Hi guys, earlier this week I got to hear my LR2 run for the first time. It is a project I had started some 5 or 6 years ago that I had shelved for several years incomplete.
I recently fixed a ST2 for a customer, and I acquired an LR1 as part payment. All of this got me in the mood so I dragged out the LR2 and I refused to quit until I had it running reasonably well.

For those interested:

As purchased https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oADyLEl5ldM

Running https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXQBZ1JOmg8

For what it's worth; I don't know what caused 38ac to leave, but I am certainly saddened that he has left.

I for one, have benefited greatly from his knowledge and input, and I am very thankful that I had the privilege of access to his posts at the time that I was working on my 6/1 clone.
I am sure that it turned out much better than if I had worked it over on my own, and now I have the confidence to tackle my other clones whenever the urge strikes.

Hi guys, thought I would share my latest head-banging air cooled Yanmar clone experience with you.
A customer of mine who imports goods from China contacted me re: a new cement mixer which wouldn't start, which was part of a batch of 6, and the only offender.
To make it brief I ended up dismantling the entire engine several times, changing the injection system as well but it just wouldn't run.
At my wits end I took the cylinder (crankcase) and piston to the machine shop to have the clearance checked and I was told that the cylinder was bored too large for the piston, which was rocking in the bore and upsetting the piston ring seal. It sounded possible and we even compared the fit to a different cylinder that I brought along.
So I informed the owner and he ordered a new cylinder which arrived with his next shipment.
I swapped the various parts from the original engine to the new crankcase, added a new set of rings and assembled the bottom end no problem... except the crankshaft would not rotate when the fasteners were tightened. Detective work and add approx. .040" of shims between the crankcase and it's cover (which is from the original engine).
Slap all other parts on after that, add oil and fuel (the same fuel still in the tank from before) and off we go. Same results as before... not a blink. What the $%^& now?

Here is where it gets a bit strange; these engines are the first left-hand rotating Yanmar clones that I had ever seen. The flywheel had 2 sets of timing marks; the normal right hand marks which were painted over but visible, and the left hand marks. While rocking the flywheel by hand to squirt more fuel into the cylinder for yet another starting attempt, I happened to notice the timing marks as I listened to the injector fire, and as far as I could tell the injector was firing somewhere between 5* BTDC and 5* ATDC. Aha, I knew that these engines normally run with close to 20* of advance, so off with the pump and remove both shims that were behind it.
Check timing again... looks better now but still not ideal, but what the hell, wind up the rope and let 'er rip... Success at long last. Shut her down and try again...success again.
But now injection timing still not advanced to the spec with no shims under the pump; what does that mean?
The best I can figure is that the camshaft, or at least the fuel pump lobe, is ground retarded, I will investigate this further when I take it all apart again to put the parts back into the original crankcase.
Why put myself through this you ask? Remember that .040" shim? Now the camshaft has at least that much float, possibly more.
So where did I go wrong? Remember these cement mixers are supposed to be test run at the factory, and I assumed that this one was, but obviously that was not the case.
So I checked ring gaps, valve clearances, everything except that one thing, the injection timing.
In the end I will probably have disassembled and reassembled this engine 5 or 6 times, sad, but I've learned my lesson.
The bright side to all this is that this engine is the 2nd of two that I had to fix as a barter, because inside the very next container from China is my very own ZS1130 horizontal diesel which this customer paid for up front. For some reason I find the thought of that strangely motivating .
But aren't I forgetting something? Isn't the cylinder bored too big for the piston?
I have long suspected this to not really be the case, but in the absence of a better theory I went with it.
So I will roll the dice one more time and I will update you in part 2 of "Adventures in Engines"

Hello all, I just spotted this on enginads; the ad says its brand new. The price is Best Offer if anyone is interested.

https://www.enginads.com/classifieds/showproduct.php/product/153825/cat/2

Hi guys, just wondering if anyone has ever seen this happen.
I just finished repairs on a Yanmar L100 air-cooled diesel. On Thursday  evening she fired right up on my first start attempt; feeling quite proud of myself I did a short video and sent it off so the customer could see the progress.
On Friday I mounted the engine to it's cement mixer and wound up the rope to start her. I yanked the rope and she started right up with quite a bit of smoke and rough running, and that's when I heard my son say "Dad, why is she exhausting through the intake?" Sure enough, that's what she was doing and I put my hand over the muffler and I could feel the vacuum as she inhaled.
Puzzled, I shut her down thinking it might be a fluke, and started her again with the same result. Quite boggled now, I thought maybe she is left-hand rotation, so I wound the rope in the opposite direction and gave her a strong pull. Exact same result except now the engine was running in the opposite direction. I shut her down and left her alone until this morning, all the while trying to figure out if I was actually seeing what I thought I was seeing.
By this morning I had prepared myself for some malady with the camshaft timing, but first of all I turned the engine by hand and felt as it came against something solid. I turned it in the opposite direction and eventually I felt the same hard bump. By observation of the flywheel I concluded that the bump happened every other revolution of the crankshaft which led me to conclude that it was either a problem with the IP, something was caught in the cam gear, or the timing was off.
Choosing easiest first, I removed the Injection Pump, and sure enough the "solid bump" was gone. It was a brand new IP but nevertheless I took it apart and examined it but found nothing wrong.
I then started wondering if the injector could somehow cause these issues, and after a battle I managed to removed it from the engine. At this time I used a piece of wire coat hanger through the injector hole, removed the valve cover, and by observing the valves at overlap with the piston at TDC I was able to determine that the cam timing was correct.
I took the injector apart, removed the needle and sprayed some Carb Cleaner into the nozzle and let it sit for a few minutes while I arranged my Injector Tester.  Not having the correct fitting to hook up the entire injector to the tester, I put the nozzle into an injector that could attach to the tester. At the first few strokes I could tell that the nozzle was not working properly, but I persisted and after a few more attempts I got a satisfactory Pop and Spray Pattern.
I moved on to the body of the injector and discovered that a previous "Diesel Mechanic" had not aligned one of the two alignment pins correctly, and instead of it entering its respective alignment hole, it had caught up on the body of the injector next to the hole and he had tightened the nozzle holder so tight that the pin had actually penetrated the injector body and mushroomed it's head as well! What a mess!
I happened to have a good injector body that was near enough that I could used the "Valve and Seat" from it to replace the damaged seat. I then used my grinder and "sharpened away" the damaged threads in the area where the pin had swelled them.
I then reassembled the injector and reattached it and the IP to the engine, checked that the IP was Popping the injector, and had my son give her a couple of good pulls and off she went.
Has anyone had similar experiences with engines acting this way?

Hi guys, I was sniffing around www.Smokstak.com and noticed this Lister Gas Engine for sale, if anyone is interested. It seems that enginads is the sales area for smokstak.

https://www.enginads.com/classifieds/showproduct.php/product/149998/cat/2

Hello all, long time lurker and diesel engine fanatic here, situated in the Cayman Islands. Here are a few pictures of my current 6/1 Clone ST generator project. The disassembly, cleaning and balancing are done, many thanks to the members on this great forum. The engine and generator have been test run for about 1/2 hour with load but I still have a few minor bugs to work out. A video is soon to come.