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Topics - George A

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Listeroid Engines / Where is 38c's flywheel balancing thread?
« on: February 18, 2020, 02:49:04 AM »
First of all, the engine I will be playing with is not a Listeroid...........it's a 6 hp McCormick Deering horizontal gas engine. I bought it years ago from another collector who replaced a damaged flywheel with an identical flywheel from another engine. I've never run it, but he told me it was a "jumper". He'd tried placing stick on lead weights on the new flywheel without success, but I don't think he actually tried to match them. I have yet to fire it up and see what happens.....there might not actually be a problem, but I need to have a plan in place if there is.

My first thought was to build a balancing stand and place the original flywheel on it and see exactly where the heavy spot was. That flywheel would get marked at the heaviest point, removed and the "new" flywheel tested for the heaviest point......then try to get both wheels matched, either with added weights or drilling material from edge of the rim until balanced. This would (should) get both flywheels at least close to each other, then remount and run the engine.

So, with all these thoughts in mind I started to search for 38c's post on Listeroid balancing, but can't seem to find it! Could someone please point me in the right direction? :)

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Listeroid Engines / Vidhata injector overflow...........
« on: October 18, 2019, 12:34:23 PM »
I know the term "overflow" is probably incorrect, but it's 4:30 a.m. and I haven't had my first cup of coffee yet...

This is the little tube that drains any surplus fuel from the injector. On the original British CS/6 engines, I believe a small cup was placed under the end to collect fuel that leaked from the injector. On my Vidhata, the line was simply plumbed into the fuel line from the tank. I replaced the tank with a better one and just left the line hanging loose.

The engine has about 20 hrs. total on it since new and runs fine, but I haven't seen one drop of fuel come out of that line. Is this normal, or should I be looking for a potential problem?

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Listeroid Engines / No hurricane Irma input?
« on: September 09, 2017, 12:54:34 PM »
I've been checking over the last few days and was surprised to NOT see any members reporting from Florida. If there's one place a reliable diesel generator would stand out, it would be in hurricane country.

Have we lost members from that area?

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Listeroid Engines / Another successful power outage performance.....
« on: August 03, 2017, 07:40:06 PM »
It's hot..........bloody hot up here in northern California, plus we have massive wildfires burning all around our little city. At 2:45 yesterday the power went kaput and took our evaporative cooler down with it. I called the power company and their estimate was 6:00 pm before restoration, and our house was beginning to get a "little" warm.

I rolled the Listeroid out of its storage hole in the garage, checked various fluids, oiled a couple of things, then cranked it over. It started on the first compression stroke and settled down to its normal working speed. I plugged in the cord, moved the cutout in the breaker box and everything came back to life.

I was later informed that there were 2400 households without power. The only places still operating were the local hospital, city hall..........and George :).

When the wife got home at 4:00 pm, she walked into a nicely cooled house with the news on the the t.v. I plugged my Kilawatt into an outlet and got a reading of 105 volts, so I shut off the cooler and the voltage jumped up to 117. Hmmm.

A couple of things I noticed and will attend to: the generator body got hot to the touch after about an hour. This was a combination of the ambient air temperature (over 100 degrees) and very poor ventilation. I removed the entire rear shroud during the run and that let a LOT of heat out. I'll perforate that shroud with vent holes before I reinstall it. This generator is military surplus and only 2500 watts, enough to operate the refrigerator, lights and t.v. I also checked the tag on the cooler motor and that bugger pulls 7.4 amps on high speed! Combined with the t.v., fridge and the air temperature, no wonder it got hot! I'll start looking for a 5000 watt unit.

I also noticed that my intake tappet isn't rotating. I can give it a spin while running and it'll rotate perhaps a half turn, then stop so it looks like I'd better pull it and check the cam surface. Probably not finished all that well.

All in all, a successful 4.5 hour run with no major problems and a couple of minor flaws detected. I really LIKE my engine!

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Listeroid Engines / New forum format
« on: May 18, 2017, 06:45:37 PM »
I hadn't been on here for awhile (other demands in life) and found a completely revised forum when I looked. Nice! I also found that I forgot my username and password. After much soul searching I finally figured it out and also changed my email address to the current one (dumped my previous provider and their email).

Looking forward to a nice summer, playing around with various engines including my 'roid. Good to be back and smelling diesel again.  ;D

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April Fools!

Okay, so I'm a jerk........

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Just read this morning that most of western Australia is in the dark due to a storm taking down a transmission tower. Evidently this tripped various protection devices in the system until everything was down, something like 1.6 million people in the dark.

I wonder how many SOM's are still out there, ready to do their job?

