Puppeteer

Author Topic: Mr. Lister is back  (Read 14129 times)

rcavictim

  • Certified Generator Head and Grand Master Sparky
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1827
    • View Profile
Re: Mr. Lister is back
« Reply #15 on: August 21, 2006, 01:15:10 AM »
If Changfa would make a Lister 6/1 clone (with improvements like oil pressure upstairs, pressurized mains and con rod bottom bearing and a spin on oil filter) I bet it would be miles better than an Indian sandbox copy and I`d be wanting to purchase two.

Even IF the Lister were in current production the International Trademark and Patent laws appear to not count in China so they would not seem, to be a deterent.
-DIY 1.5L NA VW diesel genset - 9 kW 3-phase. Co-gen, dual  fuel
- 1966, Petter PJ-1, 5 kW air cooled diesel standby lighting plant
-DIY JD175A, minimum fuel research genset.
-Changfa 1115
-6 HP Launtop air cooled diesel
-Want Lister 6/1
-Large DIY VAWT nearing completion

mobile_bob

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2940
    • View Profile
Re: Mr. Lister is back
« Reply #16 on: August 21, 2006, 02:21:42 AM »
put me down for a couple too :)

just give me oil pressure to the bottom end, and a full flow filter and i would be happy

oh ya,,, and no sand please!

bob g
otherpower.com, microcogen.info, practicalmachinist.com
(useful forums), utterpower.com for all sorts of diy info

CD in BC

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 124
    • View Profile
Re: Mr. Lister is back
« Reply #17 on: December 06, 2006, 07:57:25 PM »
Presumably Lister-Petter are familiar with the Peak Oil isse (www.energybulletin.net) and fuel is a rather important factor in their corporate future.

Strange they don't focus on meeting the 3rd world demand for engines of this kind, to say nothing of the 1st and 2nd.

Why they did not open a factory in India decades ago where they could take advantage of the cheap and abundant labour while maintaining the kind of strict quality control needed is beyond me.

There engines such as the CS could have been made for the 3rd world markets at a price the 3rd world could afford.

There are plenty of skilled workers in India and paid a better-than-average wage they could have had their pick, to say nothing of drawing on the large pool of potential management in the UK that had direct personal experience of the peculiarities of the Indian 'environment'.

And now of course they'd rather lose the market than admit their mistake.  ::)

Quinnf

  • Rest in peace
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 645
    • View Profile
Re: Mr. Lister is back
« Reply #18 on: December 06, 2006, 08:22:44 PM »
There's a problem that you've overlooked.  History.  India was colonized by Britain until the Indians revolted and kicked their butts out in 1947.  To this day India has little use for the British.

Quinn
Ashwamegh 6/1, PowerSolutions 6/1 "Kit" engine, and a Changfa R175a that looks like a Yanmar I once knew

listerdiesel

  • Guest
Re: Mr. Lister is back
« Reply #19 on: December 06, 2006, 08:27:16 PM »
Presumably Lister-Petter are familiar with the Peak Oil isse (www.energybulletin.net) and fuel is a rather important factor in their corporate future.

Strange they don't focus on meeting the 3rd world demand for engines of this kind, to say nothing of the 1st and 2nd.

Why they did not open a factory in India decades ago where they could take advantage of the cheap and abundant labour while maintaining the kind of strict quality control needed is beyond me.

There engines such as the CS could have been made for the 3rd world markets at a price the 3rd world could afford.

There are plenty of skilled workers in India and paid a better-than-average wage they could have had their pick, to say nothing of drawing on the large pool of potential management in the UK that had direct personal experience of the peculiarities of the Indian 'environment'.

And now of course they'd rather lose the market than admit their mistake.  ::)

I think that the whole market concept has changed somewhat since Lister decided to stop making the 8/1. Remember that the CS engine with the change-over compression valve was stopped even earlier, and the only real market was in the Middle East, and that died with the Shah.

The cost of production is what killed it off and most of the others like it in the Western countries. It was too labour-intensive to be competitive, and the Indians got it about half-right when Kirloskar started copying the Petter AVA series back in the 1970's or so. That's 30 years ago?

Lister couldn't re-introduce the 8/1 or any of the variants as most of the technology has gone from this country that enabled them to make ity cheaply in the first place.

