Hello all you wonderful Lister gurus!

Regarding my 1976 Lister ST3/Kohler 12Kw enclosed trailer-mount gen unit.
Our local PoCo was out replacing a pole yesterday so I fired up the ol' genny and ran the house during the work.
Started fine, ran smooth, never even winked at the load, so I went about doing my thing. After about 2-2.5 hrs, it shut down! Overheat switch closed and opened the safety relay. Engine was REALLY hot! This morning, I checked the oil and found it to be WAAAAYYY overfilled and diluted with fuel. When it failed, it was a cool day and the load on the system was very light.

Not sure where to begin diagnosing, is there anything I should be looking at? I suspect possibly the mechanical fuel pump may be a source of the dilution, and I hope I didn't smoke the cylinders with the poor lube!! Tried starting it after a couple hours of cool down, but it wouldn't crank, tried to, moved some. This model uses the gen as the starter, it tripped the Klixon overload protector!

Thanks in advance, as I know there will be lot's of good advice coming my way, y'all ROCK out there!!

Hello folks! Merry Christmas to all!!

I have a question on my new Kohler 12RMO gen head. As received, it has a bonded neutral, so it would be appropriate to wire as a "Separately Derived System", meaning that the Neutral would need to be bonded at the generator AND the generator would require its own Equipment Grounding Electrode system. This is a les than ideal option for me.

This gen head is of the "Start-o-Matic family in that the gen head has the dynamo/starter windings included inside. Can/should those windings still be bonded to the case if I float the 120/240 neutral?

Has anyone out there un-bonded the neutral on their gen? If the Neutral is floating the system is now "Back-up power system and relies on the EGC system of the house/main panel. This would be more acceptable for my needs.

Thanks in advance!!

Hey there, did you ever get this scanned?

I think it may be useful for my new/old toy TOOL!

Well, thanks in part to all the input I received here, and my penchant of old smokey things, on Wednesday, this thing followed me home!

I was impressed by how smooth and quiet it runs, and there is hardly ANY smoke from the pipe!! Compared to my Clarke backhoe with the Jimmy 3-53, this thing is putting out fresh air!! 

Now I need to get my hands on any manuals, or other useful data on the engine and gen head - it's an interesting little unit, with some mods installed right from the start. Some of those are: a "built-in" load bank, which is a Q-Mark industrial electric heater, rated at 10000 watts, an electric priming pump inline before the mechanical one with a momentary switch installed, , and a Square-D 40A disconnect breaker just for safety! 
Here are better pics of the ID plates:


And here is the Gen plate


And here is my favorite! This breaker makes me feel SO safe!! 
Yes, those are copper lugs, crimped down to fit into the plug-on leaves of the breaker - WOW!!


A little work ahead for me, but all-in all I think it's a good find!!

So it appears I have found the right group for solid information. I have not yet committed to buying this, but I do want to get a reliable genny for my home - being that I live in California, where utility power is provided at the whim of those who may have graduated with a C-.
The seller is asking north of $3K (USD) for this, and I think it is still a solid piece of equipment for that price, though it may raise some eyebrows of those who don't like certain kinds of smoke...

SOOOOOO, what say you about the price-point for this? Too much? Low enough to cause suspicion?

Also, this baby has a... well... baby muffler on it. That won't go over well with the WAF equation! Any suggestions for a good quiet muffler that wont destroy this en-"gem"?

Thanks again, love interacting with a good forum, y'all are awesome!!

KM

Start-o-Matic, eh?  Is that anything like the Nashville Tune-o-Matic bridge found on some Gibson Electric Guitars?   
The interesting thing about your input here is that I don't see a starter on this engine as I would expect to find. I see the battery cables go into the junction/control box on top of the gen head. Does this use the gen as a motor to start the engine?