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Messages - starfire

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1
General Discussion / Re: A Pulley On Each Flywheel?
« on: July 22, 2021, 09:04:36 AM »
I always found it fascinating, these overhead shafts would run in wooden blocks as bearings, and pretty much last forever. Any wear would be on the steel shafting, and not the wooden bearing blocks. Old engineering shops too relied on one big central electric motor turning overhead shafting, each drive pulley had a free wheeling pulley beside it, a fork would jump the flat belt from one to the other to activate the selected machine. I  remember the punch had a huge flywheel that took some dexterity to get to speed without squealing the belt, and causing it to derail completely.  I have no idea on the frictional losses incurred, but it was a common way to power a factory back then. Unrelated, but when I was a kid, I watched the local inventor sit in the back seat of his fordson van, and drive across the Ormondville train viaduct. His theory was that if a flat belt will center itself on a convex pulley, then a convex car tyre should stay centered on a flat railway track.  We admired his conviction, he survived, we applauded , the railways fined him for trespass.

2
Engines / Re: Makeshift repairs and babbit
« on: June 21, 2021, 12:10:57 AM »
A permanent marker or sharpie will suffice for Prussian blue, or even nothing. After grinding, if the rod is spun dry, shiny marks on the shell will appear on the matt  to show the highs.  The small end bush could possibly be replaced with a section of copper pipe. If copper is heated to red and cooled slowly, it hardens, the complete opposite of steel. I cant see why it wouldnt work as well as the original bronze bush. In my experience, its the pin that wears, this easily remedied by a length of 1 inch bright shafting. Even without hollowing out the central hole, the extra weight does little, given its just  a  few grams over the total  kilos of rod and piston.  These engines are overly engineered for continuous rated duty, something the car people cannot figure when they wonder why their engines develop huge horsepower for only a comparatively  very short time.  So, there is a bit of  wiggle room in patching these things I think.
I have often wondered why Lister didnt spend a few more design minutes to make the barrel more symmetrical. This would allow it to be mounted upside down to  put the worn part at the bottom  where it wouldnt matter, thus saving a rebore and sleeve.

3
Engines / Re: Makeshift repairs and babbit
« on: June 20, 2021, 06:28:18 AM »
Just to expand on the process if anyone tries this. The alloy was cut 1 inch wider than the journal, bent roughly to shape and squashed into the big end using a 2 inch wooden dowel to force it into the shape of the big end hole. The sides are then peened over the sides of the big end to create the thrust faces. The shells then were filed to shape , the ends made nearly  level <crush> with the big end faces between cap and rod. The rest is very time consuming ,to get a good contact surface, using emery , files, and a sharp wood chisel to scrape the high spots
To repair a crank journal its not sufficient to just remove scoring, it also must be round, with as little taper as possible. Initially use strips of emery paper to remove as much damage as possible. Then tackle the finish.
The easiest way here is to make temporary steel shells to fit the rod, these become sacrificial to complete the process of final grinding with valve paste. Again, shims between cap and rod are removed as the journal  decreases in diameter. When there is no more binding throughout the rotation, job is done.
Handy Hint...... BRAZE THE OIL DIPPER TO THE ROD CAP.....

4
Engines / Re: Makeshift repairs and babbit
« on: June 20, 2021, 05:56:45 AM »
Somewhere on the forums, I remember a post about using an aluminum can as shell material.  Of course now,
i can't find it.
That  may have been me. Around 5/6 years ago   I made complete shells from aluminium sheet, 1.5mm thick by memory. These were pounded into shape using a wood dowel as an anvil.  The crank journal was badly scored, this was  smoothed out with a strip of emery paper, the shells were then mounted using shims made from a drink can. The rod was spun around the crank and high spots scraped off until the contact surface was great enough to support an oil film. The engine was run under no load for short times and shims were gradually removed from between rod and cap until it all bedded in. This engine runs great still after all this time. I figured at the time that if Briggs and Stratton can get away with a steel piston in an aluminium cylinder with very marginal lubrication, then my 3.5 CS should cope fine.  I never expected it to work so well, there is considerable loading on that shell. I did make larger oil grooves to increase oil flow from the dipper, was worried about the initial heating during the bedding in process.