Nobody uses the 2lb weight BKB injector or 3lb weight BPF1B pump any more. The number of people that could do the castings now must be very small, and most of the machinery has gone as well, even the patterns were burnt as far as I know, they would have been a godsend to find in a skip!

All of those engines, Ruston, Crossley, Petters, Tangye, Bamford, Blackstone and even little Villiers have gone because it just became uneconomical to produce such low-output high manufacturing cost and low selling price engines.

Peter

listerdiesel

  • Guest
Re: Mr. Lister is back
« Reply #20 on: December 06, 2006, 08:32:41 PM »
There's a problem that you've overlooked.  History.  India was colonized by Britain until the Indians revolted and kicked their butts out in 1947.  To this day India has little use for the British.

Quinn

That's rather a simplification! :-))

I was on the 'Ghandi' movie running some generating gear for quite a time in India, and generally the older generation would have had the British back like a shot, as they kept order and stopped the inter-caste fighting between the Indians. What tipped it all over was Partition.

'Freedom at Midnight' is a good book to read about the awful throes that the country went through. We spent many an hour during that time discussing the matter with those Indians that we came into contact with.

Peter

Quinnf

  • Rest in peace
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 645
    • View Profile
Re: Mr. Lister is back
« Reply #21 on: December 06, 2006, 10:25:39 PM »
Peter, I agree with you.  You can't condense what happened then to a single sentence and expect to be accurate, and I shouldn't have tried.  However the Indians wanted to paddle their own boat, and that's what happened.  To hear some of my coworkers tell it, there is a general feeling of bitterness towards the British that remains.  Perhaps the Indians whom I have heard express that opinion are in the minority, although the ones you spoke with then might have simply been being polite to you.  The caged bird sings, the bars of its captivity notwithstanding.

Quinn
« Last Edit: December 06, 2006, 10:32:43 PM by Quinnf »
Ashwamegh 6/1, PowerSolutions 6/1 "Kit" engine, and a Changfa R175a that looks like a Yanmar I once knew

listerdiesel

  • Guest
Re: Mr. Lister is back
« Reply #22 on: December 07, 2006, 03:55:39 AM »
Peter, I agree with you.  You can't condense what happened then to a single sentence and expect to be accurate, and I shouldn't have tried.  However the Indians wanted to paddle their own boat, and that's what happened.  To hear some of my coworkers tell it, there is a general feeling of bitterness towards the British that remains.  Perhaps the Indians whom I have heard express that opinion are in the minority, although the ones you spoke with then might have simply been being polite to you.  The caged bird sings, the bars of its captivity notwithstanding.

Quinn

The 'older generation' that I referred to tended to be in their late 60's so probably were directly involved in the problems at Partition.

Most of the people we worked with were only too glad to get something in return for a few hours work, unemployment was pretty bad there.

I think as a country we screwed up the whole business, but much as the US and UK have problems in Iraq because they don't understand the country or the people/culture (simplification!) then Britain had similar problems in India in the late 1940's.

Caste problems are still rife, and there will always be deep-seated problems as long as that persists in the country.

Peter


CD in BC

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 124
    • View Profile
Re: Mr. Lister is back
« Reply #23 on: December 07, 2006, 05:12:41 AM »
There's a problem that you've overlooked.  History.  India was colonized by Britain until the Indians revolted and kicked their butts out in 1947.  To this day India has little use for the British.

Quinn

I'm afraid you're misinformed, to put it politely.  Probably you watched Gandhi though?  Well you can start here: http://history.eserver.org/ghandi-nobody-knows.txt

The British, having made "India" out of a collection of petty principalities and given it a civil service, a railway system, a telegraph system, a financial system, a sound military, a judicial system based on common law rather medievalism, the beginnings of an industrial base, a common language and made attempts to alleviate the grossest human abuses of the caste system (resolutely opposed by Gandhi by the way), were not "kicked out" of anywhere.

The British, unlike the French and certain other countries we could name, had the sense to leave when the time came.

As you are probably no doubt aware, as soon as they left India returned to the kind of religious and ethnic genocide she was used to; 2-4 million killed in 1947-49.

Oh, and maybe you should go and read your old National Geographics to see what kind of reception the Queen gets in India.

