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Topics - nickcirrus

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Engines / Lister SRM oil leak in way of cooling air.
« on: July 20, 2013, 05:20:55 PM »
Hi there It's me the one with the Lister SRM3 which I have in my sail boat and I was sold the wrong sized pistons last year. 
The latest update is the engine is working well though I have had some overheating due to the louvres in the cooling air outlet of the engine box. I have since removed them and so far the engine has not overheated again.  However I have some oil spatter coming out with the cooling air, ( makes a bit of a mess on the Teak flooring). Thought at first it was coming down the head fixing studs that also hold down the rockers, so I resealed the thin gasket beneath each rocker assembly. Thought the leak was solved but no such luck!  Am running out of ideas. There seems to be small drops of oil collecting on the top of the cooling fins and this is being picked up as the cooling air exits. Could I have got the gasket and shims the wrong way round? Though I can not see how oil could come out of the top of the cylinders. Could I have a cracked cylinder/cylinders or head/heads. Has anyone out there experienced this problem and worked out why.

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Engines / Update on SRM3 not starting
« on: July 31, 2012, 01:05:50 PM »
Hi all, a result at last. Sent "mr realdiesels" photos of pistons all covered in sludge and a photo of a ring inside a cylinder with a 90 thou gap! He initially said they were not the pistons he sold me! That was cheeky! Packed em up in the post and had a reply that acknowledged that he had got the wrong spec on the pistons and cylinders!

He said that he would re supply me with new stuff.  However he went on to  suggest that I was incompetent and inferred that I did not really know what I was doing and that my engine was on its last legs. Hmmm. I replied that I may not be a professional engineer but I do know what I am doing and the only difference between myself and a time served engineer is that they would have checked the ring gaps before assembly, or in his, case before sending them to me!!!!

I replied that if I was a nasty person I would take him to court for wasting my time and ruining my engine, since it is in a worse state than before and I now have to clean it out thoroughly, and start again. I also added that in the interests of going some way to alleviating the fact that I have not been able to use my boat for nearly 8 months he might consider coming down and doing it for me!
Sadly his reply was disappointing but as a gesture goodwill he will supply me with a free set of gaskets! Worth 70 quid!

Guess that is a result of sorts. Not sure I will go shopping there again!

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Engines / piston rings on my SRM3.
« on: July 10, 2012, 07:39:51 PM »
 ???  Well well well, Removed heads and cylinders and popped off a ring from each piston and inserted into cylinders.  The gap is big enough to drive a bus through!!!!  Best part of an 1/8"   Indian quality control!!!!

Pistons smeared all over with black carbon and much sludge on the con rods.  All that cranking has just pushed the fuel oil past the pistons and into crank case. No wonder It would not fire.

So I have spent countless hours looking for a problem elsewhere when all the time it was the new parts that are wrong. Going to check the bore diameters and piston skirt/cylinder  clearance tomorrow with my engineer friend.

Seems I have learnt a salutary lesson.  Just because parts are new and come in a box does not mean they are the right spec! Next time I will check the ring gaps first not last.

Hope mr "realdiesels" will re supply at no cost.

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Engines / Help. Lister SR3M not starting.
« on: June 21, 2012, 11:49:18 AM »
Hi everyone. Am new to this forum but not so new to lister engines.  I have run a lister SR3 on  my boat for 15 years and striped it down several times. Last year I bust the connecting rod on no 3 cyl. Thought I would do a recon and replaced all 3 pistons with aftermarket ones .002 oversize, that come from India along with 3 new con rods and big end bearings. As the cylinders were a bit short of cooling fins I also bought 3x 2nd hand re bored cylinders. All fitted and reassembled with reconditioned injectors. Spent nigh on a week trying to start her but barely a pop! By the end of the week I had had enough. Stripped her down again and double checked, noticing the throttle link arm had slipped off its cam just before the fuel rack. Also checked the timing marks on the gear trains and reset the fuel pump marks on the rack. Still no start. Decided to have a go at timing the fuel pumps. Hmm, when I set no 1 piston to TDC I was finding the no 3 mark came up on the flywheel! Removed gear train cover wondering if one of the gear train keys had sheared and the gear slipped. Removed the crankshaft gear, but that was ok. The camshaft gear key way seemed fine as it lined up with the keyway on the camshaft extension. Rechecked timing marks and none correspond to the piston positions! Could it be that the flywheel is from another engine and was never remarked? Or could the flywheel have sheared its key and slipped on the crank shaft? Perhaps the sudden stoppage under load when the con rod broke caused this. In any case that should not stop it from starting unless the flywheel is spinning free which it is not. So my friends why will it not start? I know the piston rings have not fully bedded in yet. I tried fan heater, hot air gun and flame in the intake but no joy. The suggestion is that something else may have happened as a result of the con rod failure. But there is nothing else that I can think off. As I found the timing difficult to do I removed a shim from each fuel pump to see if advancing the timing helped. no luck there either! So where do I go from here?????

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