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Topics - mike90045

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31
Engines / Mikes Metro Mystery Motor (Mendocino, CA, USA) [Metro 6/1/]
« on: August 21, 2013, 01:27:23 AM »
It appears I have a new water source, not in the 2 wells that I had drilled (both came up dry @ 250') but instead it's appearing between the crankcase deck, and the big hollow casting that holds the cylinder liner. 

The joint is wet, I can't see it seeping from anywhere above (last year, it was a bum head gasket that Tom helped me fix) but nothing running downhill from it.

 The crankcase oil looks OK, no foam or scum in it, and I don't see an unusual consumption of coolant water (50/50 antifreeze). And from what I can see in drawings, there are paper shims in the space, but not a "gasket".   
 I've had to run the engine the last 2 cloudy & smokey days (several large forest fires in California, and northwestern states) to keep the batteries up, but the water mystifies me, unless I've got a crack in the casting.

Suggestions ?

32
Engines / Cold Starting Aids/Enhancers/Adjuvants
« on: June 25, 2013, 06:54:57 PM »
This came up this AM, after flattening my 2nd and last Jump Start battery pack on a friends Corvair.  He used a fair amount of starting fluid before it caught (Northern California is in a cold rainy snap right now) He's likely got bad ignition wire insulation, and the carbs are screwed up.
 And I know for our Listeroids, ether is off the list, Regular Unleaded Gasoline (RUG) is used to thin diesel for cold weather flow and gel resistance.
 What about a couple drops of RUG in the air cleaner, to get some vapor into the chamber, will that help starting?

I don't know if I have enough hands to hold the propane torch, crank the flywheel and trip the decompression lever at the same time in cold weather. (Hot air injection)

We've got some time before it gets chilly here, just asking now.

Mike

33
Lister Based Generators / odd slobber
« on: February 03, 2013, 05:58:54 AM »
Yes, it comes from the fuel tank bolt, on the water jacket (cylinder).  I suppose it's found a crack in the casting, and blowing by the head gasket, and weeps out the bolt threads.   I guess pulling the bolt and adding thread sealer would "hide" the problem, but the root cause of high pressure going somewhere it shouldn't, still exists.  Maybe retorquing the head bolt will stop it ?

suggestions ?  New head gasket ?  new cylinder jacket ?

photo album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.446238508782941.99946.120212794718849&type=1&l=b14ddf17fd




34
Listeroid Engines / slobber and break in
« on: January 29, 2013, 02:45:56 AM »
yucch!  Finally the 3" exhaust pipe filled up enough and started dumping sludge on the floor.

So - I'm running about 2KW load, on a 6-1, with about 10 hours on it. Should I be loading it more ? (1,400' elevation)   Should I gradually add load when starting it up cold in the am, or just let the inverter hit it at full load after 90 sec of warm up? Easy programming change to alter the load the inverter applies to the gen-head. (AC2 breaker setting in the XW)

Valve spring lube.  There is a cavity on the top of the head, and in that cavity, are 2 recesses for the springs, should oil be in the lower spring recesses to the top, or the upper & larger cavity?  I can't see into the springs to see where the valve guides are, maybe I've overfilled the large cavity, and that's where my slobber is coming from ?  Any cut-away views of that area ?
 Metro 6-1 @ 59.9 hz  (using the the inverter freq meter, haven't got a RPM / tach on it yet)

35
Listeroid Engines / Listeroid Lube points - did I miss any ?
« on: January 22, 2013, 06:53:12 AM »
I've discovered one (fuel pump tappet sump) I'd not heard anyone chatting about - are there others I've not found ?
 ( list from top to bottom )

Metro 6/1  no oil pump

Rocker Arms.   oil hole at the pivot, grease cup on the shaft. 
  Oil & grease into the same area ? My grease cup was a dummy, have a zerk in there now, normal moly grease ?

