Horizontal Static Balancing Flywheels?

[Samo]

My Listeroid is a bit of a jumper, maybe not in Glort's jackhammer class, still it's useful for mixing paint, packing road base and testing earthquake sensors... So I've trawled the forums looking for ways to balance the stover style flywheels. They're the fully balanced type (in theory), where the counterweight is on the crankshaft.

A couple of weeks ago I removed both flywheels and took them down to the local Truck Tyre yard and asked if they could dynamically balance them. They were stoked to give it a go, however while they spun up ok, the lack of offset affected the balance mechanism and it didn't work. 

So now I'm thinking about static balancing, I've tried the vertical system that others have used with counter-weighted flywheels, but it doesn't seem to work for me for these balanced style flywheels. What I've not seen any reference to is the horizontal balancing system, like they used to use for static balancing of car wheels. Put the thing on the static horizontal balancing jig, the bubble indicates the balance, and add weight until the bubble is in the middle of the level gauge.

So in the garage today I played around with one of my spare flywheels. I tried sitting the center of the flywheel on a very hard plastic ball and it looks like this method is going to work. The wheel slowly dipped to the heaviest edge. Maybe a harder ball, like a shotput (they are cheap enough) would be better but even so the plastic Cricket ball isn't deforming much.  I only had a single plane level, not the round bubble type, but even so I was able to add weight until the flywheel sat level. I can't actually try this out on my Listeroid until I get back to Tasmania where it's stored, later in the year. So I can't actually put this to the test just yet.

So in the meantime feel free to point out the flaws in my thinking and if there's someone who can put this method to the test I'd be very interested in the results...

cheers,
Samo

[EdDee]

Samo...

The easiest way I have found (if you have the flywheels off) is to get about 10" of 2" round bar, 4 x 6202 bearings or similar, 4x bolts to fit the bearing inner, 8 nuts to suit, and lastly 2x 6" long 2"x2" bits of off cut angle iron.... Make 2x small holders for each set of 2 bearings so that the 2" shaft can roll freely on them, stick them on a couple of chairs with your flywheel proudly positioned between them on the 2"shaft and allow the heavy side of the flywheel to settle at the bottom.... Add weights (a magnet stuck on the rim to start with and then a few old washers stuck to the magnet to build up the weight as needed) .... Once you know how much to add, stick on a few wheel balancing weights to match what you have stuck on the magnet, re-balance and trim as needed... Dead easy... The only tools you will need are a spanner and a hand drill with a suitable bit...

As a bonus, you get left with a portable balancing jig that you can loan out to the members here!!

Cheers
Ed

[BruceM]

Horizontal balancing was first reported by Quinn, an early member here.  It worked fine for him.  But I would expect no difference between it and vertical static balance. I would not trust a ball to center accurately because of the keyway but it might work and the error will be in line with the keyway so of little concern since static balance is just the first step.  A piece of 2" shaft  riding on the edge of some shimmed to level  angle iron screwed to wood supports worked fine for me and is quite sensitive enough.

If after balancing the wheels, you still have vertical movement, it is an indication that your crankshaft counterbalance is grossly inadequate, and you will have to add counterbalance weight to the flywheels.  Start with 4 oz per flywheel if the movement is significant.  Keep going until the vertical movement stops and/or you see too much fore/aft movement, which indicates too much counterbalance. 

Some movement helps the fine tuning- so putting your base on some carpet scraps or rubber matting will be helpful.
There is no such thing as a "bad" Listeroid regarding balance, there is just an engine that needs competent attention.

[38ac]

Yup, just as Bruce and Ed have reported to settle down your internally balanced engine is a two step process. First get the 'wheels balanced buy which ever method is easiest for you, horizontal or vertical. Then remount them and add off set weight to correct what the inside weight isn't getting done. I would only add that if you want it as smooth as it can be made it is imparative that you locate TDC and mark the wheels so so are adding weight directly in line with or opposite the crank throw. This simple step will save you a LOT of chasing your tail when balancing by the add weight and see what happens methods that most of us use.

[BruceM]

Good point, 38ac, thanks. I really appreciated using your balancing method on my neighbor's 8/1. A big time saver.

We did ultimately figure out why all of a sudden it needed more counterbalance; we had gorilla glued the wood base to the floor, and one side near the engine cracked loose but we didn't see it.  So it always needed a more counterbalance, but the wood on concrete base was so firm it didn't show.  We have it bolted to the slab now, but left the counterweight as it was. So as in the old Mr. X method wheel chalking method, a soft base which allows some movement helps let you visually see the optimum counterweight for your desired operating rpm. Rubber or carpet scraps under a temporary wood pallet comes to mind.

[Samo]

Thanks for all the advice on this. Think I'll go down the 2 step path when I'm next in front of the engine. Last time I tried incrementally adding weight opposite TDC (mine is marked), but that didn't do it. I definitely need to balance these first.... I get more than enough up/down movement on the trolly (it will bounce the whole show if I'm not careful), and that should come in handy for the 2nd stage.

cheers,
Samo

[vdubnut62]

Because you can Glort.
Ron

[AdeV]

Not being the sharpest tool in the shed, the more I read about this balance thing the more confused I get. Already Given it a go and it didn't work out for me although I think I may have overdone it with the weights last time. It was following the " Hit and miss method".
And I missed. Badly.

You almost certainly already know this, so apologies if this is one of those "suck eggs" posts.... but as you're probably aware, there's 2 ways to balance a Lister(oid): The way Lister chose (plain crankshaft, balance on the flywheels), and the way many 'roids went (balanced crank, plain flywheels). The problem with that second approach, particularly with the 6/1 clone with its cast iron piston... you can't physically get enough balancing weight into the crankshaft before you start hitting the crank case with the balance weights.... So the Indians got as close as they could & washed their hands of the whole affair...

