At a guess, it's knackered it's big-end (and maybe little-end) bearings having run with no oil. In that respect, it's going to be exactly the same as the petrol engines you're used to. I'm not familiar with the PH1 (the only Petter I've ever owned was a PAZ1), but there should be some easy way to access the crank bearing. The little end will presumably require the barrel to be removed to extract the piston out of the top. You'll also want to check the rings & bore for excessive wear. So far, all the same.

The main difference with a diesel will be bleeding the fuel system after you've replaced the bearings: Any air bubbles in the system will stop it running.... But I'd recommend doing all the bearings first. I'm guessing that the "down on power" is due to excess friction due to buggered bearings. Assuming it didn't stop itself due to lack of oil, it's unlikely you've terminally damaged it, I suspect.

WRT ring gears: I added a flex plate from an old automatic engine to the generator head on my Lister CS setup. The PH has a smaller flywheel though, so I'd say drill & tap the flywheel to accept a flex plate (there should be a billion of them in any nearby scrap yard), then figure out a way to hold a 12v starter motor in the correct place. However.... that's based on not knowing how your dumper connects to the engine: If it's got a bell housing that covers the flywheel, then you might need to do something different... There may even be a kit for your specific dumper/engine setup?

I don't have an 8hp engine to verify, but I think the bottom castings are the same across all 3 power levels aren't they (3.5, 6, 8 )?  i.e. any bottom end would do you. I do know the crank shaft changed diameter at some point, IIRC from 2" to 2.5", or maybe that was the 3/3.5hp version that had the thinner crank shaft?

Someone may need to keep me honest here...

Hi all,
Hope someone can help and point me in the right dirrection for finding a the serial number of a Lister Engine that has a compressor attached.
Peter

Hi Peter,

We'll need to know a bit more about the engine to help you there... do you know what type it is? If not, then we'll need some photos, what fuel type, air or water cooled. I'm guessing from your username that it's probably in a boat... do you think it's original and, if so, roughly what age the boat is?

There's a decent selection of pictures of Lister engines on this link: https://www.realdiesels.co.uk/listeridentification.html  That might help you identify the type (although several types do look quite similar... which isn't helpful).

According to one seller (https://greenredspares.com/products/oil-filter-fits-lister-petter-aa1-ab1-ac1-ad1-engines) I found, any of the following:

AC Delco -
AC29

Alco -
MD.211, MD.211

Baldwin Filters -
P540

Coopers -
AZL043, AZL043

Crosland -
443

Donaldson -
P77.9048, P77.9048

Fleetguard -
LF561, LF561

Fram -
CH2841

GMC -
7984317

Greyfriars Filters -
660P, 660P

Lister Petter -
208378, 208378, 208378, 268378, 393203, AAK81.6, AAK816

Woodgate -
WGL567, WGL567

We've known for a long time that the EPA prohibits importation of small diesel engines such as Listeroids.

 I am now told that the ban extends to vintage engines. I am trying to finalize a sale of my 6/1 start-o-matic engine to a buyer in the U.S.
He was told by customs that importation even of vintage engines is prohibited.

Does anyone have current information about this?

What a pain!

Does your customer know if it includes vintage spare parts?

e.g. I know that the common Listeroid "workaround" was to sell them as "compressors" & then separately sell the bits to make them into a diesel engine again...

IMHO I wouldn't do that with a S-o-M - but if you split the engine & sent it as two separate (separate physically, and maybe a couple of weeks apart in time) consignments of "parts", maybe that would be a way to do it?

Lord Almighty....This is fundamentally easy.

Yeah, you say that.... but then when you find yourself peering into a 3"x2" (that's 75mm x 50mm for those who speak French) box with 14 black wires - all covered in something that is almost, but not quite exactly, like grease and are seemingly joined in mysterious and irresponsible ways, and wondering "Just what in hell does each wire do, and why are there FOURTEEN of them?!?!" Added complication, an original Lister generator head was often the starter motor too, so everything was doing dual duty. Even if my original Start-o-matic gen head hadn't been dropped on its head at some point (bending the shaft quite badly), it had burnt out windings too - starter windings, I think, unless the starter windings were also the excitation windings. I never got to the bottom of it, I put an ST head on & threw the old Lister unit away when I ran out of storage space.

Electronics, I can do. Mains, I can do. The theory of generators, I can do. In practice? Nah mate.

I have a vague handle on the theory, but have never had excite a generator in practice...

Basically, the "magnets" are actually electromagnets; and they need a certain amount of power to actually do anything. This is normally provided by a DC circuit. Now... I think (but I may be wrong - someone more knowledgeable please step in) that when the generator first starts, it needs "a bit" of residual magnetism (from last time it was run) in order to generate enough power to start to generate - some of that power is then bled off into the exciter circuit to build the output up. Hence self-exciting. Except if it's lost that residual magnetism, it can't start up.

The solution is to "flash" the field coils with some DC to rebuild the residual magnetism, at which point the generator should work again. Although you do probably want to figure out why it lost its residual magnetism in the first place (I'm guessing it wasn't because it sat for decades between uses). Can't help you at all with that...

tl;dr: Find out which are the field coils, and give them a burst of DC. Google may help you with the amounts, but I'm guessing 12v or 24v depending on the starter battery spec voltage.  Things may be complicated by the fact i'm guessing it's a combined starter/generator; if it has a separate automotive style starter, then ignore that, it'll just be a generator: Much of the gubbins in the S-o-M box will be for load detection and the motor start sequence (i.e. operate fuel/decompression solenoid, motor the generator to spin the engine up, wait for voltage to rise, switch to generator mode, watch for no load, de-operate fuel solenoid. All done with a few simple components and bimetallic strips - really rather clever.

Thanks for your input, should I be putting an additive in the diesel?

Again - I personally wouldn't bother - as long as your filter is good, modern day diesel with its various additives will be a lot kinder to the engine than 1950s diesel. You could always add some injector cleaner if you wanted, that couldn't do any harm.

I believe that one thing these engines do benefit from is an occasional de-coking. This can either be done by taking the heads off and mechanically cleaning up the pistons & valves; a slightly more "bush" way of doing it is to spray a fine mist of water into the intake whilst the engine is loaded up - the water flashing to steam will help break up any deposits and, with luck, blow them out of the exhaust. Some people even swear by water injection to boost power, but I think it's more to do with keeping the engine clean than anything else.