Rocker Arm Ends : each end, where it contacts the other moving parts

Valves - Springs & Keepers/caps
 caps at the top of the stem
 oil in the big sump at the top of the head 
  How deep should this be kept ?
 use Chainsaw bar oil ?

Fuel Pump:
 Metering shaft (in the middle of the pump that the linkage connects to)
 linkages to governer
 Tappet wells - fore & aft sumps  (This is the one I'd not known about)
  ( note, now that I'm running 50% bio-diesel, the groan/creak I was getting from the fuel pump area, seems
to have finally gone away.  If I replace the pump, and keep the same tappet adjustment - does the pump need to be
re-timed ? )

Tappets - top side where pushrods reside.
  ( do tappet bodies need oil, or do they get enough mist from the  dipper )

Camshaft bushing - next to Ex tappet, unscrew and squirt oil into it after long idle periods. 
 ( if engine is run daily, does this need a daily dose of lube anyway ? )

Crankcase:  somewhere between the tips of the castle nuts on the crank, and the middle of the dipper


 

36
Everything else / evaporating coolant
« on: January 09, 2013, 05:34:12 AM »
So, when a 50-50 mix of antifreeze boils.  Is just the water driven off, or does the antifreeze [.AF] boil away with it too .
   Just wondering, because i'm trying to run the head nice and hot, and the coolant tank (20 some gallons) is steaming away like mad.

37
Listeroid Engines / Commissioning Run ! finally.
« on: December 29, 2012, 12:26:50 AM »
After several years of intermittent presence at my house site, and then this last week, loosing nearly all my tank water storage (12,000 gallons) to a broken underground pipe when mud flow broke it, AND the death of my Iota backup charger that I've been running off my little inverter genset (Iota is doing me a solid, and sending a replacement part)  I finally got enough tape on the flywheel to keep the belt tracking right (crown pulley website - http://woodgears.ca/bandsaw/crowned_pulleys.html ), replaced a BAD circuit breaker on one leg of my 240V panel (XW inverter was only seeing 62V, not 240V) and just a tiny bit of governor adjustment, and I got the system running and charging off the ST head (with it's new bearings).  

But, when it was spinning down, I now hear a groaning creak in the injector pump area, not related to it pumping.  I can feel it on the intake tappet (both tappets spin nicely).  That area inside the crankcase, is obscured by the governor.  Anyone have ideas or suggestions of what to do or look at in there ?   Run it, and see what breaks ? (NO!)  
Several minutes after shutdown, when I pulled the crankcase cover, the entire crankcase cavity was full of fog, oil mist or blowby.  Is that normal?

Today's cold start, in frosty weather, it fired after pulling it through the 3rd compression stroke, I was running out of steam, and would not have lasted for a 4th.

But the creak / groan in the pump area, concerns me.  Any ideas ?

38
Everything else / Belt Tracking ?
« on: December 26, 2012, 05:55:51 AM »
It's just not happening for me.   I've got a flywheel (metro) that actually has grooves cut into it, and a ribbed belt. No matter what I do, after 20 seconds or so, the belt travels outboard, and hangs on by 1/8 th of its width, very scary.  Well, not as scary as a cracked flywheel.    But twisting the engine, and the alternator, I can't get the thing to track the grooves in the center.
 The alternator has a grooved pulley, with no flanges on it, and the belt tracks off it too, to about 50% off.

I've come across some info on the web, about flat belts and pulleys, with the pulleys needing a crown, which keeps the belt centered.  I'm about to grab a couple rolls of electrical tape, and build up the center of my flywheel, and see if that helps. I
guess most of you have ribbed belts on plain flat flywheels, and the grooves are not really needed.
 http://woodgears.ca/bandsaw/crowned_pulleys.html

I've also heard that a bad belt with a warp in it, can do this too, but a replacement is about $80, so before I buy a new one,
I'd like this thought confirmed. (engine shipped with the belt on flywheel and alternator pulley)

Any suggestions, if the belt falls outboard, what direction should I twist the engine or/and alternator ?