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Listeroid Engines / A quick word about Fastenal shipping........
« on: February 04, 2016, 02:14:10 AM »
I've been a proponent of Fastenal and their shipping ever since I had two generators..........totaling over 600 lbs...........shipped from North Carolina to Oregon for only $125. This was a double size crated pallet, so not a small shipment. Now, I admit that I had the help of a guy who got me a decent rate, so when I purchased four small 32 volt motors recently I expected to pay "normal" rates. The wooden box was 24" x 24" x 12" and the weight estimated at less than 80 lbs. In other words, a box that any healthy man should be able to pick up and walk away with.

The quote came in at $150 and shipped to California, not Oregon as I had requested (the Oregon store is closer to me). I called the Fastenal shipping center and got a very pleasant (and probably cute) young lady with either an Australian or New Zealand accent. She went over the details and we discovered that she didn't know that the abbreviation for Minnesota was MN. She put MT in the quote, which is for Montana, instead of MN for Minnesota. Well, that must be problem, right? Not quite.

After inserting the new information the quote was the same so I asked that she question her supervisor. She ventured that it was probably because the cost of fuel was so high. I told her NEVER tell a customer that, as most people are aware that the price of gas and diesel is going down. They'll think you're a liar. Anyway, no soap and the quote still stands so I'm going to cancel the shipping request tomorrow.

I contacted the seller and he agreed to send the motors, one or two at a time, via USPS flat rate boxes instead over the next couple of months. This should be at least half the Fastenal quote. Hey, I'm retired so time I've got.

Please understand that I'm not whining.......really.........I was just shocked at the disparity in prices. There are a couple of members here with nice little diesel engines up for sale and I'd like to get one, but not if the shipping will cost as much as the engine!

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General Discussion / PM's........I just noticed something!
« on: January 26, 2016, 07:33:30 PM »
Almost a year ago I sent a PM to one of the members about a buying Petteroid.....no response. I gave up, thinking perhaps he was busy or didn't see the message for some reason. I just sent another PM to another member, waited about an hour and checked my "sent" folder for the first time since joining the website. Nothing showed! In other words, I think maybe my messages never left the board in the first place and that's why there was no response. Honestly, it never occurred to me that I should check before.

I usually click on the member and bring up their info, then click on "send PM", type out my message and hit "send". Pretty straightforward really......did I miss something?

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Listeroid Engines / Voltage control and "Lister flicker"
« on: January 25, 2016, 01:39:53 PM »
I know I should probably do a search on this first, but I wanted to get some quick opinons/information...

I have a "vintage" 2500 watt Root and Kurtz brush generator belted to my Vidhata and so far I'm fairly happy with it. When test running it though I noticed "Lister flicker" due to the engine power pulses as described here several times. It seems to be mostly in ordinary incandescent bulbs more than CFL's or LED lights. Had I known about the phenomenon when I ordered my engine years ago, I would have specified the heavier flywheels......but no, I liked the "antique" look of the spoked wheels  ::).

Would a more modern generator with voltage control, such as a 3 KW ST unit, reduce this? Even a little bit?

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Listeroid Engines / Rant............
« on: January 23, 2016, 10:54:20 PM »
So it's a rainy, overcast day up here in northern California. Got enough firewood. Got enough food. All of my projects are on hold waiting for parts, so I'm just sitting around watching the news about the monstrous snow storm that's shutting down the entire eastern portion of the country. Power outages reported in sections of almost every state affected.

Meanwhile, my listeroid generator and newly installed power panel switch sits idle as our commercial power keeps humming along with no interuptions. I look at the t.v. news again and think to myself, "Some people have all the luck......."

Sigh..........

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Listeroid Engines / First successful test......
« on: November 10, 2015, 06:31:13 PM »
I just shut down my Vidhata after the first test of my standby power system and gentlemen, I'm pleased to say the least.

I described my setup in a previous post, but basically it consists of a breaker lockout in my main panel with five selected circuits. Those circuits are lights, a few plugs, my fridge, freezer and furnace. Not much of a load but that's because my generator is only 2500 watts. A 20 amp cord is plugged into the generator and then into a designated outlet in the garage, which takes the power to the main panel. After that it's just a matter of shutting all the circuits off except the designated ones and flipping on the generator breaker.

It's cold here today (18*), with an ice fog.......perfect for a test of a "worst case scenario". I decided on a squirt of ether but found that to be a questionable idea. First of all, I don't like using the stuff as it's hard on engines. Second, my Listeroid actually "kicked back" a bit.......not enough to hurt me, but enough to let me know that ether will be a last resort.

The engine fired up easily and smoked like mad at first (cold). I gave it only a couple of minutes of running before I shut off my main breaker and engaged the generator breaker(s). I went back in my house and found all of my ceiling lights operating normally, with the exception of the back bedrooms.......flicker. This is because we've replaced the others with either LED's or CFL's and those do not flicker. If anything they seem a little brighter (governor is set to put out 125 volts). All of the designated plugs work. My fridge is working along with the propane furnace and since the freezer in the garage is on the same plug as the furnace I can only assume it works also. The total load with everything on.....only 5 amps! I don't know if the fridge or freezer kicked on or not, but there's plenty of "amps" left for them.

