Lister Engine Forum
How to / DIY => Engines => Topic started by: guest23837 on July 16, 2018, 11:26:06 AM
-
I have been looking at old listers again. One is an LD1 complete engine but seized from being outside, I think it would be an easy fixer upper. The other is a Lister DK with no spark and some parts missing. Both are cheap (sub €200) which one would you guys go for? The DK is paraffin and paraffin is very expensive here and I doubt heating oil is the same, open to correction there. Could she run on petrol only? LD1 is slow low powered and extremely heavy for a middle aged man with a bad back to be moving around. All suggestions/ideas welcome! Thanks
-
I have both an LD and D and in moving them around I dont think the weight difference would affect my decision to buy one or the other. Both are very heavy for their size. I have no experience with the DK but some low grade fuel engines run fine on gasoline once warmed up, some not, all must start on gasoline. We have a coupe tractors that were designed for kerosene but it is expensive here also. We blend up our own using 2/3 low grade gasoline and 1/3 diesel. It isn't kerosene but works well enough fopr our purposes.
-
Thanks mate I think I read somewhere that those little engines were supposed to run on TVO but again thats impossible to get. The LD1 is slightly more appealing just because things like the fuel filter housing and air filter come with it and it has a starting handle too, a surprisingly expensive item in Ireland. Down side is it was in a concrete mixer.
-
I believe that TVO is closer to what was called "distillate" in the states? Slightly heavier than kerosene, actually the regular gasoline/ diesel mixture I use is closer to TVO,, or so I have been told.
-
I would assume the engine would run fine on petrol only? Would it overheat or run hot? Was the dual fuel simply an economy measure? Sorry for the questions I just want a little foreknowledge before buying. Any views on the LD?
-
It depends on the manifolding. All low grade fuel engines heat the intake to help keep the fuel vaporized and as I said I am not familiar with the DK. My 1075 Crossley has a heat adjustment so the preheat can be effectively shut off thus it runs fine on gasoline. My old Allis Chalmers tractor will run fine on gasoline until the manifolds get hot and then it runs like crap.
I wouldnt pay much for an LD that needed any work as parts are extremely expensive. Check with Sleeman on the price of a cylinder barrel and a joint set, warning! brace yourself!
I resurrected one, actually a close relative model SL and I wont do it again!! We can buy clunker LDs for less money than that and they are much less commonly found on this side of the pond.
-
I offered €50 he dropped to €100. New barrel and piston £186.00 ouch!
-
Latent energy has nothing to do with it however if you think diesel is a high compression fuel for spark ignition engines dump some in your gas engined car or lawn mower and let us know how it works out for you., like we already don't know, lol. Compression ignition is not to be interlinked with spark ignition for sake of discussion or argument. It's two different things period. The diesel, fuel added to gasoline both lowers the octane and lowers the volatility of the fuel. Both being advantageous in engines with low compression (and this lower octane needs) and hot manifolds., As I said, some low grade fuel engines will run decently on gas, some will not, that's not theory, it is known fact.
Corrected all the typos, sorry. Happens every time I post from my cell phone
-
Glort the postage from Australia to Ireland would be a bit expensive for an engine! I have an SL1 engine parts are extremely expensive and it's taking time and money to get it sorted, it's supposed to be a 12v generator eventually but the prices of spares makes it a long term if ever project.
I'm now going to use some profane language " Briggs and Stratton". I spotted a 5HP side valve petrol generator on Gumtree Northern Ireland for silly money, £50. Its running but not making power. It had a capacitor alternator. I have never seen a Briggs engine connected to a cheap Chinese alternator so I think this would be a good buy. Im a bit of a fan of Briggs side valves.
-
Nothing like a good laugh with your 2nd coffee Glort!
To be fair the older Briggs engines are IMO very good. My lawnmower is 30 years old Briggs 5hp side valve starts every time. It need valve stem oil seals which it will never get so it burns a little oil. I see people selling much more modern mowers all the time they are modern OHV engines with problems. OK the problems are usually a bunged up carburettor or a failed coil but the mowers themselves are made out of compressed tinfoil and and are usually rusted and horrible.