39
Lister Based Generators / Listeroid genset anchor scheme
« on: September 28, 2010, 06:00:51 AM »
OK, I should have floated this here a month ago, but the plans ended up happening very fast, and here's what I've got.

Listeroid genset, on a I beam frame, bought as a unit, and there seems to be no good way to anchor it down.  My metal buddy came up with this scheme, of straps to go over the existing I beam frame, trapping it in place.
The I beam frame sits on a rectangle of plywood, which is on top of a 1" thick rubber stall mat.

We plan to drill 6" into a 8" slab, a 1" hole, and use SIMPSON anchor bolt epoxy to secure a 5/8" di,  8"  length of all-thread. 8 holes with anchor bolts total.   Better epoxy to use ?  grout ? Lead anchor ?

What's a good choice of material for the all thread that won't sheer right off?  SS   grade 4,  grade 6, grade 8 ?   What kind of nut - same as the bolt material ?  I plan to top it off with a nyloc nut so it wont work loose.

40
Waste Vegetable Oil / fuel pump heating
« on: March 30, 2010, 08:07:12 PM »
Any thoughts about heating the fuel pump?  Maybe with a tube (copper) run from the exhaust pipe (a couple turns around the pipe) and follow injector line down to fuel pump to heat the pump, and it's fuel, and then back to the exhaust pipe. I don't know if synthetic oil would thermosyphon itself, or what.

41
Everything else / Wattgate electrical outlets
« on: January 09, 2010, 06:52:31 AM »
This is so amazing, I can't believe it.  There is this new duplex outlet
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=110-439&vReviewShow=1&&vReviewPage=7&vReviewRand=2769824#reviews
 and the reviews are so amazing.  It seems to cure all sorts of power problems, and even other un related things.  I even found some 4 & 5 star reviews at Amazon too.    I think if I plug my ST5 into it, and install zerk fittings on the bearings, I could collect sperm whale oil as it drips out. None of the Yak fat.
 But you have to scroll down, and read the reviews.

Mike

42
Generators / Single to 3 phase converter
« on: October 27, 2009, 11:23:52 PM »
I hope this is useful to someone.  Mike


http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/ph-conv/ph-conv.html
archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080705071429/http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/ph-conv/ph-conv.html

BUILDING A PHASE CONVERTER
Includes Self Starting
By Jim Hanrahan
  Excerpt:
Many quality used industrial machines are available at attractive prices that have 3 phase electric motors. Most residential homes do not have access to 3 phase electric power at a reasonable price. If the home shop builder decides to use these machines they must either replace the 3 phase motors with single phase motors or find a way to use the single phase power at their house to run them. This article explains how to build a rotary phase converter that will convert your single phase 220 VAC electric power to 3 phase 220 VAC to power your industrial machines.

Safety should be your first concern and any electrical wiring should follow your local electrical code. That being said, some typical wire sizes, overload, and short circuit protection methods will be described to get you started. Also, the metal frame of the motors and your machines should be grounded. This safety ground normally does not conduct any electricity. It is present in case a current carrying conductor accidentally touches the metal frame. This provides a low resistance path for the electricity to flow instead of going through your body to earth ground.

There are two basic types of phase converters on the market which will allow 3 phase motors to run using single phase input to the converter. These types are referred to as static and rotary. The static converter is basically only a start circuit that once the motor starts, disengages and lets the motor run on single phase power. The disadvantage of this method is that the motor winding currents will be very unbalanced and the motor will not be able to run above about two-thirds its rated horsepower. The rotary converter provides current in all 3 phases and although not perfect, will allow a motor to provide all or nearly all its rated horsepower. If the motor has a service factor of 1.15 to 1.25 then you should be able to use full rated horsepower. The service factor can be found on the motor nameplate and is usually abbreviated S.F. The reasons that the electric power is not perfect are very technical and can include small amounts of voltage and current imbalance as well as the phase angles between phases not being perfect. The voltage and current balancing is straight forward if you have access to a voltmeter or preferably a clamp-on type ammeter. But even if you don't have these meters, using the approximate values of run capacitors specified in this article the currents should be close and you will be able to get nearly full horsepower from your 3 phase motors.

