Thank you for the compliments guys. Its good inspiration to keep at it.
Nice work all round. Might be slow - nothing wrong with that and your restoration looks a treat.
I must always add that I also restored my house at the same time. At times months literally passed that I couldn't touch the engine - frustrating times...
Geez that's a nice looking setup!
I think some of us go too far with the restos. Time they are finished they are far too nice to be actually put to work. Only fit to be taken out of the Lounge room and given a run while guests sit round and watch and listen to them before being put back inside with the rest of the fine Furnishings.
Can't see my old roid ever being like that but maybe one day I'll be able to buy one that's worthy of art status.
How far to go with a restoration? I always ask myself that question and my answer is always "not far enough"... the better you finish it, the more little imperfections start standing out. I've stood back many a times thinking "one day I'll strip it down again and do it properly"
The two schools of thinking are to either to
- get it to as close as possible to factory finish, or
- get is as perfect as possible.
Depending on what it is, I could agree with both. Some things look nice with a "rough finish" showing what it would have looked like back in the day, and others look better all polished up. My Fairbanks ZC-208 is in it's "working clothes" and it looks great, but that look, in my oppinion, would not suit the Lister... or would it?? At the end of the day it doesn't really matter - they all look awesome!
I agree that all the little imperfections gives each engine it's own unique character - with a shiny finish the character is lost and one engine then looks like the next. That said - nobody designs anything not to be finished off properly - the end result is mostly a costing decision to balance appearance and function. Had Lister spend two more days per engine to fettle and paint each engine to perfection, it would have added no value to the function, and it would be so expensive they would probably not have sold a single engine! I am a planner in the engineering industry so I experience this every day in practice. I wonder what my Lister is worth if I put a hourly rate on my work done
For me this engine is a showpiece - that can actually be put to work if need be, but 99% of the rest of it's life it will be a toy. To compare this to what most of you off-grid guys are doing is not fair.
I hinted to my wife tha I want to pull the trolley into the lounge but she laughed like I was making a joke. I suspect a big misunderstanding is on it's way
Can't see my old roid ever being like that but maybe one day I'll be able to buy one that's worthy of art status.
I reckon that's the trick glort - have 2 engines, one in working clothes, the other a prom queen...
Dieselsmoker - that's a fine looking rig! I don't think you can call it a restoration any more, there's no way even a genuine Lister came out of the factory looking that good! Is that an intake silencer I see? How much of a difference does it make to the running noise? I have an Indian oil bath filter on mine, if it cuts a decent amount of noise out, I'd quite like to make a silencer like yours.
Cheers!
Ade.
Yup - they never looked like this
I like the way you think - great excuse to get another engine. One to work, one to show.
No it's not a silencer, but it does silence! To be frank - zero intake sound. There was a short discussion and a couple of pictures about this a few pages back:
http://listerengine.com/smf/index.php?topic=7426.120 This is a "Donaldson" cyclone aircleaner with pre-cleaner. You would find this type of aircleaner on most tractors and other equipment that operate in dusty conditions. The air is first sucked through a set of angled veins to centrifugally remove heavy particles and dump them in the transparrent bowl. Hence the reference to "cyclone". The air then enters the big cannister where it yet again gets spun through a cyclone. Heavy particles are thrown to the outside and falls down all the way to the bottom into a removable bowl. Air passes through a primary dry paper element, and then trough a secondary dry paper element with finer filtration. The super clean air is then ready to be messed up again by combustion
. These filters offer massive fitration capacity and effieciency. Maintenance is to periodically clean the two bowls and once in a blue moon one could clean off the dust on the outside of the paper element. Replacing the paper elements of course depends on where it was operated, but in most cases they would last many many years due to the effecient pre-cleaning. On this Lister they would never need replacing.