Ronmar, there is (1) valve in the system, on the outlet side of the thermosiphon. It's about 25 feet or so away from my Lister, above the machine, and it was closed.
Now, that being the case, I am also wondering if what you said was exactly right; that there was water in the line PAST the thermostat, and what was happening was that teh engine got wwarm enough, tstat opened, HOT water flowed out past the cold water sitting in the line, and eventually the water left in the line mixed with the water in the jacket, and somehow also mixed with the water coming from the inlet, which is always opened.
Hmmm....I bet you're right, because literally, there's not a thing wrong with how that engine runs.
I took the heat from the valve springs, I don't have a cover for them, so they're open, and I can shoot them. The top of the head meausred 275+-, so I thought that teh 300 or so was about right. Normally, the head is around 190-200, so that was hot, at least to me.

I do have a themostat connected to the upper hole with no bleed hole, it does gulp; I'd like to fix this. Tom, where do I drill a hole, please?

And Bruce, how'd you hook up a failsafe on your Lister? As Schultz said..."verrry inttterrrestink".
 

Combustor, it's thermosiphon, and unless you turn off a valve, it will circulate water through the engine, cooling the water (which is heating water for my house) all day long.

OK, so I come home tonight, busy on the phone, see the batts need charging, start my TRUSTY DEPENDABLE Lister.
Working upstairs, I can hear it running, but something isn't exactly right; (again I'm on the phone...) and then....
It stops running.
UH OH.
I hang up the phone, go RUNNING down the stairs, mind going 400+ MPH, and figure out BEFORE I get there that no; I did not turn on the valve that feeds the engine COOLING WATER.
Yes, I am stupid. 100%, plus.
 I turn on the water, (thermosiphon) and hear it come BLASTING through the lines, starting to cool down this head that's HOT.
Using my temp gun, read 300+ degrees at the top of the head. BAD......
I tepidly grab the flywheel, and try to turn it, KNOWING that it must have seized.
It turned. Oh my God.

I started it, and watched it start. Watched the temps go down to normal.
The engine runs exactly as it did before my idiocy.
OK, so I am a moron. I agree with myself.
Now, WHY did this engine stop instead of either running away or destroying SOMETHING inside?  

Hey I have a question for you guys....
My head gasket is leaking pretty good, I gotta replace it. That being said, I seriously doubt if I'm going to find anyone that can sell me a GM-90 16/1 head gasket, especially now that Montieth is unavailable.
 I looked at teh original head gasket that was on it, when I got it, (it's in pretty bad shape). That one is copper, has a ring around the cylinder & is pretty beefy. The one I have on it now is just some kind of gasket material.
Now, I can take the one I have to a gasket manufacturer, and I'm SURE for some ungodly obscene amount of money they'll make me a new gasket. Do I need to do this; or can I use something else & still get it done, right?

Thanks friends-
Chris

Bruce-
Large batteries are measured by their precentage of amp hours taht can still be delivered successfully; a 90% battery can still deliver 90% of it's rated AH's. You can buy used batteries, large forklift batts especially, based on precentages. My 875AH set, that I bought a long time ago, were at 95% when I bought them, and they're still close to that now. The 1105 set I have was at 100% when I bought it, and I think it's still there, or close to it.

On the deep discharging, on a forklift battery, it generally gets discharged deeply every day; when someone's driving the forklift. That being the case, the electrolyte gets moved around, up & down, plenty, every day. Kevin has told me that it's a god thing to agittate it good with a deep discharge once a month, he's the battery guru, so like I said, I just follow blindly ;-)

VT, you make really good points.
Funny, I generally charge my batts back up at around 50% or so, and once a month I'm supposed to (per my battery guy) let them get really low, as in 20%, then charge them back up.

Here; our power is at 8 cents a KWH, so it's real cheap. Using the Lister won't save me money, no way, but this for me/us in all in Preps, It's all about 100% self sufficiency, and I'll use the Lister exclusively in December, along with wind & solar, for what little solar is available here in December. Wind's a better catch for us in December, right now I'm makingbetween 9 & 20 amps off of the Jacobs; so it's carrying the house entirely. My house uses typically between 10 & 20 amps @ 48VDC at basic idle, when the TV's go off, it goes down to 8-12 amps, when people are up & about/tv's on etc, it can be as high as 30-40 amps.
Well pump draws around 50 amps, runs for 20-30 minutes a day, pumps water 500 feet vertically to a 3,000 gallon cistern.
Waste oil burner draws about 21 amps, but runs for between 3 & 5 hours a say, typically.
The tv's, they take too much power, and I have to have surround sound...;-)

I can get my draw down a LOT if I burn wood & be a little more careful w power draw.

I'll report back how much fuel & so on it'll take in December to run this house. The house is 3200 SF, at about 3100 feet in elevation.
Chris

Thanks for an EXCELLENT chart, Ronmar.
What you are showing confirms about what I'm saying, I think. I know I'm doing/making about 4500 watts an ahour on average, no doubt at all, maybe a little more, and I'm real sure it's going through right at a half gallon an hour, straightaway.

No problem, Bob.
Here's the story:
OK so today, I was using BOTH my grid power inverter charger, at about 60 amps, AND the Lister at between 125 amps or so when at the beginning of the charge, and finishing at around 3KW, or 3,000 watts (sorry I forgot about the inverter when I posted this). The Lister starts charging at around 6500 watts, and slowly comes back down to 3,000 watts at finish, maybe 3 hours later. So, that being the case, if you averaged it, I would be making about 4500 watts per hour, over a 3 hour period, or right around 13.5KW, total.

I made 609 amps at the house today, now, that being said, to really grab it all today, these things made power at my house today:
Windmill 130 amps
Grid       150 amps
solar         4 amps (RAINED/sleeted insanely all day...)
So; that's about 284 amps x let's say 55 (volts) =15.6KW
Then, I had 325 amps that came form the Lister over a 3 hour period.
55x324 amps hours=17.8KW.
So, the Lister made more power than I thought it did, over 3 hours it made 5,340 watts per hour on 1/2 gallon of fuel per hour.

Sounds right to me...I think?

Lemme know, Pal, if I'm wrong I'd rather know now than in TEOTWAWKI....
Chris

Now, my count was of pure AH installed in the battery....
IF I take 500 AH from the batery, and refill it (2) ways, here's how it'd go:
At 60 amps charging current, I would end up putting back somewhere in the 800-900 amp range.
If I put it back in using 100 amps plus charging current, it would take around 600.