43
Bio-diesel Fuel / polystyrene added to bio-diesel (foam cups)
« on: May 01, 2009, 07:18:26 PM »
Article at newscientist.com
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17066-plastic-cups-could-boost-auto-performance.html

"One can recycle any kind of plastic, but if you are camped in a remote area, recycling is not an option," Kong says. "Turning plastic into fuel is a way to get rid of garbage and generate electricity."

Kong and colleagues dissolved polystyrene – a polymer used to make disposable foam plates and cups – into biodiesel at concentrations ranging from 2 to 20% polystyrene by weight. "A polystyrene cup will dissolve almost instantly in biodiesel, like a snowflake in water," Kong says, although the plastic doesn't break down as well in petroleum-based diesel and other liquid fuels.


After 5% though, it tends to increase the fuel visciocity and gum things up.

44
Engines / Exhaust silencers / tone control
« on: January 09, 2008, 04:08:14 AM »
I really like the  "blongg  blongg" sound that the lister(oids) make, when they have the long pipe/expansion chambers.  Is there a good rule of thumb to get the sound - [small muffler - long pipe]  or [long, large bore pipe] .
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvpdYWNFHnU    is a video with an engine at 370 RPM, does that sound change much when at 650 ?  So many engines are recorded with the pepper pot muffler, they nearly sound like the 3600 rpm screamers.
  Just looking for the right sound.

45
Straight Vegetable Oil / Jatropha curcushas : plant to diesel fuel
« on: July 31, 2007, 10:13:21 PM »
Poison plant could help to cure the planet
excerpt            Ben Macintyre

The jatropha bush seems an unlikely prize in the hunt for alternative 
energy, being an ugly, fast-growing and poisonous weed. Hitherto, its 
use to humanity has principally been as a remedy for constipation. 
Very soon, however, it may be powering your car.

Almost overnight, the unloved Jatropha curcushas become an 
agricultural and economic celebrity, with the discovery that it may be 
the ideal biofuel crop, an alternative to fossil fuels for a world 
dangerously dependent on oil supplies and deeply alarmed by the 
effects of global warming.

The hardy jatropha, resilient to pests and resistant to drought, 
produces seeds with up to 40 per cent oil content. When the seeds are 
crushed, the resulting jatropha oil can be burnt in a standard diesel 
car, while the residue can also be processed into biomass to power 
electricity plants.
  - pause  excerpt.


Of course, nearly all parts of plant are posion, and it's banned in Australia 
planted around our listers, it would function as well as barbed wire fence.
 I wonder if it likes frost ??
 Mike.




cntiinued:
The hardy jatropha, resilient to pests and resistant to drought, 
produces seeds with up to 40 per cent oil content. When the seeds are 
crushed, the resulting jatropha oil can be burnt in a standard diesel 
car, while the residue can also be processed into biomass to power 
electricity plants.

As the search for alternative energy sources gathers pace and urgency, 
the jatropha has provoked something like a gold rush. Last week BP 
announced that it was investing almost £32 million in a jatropha joint 
venture with the British biofuels company D1 Oils.

Even Bob Geldof has stamped his cachet on jatropha, by becoming a 
special adviser to Helius Energy, a British company developing the use 
of jatropha as an alternative to fossil fuels. Lex Worrall, its chief 
executive, says: ?Every hectare can produce 2.7 tonnes of oil and 
about 4 tonnes of biomass. Every 8,000 hectares of the plant can run a 
1.5 megawatt station, enough to power 2,500 homes.?

Jatropha grows in tropical and subtropical climates. Whereas other 
feed-stocks for biofuel, such as palm oil, rape seed oil or corn for 
ethanol, require reasonable soils on which other crops might be grown, 
jatropha is a tough survivor prepared to put down roots almost anywhere.