As for your co-workers, well, I guess they figure they can tell you whatever they want and you'll have no way of evaluating it.  Ask yourself how the British were able to rule when out-numbered a hundred to one?  Indira Gandhi was killed by her Sikh bodyguards.  In the 1880s Queen Victoria was posing with her Sikh aides de campe.  Just her and them out on the lawn.  They all had their swords if they wanted to do her in, no one could have stopped them.

It's easy to kick the Lion when he's down, isn't it?
« Last Edit: December 07, 2006, 05:36:37 AM by CD in BC »

CD in BC

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 124
    • View Profile
Re: Mr. Lister is back
« Reply #24 on: December 07, 2006, 05:57:48 PM »
Quote
I think that the whole market concept has changed somewhat since Lister decided to stop making the 8/1. Remember that the CS engine with the change-over compression valve was stopped even earlier, and the only real market was in the Middle East, and that died with the Shah.

The cost of production is what killed it off and most of the others like it in the Western countries. It was too labour-intensive to be competitive, and the Indians got it about half-right when Kirloskar started copying the Petter AVA series back in the 1970's or so. That's 30 years ago?

Lister couldn't re-introduce the 8/1 or any of the variants as most of the technology has gone from this country that enabled them to make ity cheaply in the first place.

Nobody uses the 2lb weight BKB injector or 3lb weight BPF1B pump any more. The number of people that could do the castings now must be very small, and most of the machinery has gone as well, even the patterns were burnt as far as I know, they would have been a godsend to find in a skip!

All of those engines, Ruston, Crossley, Petters, Tangye, Bamford, Blackstone and even little Villiers have gone because it just became uneconomical to produce such low-output high manufacturing cost and low selling price engines.....

....The 'older generation' that I referred to tended to be in their late 60's so probably were directly involved in the problems at Partition.

Most of the people we worked with were only too glad to get something in return for a few hours work, unemployment was pretty bad there.

I think as a country we screwed up the whole business, but much as the US and UK have problems in Iraq because they don't understand the country or the people/culture (simplification!) then Britain had similar problems in India in the late 1940's.

Caste problems are still rife, and there will always be deep-seated problems as long as that persists in the country.

Peter

Yes, in the greed for short-term profits, the West is busy cutting its own throat by de-industrializing itself and handing the instruments of industrial (miltary) power over to it's future 'competitors'.  Some people seem to believe a white skin is all you need to belong to the 1st World.  As if.  All through history the 'civilized' have been at the mercy of the more numerous and 'barbarous' - that is until technology gave the more developed nations an advantage.  Hand the technology over to more numerous and your goose is cooked.

And Oswald Spengler predicted it all.

You know many times more about these engines and their history than I ever will, but I can't help thinking that they seem to sell well in South Asia today.  With their capacity to run reliably and economically on vegetable oils I'd say they have a great future all over the world - just what Rudolph Diesel predicted his engines would run on one day.  I don't know what they're doing for injectors and pumps in India, but that shouldn't be insurmountable.

Honda seems to do alright selling small engines made in Japan, where labour costs are now much higher than the UK.

With respect Peter, I think Britain has very little to apologize for over Partition.  The UK was practically bankrupt trying to pay her war debts for WWI and WWII (food rationing lasted until 1949 did it not?) - unlike Germany for example which actually got more in US money before and after WWII than she ever paid in reparations after either war.  The US soaked the British for their gold, securities and US holdings in both wars and was eager to push the British out of India and the rest of the Empire for commercial reasons (Roosevelt made no secret of this).  The Labour government was agin the Empire philosophically and after all the BS they had to put with over Palestine were fed up with spilling their blood to keep people from slitting each other's throats in hot, dusty & distant places.  Frankly, most of the Empire would have been better off if it had stayed put and if the US was smart it would have subsidized the operation.  When the British and Canadian Army training teams were in Sierra Leone recently, almost the first words out of the Minister of Defence's mouth when he met the British brigadier, were "we want to be re-colonized, we want to rejoin the Empire."  Does anyone believe Kenya, or Uganda or Zimbabwe or the Sudan did better on their own?  Nothing but misery for the common people. 

« Last Edit: December 08, 2006, 12:55:36 AM by CD in BC »