So... step 1, open up your crank case door & determine what type of balance you have... Step 2, if your crank is "balanced", then you'll only need very small amounts of weight on the flywheels to balance your machine. If you have a plain crank, then you should be investigating trying to get hold of a set of genuine Lister flywheels if you can... or, alternatively, add more weight.

I'm sure I read somewhere about someone using water to balance their engine? Unless I imagined it in a particularly vivid dream.... basically, a piece of hosepipe attached around the inner rim of the flywheel, with a load of water in it, apparently the water "magically" (?) goes to the right place to balance everything out, with the smoothest running achieved when the correct weight of water is present. Like I said, I might have dreamed that one.

I dream to have an engine like those ones I see in the movies, the Youtube Movies where they sit on the floor or on a trolley that's not bolted to the floor or lashed to blocks of concrete and just sits there like the proverbial Grandfather clock.  Actually,  I'd be pretty happy if it sat there and didn't break the 1/2" Coach bolts holding it down as it has done before....several Times.

As much as I hate to brag (cough, ahem, cough), mine does that. OK, it's bolted to around 50kg of cast iron base, but that just sits on a pair of 2x2 timbers. It does move around a little bit, the last place I had it running I had to put a piece of 2x2 between the front edge of the cast base & the wall, otherwise the engine would "stroll" into the wall when running... I think that's because the ground sloped slightly, so every time the engine gave a little hop, it also moved wall-wards. You wouldn't know it was hopping though, to look at it, and I reckon a set of 4x M6 bolts would be enough to hold it in place...

Now remind me why I am mucking around with these Lister type things???

Like Ron said - because you CAN...

I've got a bitching tax bill coming up in about 4 weeks, and my bank balance says I'm going to be about £500 short... so I was looking at my options, one of which is to sell the Start-o-Matic and the JP4.... but the more I thought about it, the more I thought I'd rather tell the Government to go screw itself than give up my Listers

Hmm. Hopefully my next post doesn't come to you from the local tax dodger's jail...

[AdeV]

Well, I'm glad the information proved useful

I'm pretty sure Lister suggested a humongous block of concrete as a base for the CS engines - I don't think the size varied based on engine HP either, so one assumes it was good for the 8/1, overkill for the 6/1 and total overkill for the 3/1... The purpose of the cast iron (and later fabricated steel) bases was simply to keep engine & alternator in the correct relationship with each other. However, as I say, mine just rested on a pair of 2x2 timbers (not bolted to them, nor were the timbers bolted to the floor. Sure, eventually it might fall off them, if left to its own devices... I never ran the engine long enough for that to happen (max of 1hr runs, I could easily get my coolant tank - an insulated domestic copper hot water tank - up to 50c in that time). In truth I haven't done much Listerish for the last couple of years - lack of time, motivation and now location... But now I fancy a play with it again (typical!), back in the UK in just over a week, so I'll start making some space in the shop for a dicker around with it...

Would this be Chinese or jail back home?  :0)

Welll...... as far as I know, there's no extradition treaty between China and the UK... I should be able to get a residency visa for China easily enough..... so if the UK start getting a bit frisky, I'll transfer the house into the old man's name, and get my arse back over here ASAP

I feel your pain with the stamp duty, we have the same nonsense here (UK), although ours isn't quite as vicious as yours by the sounds of it.

I think there is a buck for you to be made in distribution of China engines Ade.  Might have to pull the injection pump, tank and injector and call them compressors for the US market but plenty of other places in the world you could sell them as well.

I'm planning to do a bit of research in the UK to see if there's much demand for them. If there seems to be, then I'll definitely look at bringing a 20ft container load across (I think I can fit 100 units in, call it 80 plus a few boxes of spares), thats all 12hp, I guess there may be call for a few different sizes, I think the water cooled singles are available in anything from 5hp to about 30hp.

I'm watching what Trump does/doesn't do with/to the EPA with some interest... but TBH that's probably better handled by someone Stateside. I suspect the demand is greater over there too... and (EPA aside) the rules are less draconian than here in the EUSSR (as it's unkindly called by some). One of the things I'll have to do, certainly if I want to sell them across the EU, is get CE certification. The factory tell me this will cost around US$1200, whether that's actual usable documentation, or just a phoney certificate they download off the 'net, tweak to have their name on, and hand over... well, I don't know.

Finding myself in need of a ride on mower now, I'd love to find a suitable Vertical shaft Diesel that I could use as a replacement motor for a ride on.
Something 20 HP and up would be fine as a lot of the mowers run twin Cyl 23-27 HP petrol's now.  There would be a good market for those in OZ alone I reckon and if you could find a 5HP that went on a push mower in a Briggs/ Honda pattern.....  I'll take the first container load.

I haven't found any vertical shaft water-cooled diesels at all... Do the petrol engines run with a vertical shaft? Or do they have a right-angle gearbox? I'd be more tempted to run with that; or maybe a twisted belt drive?

The only other option would be to fabricate a dry sump and run the engine on its side. Actually, I can't see any real problem with that, except the flywheel would have an interesting gyrosope effect... you might only be able to mow your lawn clockwise!

I'd also suggest you found a Chinese Foundary to make Roid flywheels but I seem to recall that there is no standard setup on those either so you'd not know what weight to set them up in the first place.  Maybe include a set of stick on wheel weights with each pair?  :0)

Hmm, I don't think I'm going there...! There's not much (if any) of a 'roid market in the UK (too many originals), and none in China (they've got the horizontals that we also crave after)... Nah, I'll leave that to someone Stateside