Scientists say that it can grow in the poorest wasteland, generating 
topsoil and helping to stall erosion, but also absorbing carbon 
dioxide as it grows, thus making it carbon-neutral even when burnt. A 
jatropha bush can live for up to 50 years, producing oil in its second 
year of growth, and survive up to three years of consecutive drought.

In India about 11 million hectares have been identified as potential 
land on which to grow jatropha. The first jatropha-fuelled power 
station is expected to begin supplying electricity in Swaziland in 
three years. Meanwhile, companies from Europe and India have begun 
buying up land in Africa as potential jatropha plantations.

Jatropha plantations have been laid out on either side of the railway 
between Bombay and Delhi, and the train is said to run on more than 15 
per cent biofuel. Backers say that the plant can produce four times 
more fuel per hectare than soya, and ten times more than corn. ?Those 
who are working with jatropha,? Sanju Khan, a site manager for D1 
Oils, told the BBC, ?are working with the new generation crop, 
developing a crop from a wild plant ? which is hugely exciting.?

Jatropha, a native of Central America, was brought to Europe by 
Portuguese explorers in the 16th century and has since spread 
worldwide, even though, until recently, it had few uses: malaria 
treatment, a windbreak for animals, live fencing and candle-mak-ing. 
An ingredient in folk remedies around the world, it earned the 
nickname ?physic nut?, but its sap is a skin irritant, and ingesting 
three untreated seeds can kill a person.

Jatropha has also found a strong supporter in Sir Nicholas Stern, the 
government economist who emphasised the dangers of global warming in a 
report this year. He recently advised South Africa to ?look for 
biofuel technologies that can be grown on marginal land, perhaps 
jatropha?.

However, some fear that in areas dependent on subsistence farming it 
could force out food crops, increasing the risk of famine.

Some countries are also cautious for other reasons: last year Western 
Australia banned the plant as invasive and highly toxic to people and 
animals.

Yet a combination of economic, climatic and political factors have 
made the search for a more effective biofuel a priority among energy 
companies. New regulations in Britain require that biofuels comprise 5 
per cent of the transport fuel mix by 2010, and the EU has mandated 
that by 2020 all cars must run on 20 per cent biodiesel. Biodiesel 
reduces carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 80 per cent compared with 
petroleum diesel, according to the US Energy Department.

Under the deal between BP and D1, £80 million will be invested in 
jatropha over the next five years, with plantations in India, southern 
Africa and SouthEast Asia. There are no exact figures for the amount 
of land already under jatropha cultivation, but the area is expanding 
fast. China is planning an 80,000-acre plantation in Sichuan, and the 
BPD1 team hopes to have a million hectares under cultivation over the 
next four years.

Jatropha has long been prized for its medicinal qualities. Now it 
might just help to cure the planet.

- D1 Oils, the UK company leading the jatropha revolution, is growing 
430,000 acres of the plant to feed its biodiesel operation on Teesside 
? 44,000 acres more than three months ago, after a huge planting 
programme in India. It has also planted two 1,235-acre trial sites 
this year in West Java, Indonesia. If successful, these will become a 
25,000-acre plantation. Elloitt Mannis, the chief executive, says that 
the aim is to develop energy ?from the earth to the engine?.

Jatropha: costs and benefits

- Jatropha needs at least 600mm (23in) of rain a year to thrive. 
However, it can survive three consecutive years of drought by dropping 
its leaves

- It is excellent at preventing soil erosion, and the leaves that it 
drops act as soil-enriching mulch

- The plant prefers alkaline soils

- The cost of 1,000 jatropha saplings (enough for one acre) in 
Pakistan is about £50, or 5p each

- The cost of 1kg of jatropha seeds in India is the equivalent of 
about 7p. Each jatropha seedling should be given an area two metres 
square.

- 20 per cent of seedlings planted will not survive

- Jatropha seedlings yield seeds in the first year after plantation




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