In short, everything works as planned thanks to a lot of forethought and good advice from folks here on the forum. Now, all I need is another power outage at an opportune time so I can "show off" a bit..........and fight off the neighbors.

Think I'll kick back with a cup of coffee now and celebrate. Just a little.  ;D

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Listeroid Engines / I am VINDICATED !!!!
« on: September 04, 2015, 03:59:15 PM »
Forgive a somewhat "windy" post........but this is too good to not share.

My wife is a wonder among women....intelligent, caring, the center of my universe. It took me three tries to find her, but the wait was worth it. Up until this point I had collected various antique stationary engines (gasoline) and she tolerated that with a simple rolling of her eyes and a "I don't get it" attitude. When I began fussing over my Vidhata, mounting generators, etc.....the attitude got a little more challenging.

"Our power has never gone out for more than an hour. You spend way too much time on that thing......we'll never need it." "It's noisy."  "It smells." etc. etc.

Well, last night at 6:30 pm while our kids and grandchildren were visiting for dinner....poof! T.V. quit. Lights went out. No one said anything except "Oh, great. No cartoons for the kids". I waited. Patiently. After an hour or so, I calmly asked her to back her car out of the garage so I could roll "that thing" from its storage position into the center of the garage. I quietly cranked up the beast, made note of the voltage and began stringing extension cords into the house (still waiting for my circuit breaker lock out kit). Since it was getting dark, I plugged in two lamps and my coffee maker....ignoring the refrigerator for awhile, as I was sure the juice would be back on soon. I turned to my daughter in law, the only other coffee drinker, and asked in a loud gloating tone......."May I offer you a cup of DIESEL coffee? Brewed by the standby generator that SOMEONE had the foresight to build?"

My wife ignored this and kept setting the table, placing the still warm food and inviting everyone to sit down. After a couple of minutes, I rose and got the coffee, placed it in front of the daughter in law and asked "Does everyone have enough light? Would you like me to turn on.....oh, I don't know...four or five MORE lamps?" My wife just sat there, quietly eating.

After dinner, she asked if the grandkids would like to bathe before going home (they live quite a distance away) so they could go right to bed after getting there. "Oh!" I said, in a smirking tone....."Let me plug in our tankless water heater!" I walked to the door, looked outside and said "Oh, look. No one else in the neighborhood has lights! Thanks to some resident electrical genius, WE DO!"

By this time my stepson was laughing his head off as he realizes that, like revenge, gloating is a dish best served cold. They finally packed up and headed home before my wife finally said something. "Do you think you should shut that off now? It's almost nine o'clock and people do have to go to work tomorrow....." I agreed, even though I had not plugged in our refrigerator since the initial outage.

I had called the power company and their estimation was 9:30 for power back on. By 11:30 we realized this wasn't the case and the power did not come back on until 4:00 am this morning. It looks like our fridge held the cold alright so we didn't lose any food.

So, finally, the closing quote. I asked my wife if she now saw the reason for "being prepared" (yes, I was a Boy Scout). Her only comment?

"It needs a better muffler........." :)

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I've moved my Vidhata back to its original spot in my garage, on a good concrete floor. Having watched it run and read a bit more about balancing, I think it would benefit from at least checking the balance and maybe see if I can get it to run smoother. It's not bad now, mind you, but I think it can do better (38ac's videos make me jealous!).

I'd like to try carefully weighed bits of modeling clay but need a process to follow. I've used the search phrase "Mr. X" and "balance" as suggested, but all I can find are references to the process and not the process itself. Can someone give me a link to the correct post or point me in the right direction? Thank you in advance!

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Listeroid Engines / Resilient mounts.........bouncy bouncy!
« on: August 22, 2015, 06:53:14 PM »
I successfully moved my 6/1 generator to the shop yesterday with aid of "Gerty", my ancient and wheezing fork lift. I rolled it into its final position and used my home made jacking gear to raise it slightly, remove the casters and then lower it into its resting place. Before lowering however, I placed two wide strips of horse trailer matting (3/4" recycled tire material) under each runner. I double checked all of my measurements to make sure it was square to the walls, then spun 'er up.

Now, when mounted on the casters and on a concrete floor it had behaved itself very well, so what happened next really surprised me.

With the first firing impulses, my ordinarily calm Listeroid began moving so I shut it down. The entire assembly.......engine, generator, radiator and control box (probably close to 1000 lbs).......had moved almost 2" with the first few strokes of that big piston! Once it settled down to its normal rpm's it decided to stay put, but it sure wasn't what I had in mind.

So, I'll jack it up again and put some pipe rollers under it to move it back to position. Then those horse mat strips are COMING OUT. I'll start it again and see if it still has any "wanderlust", but I have a feeling I should lag screw it to the floor (heavy planks) to keep it in one place.

Moral of the story? The only way to find out if something is going to work is to try it.........but have a backup plan.  ;D

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