw on the fire. You could also add a steam pipe up out the chimney from the boiler to create draw on the fire when not moving help create steam. Basics from steam locos. Great videos as always thanks
Stirling engines are reliable and more efficient nasa made a project in a car but it failed. Their great on a hybrid or a low power alternative campfire generator but not a typical car powertrain
@@regularpit1508 they didn't build a stirling engine. the problem with a stirling engine is the size and weight of the thing, compared to the mechanical energy out.
I really like that boiler, gas tanks for a boiler is a great idea, I would have left them separate though instead of welding them together, I don't see the point, except tons of extra cutting and welding. Seems like you could get more pressure leaving the tanks separate and piping them together too and it would be a hell of a lot easier.
"On the next episode, we're going to let the water drop too low and blow ourselves to kingdom come!" Screwing around with steam and you have no clue what you're doing is a fast-track to blowing yourself up. Letting the water drop too low is just one of the many ways you can over pressurize the vessel and cause it to explode. When pressure testing a steam vessel, you don't use compressed air, you need to completely fill the tank with water then pressurized only the water with more water. The water itself doesn't actually pressurize so the pressure on the walls of the vessel does. You need to bring the pressure of only water in that vessel to twice the pressure you're going to run. If the vessel fails at that point, only water start squirting out whereas if it's under steam pressure it will explode like a bomb. Just look up pictures of blowing out steam engines. They go with Force to blow all the tubes out the front end of the engine. And, you're lucky if they do go out the front and don't come out the back where you're standing.
I think the reason they use water in those test is so they aren't waiting around all day for the compressor to fill the pressure vessel, I don't think it has any more function than that. Well, maybe it is easier to trace a leak...
@@athopi it's called hydro testing. It's not just meant for checking for boiler leaks, but also the structural integrity of the vessel. Compressed air at the pressures needed to test a boiler is very dangerous if the vessel fails. Being that air compresses it would continue ripping the vessel apart, where water doesn't compress and it's only the metal giving way with a bang and a gush of water.. At least in the US, boilers need to also need to be examined by ultrasound for thin or weak sections. In the old days the men descaleing the inside during retubing could tell by a change in sound from the needle scaler...until they went deaf.
That exhaust tubing pipe bender at 7:28 was cool as hell! I've use new mostly automatic type and an old stationary hand pump hydraulic type but I've never seen a portable hand bender like that.
Ya that would suck .... that's why steam engines had huge grease channels instead of circulating oil and also why everytime you see an old steam engine that's still operating theres guys getting off with huge grease guns to regrease the cylinders and all rotation points at every stop
He did, charcoal, which doesn't release emissions burning in the atmosphere or in a furnace, at least it should be just as if not less pollutant that running your gas/diesel powered car.
There is a hell of a lot of power jetting itself right out of the tail pipe. Single expansion is a real waste of the power of the steam and potentially quite dangerous four you too! The exhaust steam will happily remove the flesh from your bones.
@@mateuszbarya9098 if you connect the exhaust to the boiler you would create an equal pressure on each side, and the engine would not turn. Therefore you need at least a high pressure pump to pump the boiling water back to the rank for i. if to become steam again.
@@Namesakes.unit-x-10sq10 4 bars is not a high presure, but you need pump... I wanted to say that most pumps can easy get more than 4 bars (it's about 40m of pump head that not a lot)
Hey Garage 54, use the steam of exaust to create a vacuum on smoke box, it make a oxygen flow on combustion chamber, and its dont scare people's, it's like " omg it's a Marty mcfly on his delorean again".
Please please please make a trailer to tow the boiler setup, you could use flexible pipe for the connection. The chimney as stated should be wider also if you put the fan blower so its blowing up the chimney it should suck the air in and get the coals to heat up more. Maybe a separate valve to blow out the water in the line before you allow it into the engine. I think even at 1000rpm the car should have good power, steam engines generally spin slow but make good power. Great video you guys! Massive respect from the UK 👍😁
he put “PS, First real comment.” for clout like he has to prove something about being first. Doesn’t matter if you’re first, you are supporting the creator by just watching.