This generator engine is a horizontal shaft version of the mower engine so Im confident it will be ok
-
Here you are John
I bought this little fellow just for the head a month ago - $NZ290 (later onsold the motor only for $280 but that's another story
Electric start Briggs & Stratton, Maybe 15HP. Started and ran well. Probably 20 or 30 years old
Apart from the antique design (updraft carb, flathead etc) probably nothing wrong with these old things
Cheers
-
I`m with Glort on this one, love Honda engines even some Honda clones are OK. Absolutely hate Briggs engines, I have two and I spend more time fixing them than using them. I think the problem is that in an effort to compete with the Chinese they have lowered quality to the point that they will crap out one day after the warranty expires. They just can`t cope with the harsh Australian climate and dust. Earlier versions are much more robust with metal carburetors rather than the cheap plastic crap they now come with.
The OHV offerings are particularly bad and prone to cylinder head gasket failure due to them reducing the amount of metal in the castings to less than is required for reliability. Approximately six milometers between the cylinder and the chamber that the push rods operate in. Gasket fails pressurizing the sump and vents hot oil everywhere. I`ve been burned by it a couple of times, surprised they haven`t been sued. Perhaps they have and I never heard about it.
Glort if you are still looking to import an alternator let me know as I also want one.
Bob
-
Lumping all Briggs engines into a lot and calling them good or rubbish is the same as lumping the finest wine with the $4 a bottle garbage they sell for whinos and calling wine either good or all bad based solely upon experience with one of the two.
The Briggs engines built to a price are certainly pure rubbish. Built to last long enough for the buyer to get tired of trying to get it started and throwing the engine and the device attached to it in the closest dumpster. 30 years ago a cheapo 20" push mower with a B&S engine cost $100, today the same mower is $125 and we have 20 hour engines on them with plastic camshafts. Briggs now advertises their cheapo lawnmower line as "never change the oil" Take a wild guess on how long they expect them to last but that's what the uninformed wish to buy and products get built for them to waste their money on. Briggs also builds, (actually re-badges) a decent quality engine in the Vangards I have two of them and they have been stellar. The old flat head Briggs were mostly OK but who can afford the fuel they guzzle as compared to today's overhead valve engines??? We have a few around doing odd jobs with very low usage, certainly not on a generator set standby or otherwise.
My Peterson Sawmill has a 9HP Honda on it and it has been a 14ct pain in the arse with constant problems,it is about to get the dumpster and replaced with a L100 Yanmar.
-
I know the flat heads aren't as economical as some modern engines however I had a couple of Honda powered generators and they were thirsty buggers too. The power seldom goes here any more so most people don't have a generator. Most people have oil central heating they don't even have matches or a lighter to spark up a lamp or candle during a power cut. I have a Lister SL1 I'm currently €300 odd into parts for it and I still need a leisure battery and a sine wave inverter that would add another €400 and it will be able to produce maybe 900 watts. Thats a lot of petrol in the little Briggs!
Americans do some things very well including but not limited to V8 engines, pump action shotguns, corn whiskey and those little side valve engines. I accept I have a bias towards the whiskey and the engines!
-
Dunno who builds the Vangards, I read or heard that they are Italian made, Briggs may not build any engines these days? They say Briggs on the shrouds so it makes things easy to just call them that. Kohler is doing the same thing selling a Honda clone made somewhere in Asia with the Kohler name stuck on it.
The K Kohlers were very good, rebuilding them helps keep the bills paid in my shop but they are getting quite dated. Within a couple hundred hours the fuel usage differences causes the economics to favor junking the K Kohler and using a Honda clone but some diehards like to stick with old reliable quality. I have a Kohler factory set with a K161 and Kohler head. Starts on pull #1 every time, makes lots of noise and uses lots of fuel but I keep it around and use it a bit just because.
Agree about the China Honda clones. Most are OK, a few are junk. Good thing is the junk settles out quickly and all we have to do is keep out Harbor Freight receipt, take the junk back and demand another one to replace it.
I am getting more and more comfortable with the Yanmar L series diesels. Cant afford new ones but our military surplussed a BUNCH of them over the last few years and I pick through them looking for cherries. They are becoming my favored engine around the farm mostly due to the fact they can sit for a year and start instantly due to not having to deal with rotten bio gas we are forced to use. I certainly would not want to have one of them running a gen head at 3600 RPM anywhere near the house, that's for sure.