Yeah it is rather sketchy hey, no safety valve (i could see), means of feeding water or safety features like fusible plugs.I don't think its going to explode on the pressure they ran (well under 100 psi if i saw correct) then but if they pushed it too a couple hundred psi , it could go bang, probably not enough stays.Their fabrication is not awful all things considered, but they clearly don't understand what they are doing.Proper boilers have safety margins in the thousands of percent range so are massively over engineered, that gives the impression that this "boiler"(over sized kettle!) they made is a bit more dangerous that it probably is. Im a boilermaker and steam enthusiast.
@@dunxy yep. They had a tap on the pressure tank that would fail before anything else. Hopefully. But to make a proper steam engine they're going to need 300psi at least. Especially with that engine design. Valve float will be astronomical. Those Lada valves are designed 20psi so if say the piston will be closing the valves, and poorly, and compression will be 80 at best. Which is why steam engines use rods on the camshaft and not lobes/springs. At the very least you could overlap the valves a little more to overcome mechanical resistance. But I've seen the aftermath of a boiler explosion. Even the Mythbusters water heater explosions were epic and from memory they were 350psi
@@1one3_RacingI dont think 300psi is at all required if they used a proper steam engine,lets look at it this way, if a 5" gauge steam locomotive weighing under 100kg running a boiler at 90psi can pull over 1000kg (they can and traction is the limiting factor normally VS power/torque being insufficient) with extremely tiny cylinders they should theoretically have no problem driving the lada using an engine of that capacity i would think,not that ive ever had any experience with an internal combustion engine (nothing to do with Ladas ever,i like Toyota myself) running on steam.Id say their simple main issue would be that their kettle will simply not supply the required amount of steam because it simply wont have the surface area or drafting to keep up with demand. Im very curious about what boiler explosions aftermaths have you seen? Ive been around (main line, not toys here hey) steam locomotives here in Australia for a VERY long time, there has not been a boiler explosion here for probably a century.There has been deaths (unfortunately,its very sad but life is dangerous)in the last few decades that i do know of, one person was killed when a fusible plug failed, iirc it was only inserted finger tight but im not going to judge as i did know the fitter who installed said plug and he was very messed up.We did lose 3 guys (R.I.P guys. I knew the fireman very well and i still get rather sad about this) a few years ago as well, but that was a derailment caused by a fuckwad truck driver and the safety valve got sheared and a fusible plug partially fused because engine ended up on its side and flooded the cab with steam and the result was naturally not pretty,these the only steam related deaths in the last few decades here.Actual explosions, yeah nah, not that ive ever known of here in modern (as in non wrought iron boilers) times because the regulation is very strict (regular double operating pressure hydrostatic tests) and the safety margins are huge.I even have steamed long out of ticket boilers in the past with some rather thin sections, all be it at rather low pressures . Hot water services aren't pressure vessels, they aren't a boiler, so the fact that they even made it to many hundreds of psi is a testament to how hard it actually is to blow something up,even something not designed to hold any pressure,just heat water.
Yeah I've worked in feedmills and feedlots with boilers and if one of those went boom it would take out a decent chunk of land mass. I'm talking more ghetto, home made, boilers. Videos on RU-vid although they are probably gone now with Nanny state rules. I've not seen it first hand. Only in video format. Should have stated that! As for pressures, an efficient steam engine will require a lot less pressure than an ICE converted to steam. The valves won't close with back pressure and it's not an interference engine so the pressure of the piston coming up HAS to close the valve before it can build compression to overcome the pressure on the opposing cylinder. The engine is constantly fighting itself. Half of its torque output will be used up turning the crank. Plus the relatively small surface area of the piston. Steam pistons are huge so small PSI equals huge torque. That Lada engine would likely have 65mm piston or so. Maybe smaller. At 90 psi thats only 460 pounds.
You should use the exhaust steam for a venturi in the boiler exhaust to draw the flames through the fire tubes like in a steam locomotive. You might get higher efficiency if you connect the pipes in the two tanks so they form a U shape, that way the gases have more time to transfer their heat to the water.
How cool is that!! You can shoot the exhaust steam up through the chimney to draw through more air. Steam locomotives do that. And it is probably a torque monster, and runs well in a very high gear.
Great stuff. I watched it in Hawaii. I have 15,000 psi tanks each weigh 1200 pounds. Haha, they came from a submarine. Im going to try running a truck down the road on air only. Mahalo