-
So the Briggs engines are crap.
Who BUILDS the good ones?
I can't remember who makes them, it is more a partnership than a rebadge. All of the Vanguards I have seen were made in Japan though.
I have got a JD mower and my yard vac with Kohlers on them. Experience with them is limited to a few hours so far but they run VERY smooth. No problems starting, run clean and have reasonable power. As the gear they are on is well used, I don't think they are particularly fresh engines. No experience with Kohlers other than this and never worked on any so see how they pan out.
Kohler's are in a whole different class from Briggs and Tecumseh. They are the "heavy duty" engines. They have always been very well made and one pays a premium for them here in the US. They do have a cheaper line of engines out now aimed at competing with the import stuff that has had a few issues.
Did have a couple of Techmseh's many years back and they seemed like garbage too. I have no idea what became of them. Haven't seen them in years.
Tecumseh's have been junk for a long time. I think they went downhill sometime in the '70's.
Honestly , in the power equipment world in the US Kawasaki has taken over. They have been slowly gaining market share for the last 20 years. They make a very good product that has held up to the abuse of commercial landscape crews. Some of them are made in Japan and some are made here in the US. They and Kohler seem to battle for king of the hill these days.
-
Honestly , in the power equipment world in the US Kawasaki has taken over. They have been slowly gaining market share for the last 20 years. They make a very good product that has held up to the abuse of commercial landscape crews. Some of them are made in Japan and some are made here in the US. They and Kohler seem to battle for king of the hill these days.
We have a Wheel Horse with a 20HP liquid cooled Kaw and it has been very good. I noticed that lots of the Z-turn manufacturers have been switching to them.
-
My brother has a small camping generator about 1.2 KW I think it has an Onan alternator it has a Tecumseh engine he thinks its the best thing since sliced bread. I think it's 50's or 60's
-
I've got a sinus headache so my reading is even down from the normal (for me). So if it's already been covered I apologize. Isn't it Toyota that is messing around with part time gasoline compression ignition in one of their new models?
-
Back to the original part on TVO (Tractor Vapourising Oil). We have a David Brown Cropmaster 30C tractor and is a TVO engine. As already discussed kero is way too expensive to buy and use so I always run it on Premium unleaded petrol. For no other reason than better mileage and performance (for want of another term) running on petrol all the time in all weather conditions from the cool 10'C through to the mid 30'c there has never been an issue of fuel vapourising on the tractor and causing any loss of power or over heating. Mixing diesel is something i would never do as explained it is the wrong component to use as a blended fuel for a petrol engine. We drive our 2 seater tractor on Tractor Treks and these can go all day with no issues ever running straight petrol.
As for B&S engines they should be branded BS engines as that is the best description I can think of them now they have degraded the makings of the engine. Alloy bores just dont work in this situation and then you have the country of origin issues. If you find the codes on the cowl of the BS engine, write them down and go to the B&S site and decipher the codes. It will tell you everything you want to know, date of manufacture and country of origin.
-
I've got a sinus headache so my reading is even down from the normal (for me). So if it's already been covered I apologize. Isn't it Toyota that is messing around with part time gasoline compression ignition in one of their new models?
https://www.wired.com/story/mazda-injection-compression-skyactivx-engine/
-
Never heard of "Part time gasoline Compression ignition" so I looked up on google.
Apparently they haven't heard of it either ::)
Bruce is right of course:
Experimental petrol diesel unit here:
https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/a19909520/gas-diesel-engine-reactivity-controlled-compression-ignition/
and Mazda Compression-and-spark ignition petrol engine here
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/mazda-compression-ignition-technology/
The big story isn't the fuel, it's the efficiency - claimed 60% fuel energy used as "drive" as opposed to (something like) normal 40%
-
Another form of fuel saving is from the past too. Have a look at engines described as Hit n Miss. I have a couple of them one air cooled the other is hopper cooled but the theory of them is not to be firing all the time. they use the inertia of flywheel/s to keep the momentum going and only firing once the governor is opened because it is running a bit slow. Not ideal for a car but as stationary engines they are unbeatable.