5
I tried this years ago, decided not worth the trouble. The amount of heat in the exhaust is reduced rapidly under partial load. This is because a diesel always ingests a complete cylinder full of cold air,  and under partial loading, the injection of fuel is just a small part of the complete power stroke, the excess air steals your heat basically.  Using cooling water to preheat the water arriving at a  normal hot water cylinder is a useful addition, but usually requires extensive plumbing alterations and can feed vibrational noise into the other parts of the dwelling. My Lister uses a car radiator mounted through the wall into my workshop, electric car fan ,so does take some chill off during winter. If your engine runs full load for lengthy periods, it may be worth doing, but for me, not.

6

starfire,

I looked at your other lister videos. Very nice setup in that shed. (looks like a lister/petter unit off to the side also).
Would it be possible to post a picture of how you mounted the alternators to your engine?
I have a similar plan in mind.

cheers,
veggie
I drilled a 1/4" plate to attach to the two unused threaded holes in the cylinder head, welded some 3/4"  box at right angles to mount standard car alternators. The  two x 80 amp alternators have 4 inch pulleys to slow them down and save precious horsepower, 3.5 hp isnt much to play with. I removed the regulators so they charge at maximum. A seperate control box monitors the lithium packs and cuts the field current at 14 volts. Car alternators arent  made for continuous duty so I have a 3 ohm resistor in series with each field to cut the total output back so they dont work as hard.
Ill get a  pic later today.

7
I am gunna say its low fuel pressure. Because it starts and runs well, its not compression or injector. When trying low  speed, the fuel pressure drops causing fuel to just dribble into the cylinder without igniting. After several non firing strokes, the raw fuel vaporises from cylinder heat, causing ignition on subsequent compression, then the cycle continues.
 Years ago, a dude fitted a new fuel pump to his toyota Hilux. It needed a tow start, and then would run hot with no power. Turns out it was injecting on the intake stroke, burning vaporised fuel rather than atomised fuel., so this is certainly possible.
 Injector pumps should have constant pressure, and variable quantity. Veggie, I would loosen the injector pop pressure to see any change.... if its a fuel pressure problem then it will have little effect. Mind you, it has little effect anyway that I have seen. Setting the rack at a low speed and testing removed injector spray by cranking may point to the problem.

8
Generators / rewinding alternators
« on: May 05, 2021, 05:15:31 AM »
Here is a somewhat lengthy but interesting series on rewinding a common alternator unit, these are pretty all much all the same in that they use counteracting  windings and resistance to give some automated voltage regulation in a passive sense. For those intrepid souls that are willing to try this, its interesting to note the minimal need of anything other than the ability to count and a large amount of patience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwRdRpk8z-M

Alternatively, only the main windings need be wound, and any voltage regulation can be achieved via an electronic AVR acting directly on the rotor windings.  This one above is a 4 pole, but identical methods are used for 2 pole designs.
Seems to me its a very productive way to spend an evening or two in front of the fire.

9
my 3/1 struggling cold on vege oil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc3dXaBPpvw
theoretically a twin should run slower having twice the firing strokes,  a heavy flywheet model would run smoother at low rpm. Vege oil i suspect is possibly more reluctant to combust than diesel or kero, so possibly skipping a few bangs here and there. Also compression pressure would play a role too.

10
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: couple of old SOMs
« on: May 02, 2021, 05:11:56 AM »
hello Mike, I wonder what the reserve is? I am always pessimistic when stuff is advertised using buzzwords such as antique, rare, collectable etc. This usually indicates the seller has great ambitions with price with little real knowledge of the item. Theres still this stuff laying around though. Good luck with it, I see 55 watchers already.

11
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: Water or steam injection
« on: April 27, 2021, 12:09:26 PM »
Hello Bruce. We are lucky in having a temperate climate.  I never did like milk, more into admiring  the containers it comes in these days. Maybe I was just  too young back then to really appreciate the wondrous things in life.

12
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: Water or steam injection
« on: April 25, 2021, 08:37:53 AM »
And, while I think of it, and havent seen it mentioned here, heard recently the term "hydrodiesel"  This refers to an emulsion of oil and water that is used as diesel fuel. Oddly enough, years ago I tried mixing vege oil and water using a large mixer, a big version of a kitchen whizz we call them here, or a food processor probably in other countries that know no different.  This didnt work to well, the two ingredients would separate out overnight requiring a major fuel system cleanout. The addition of dishwashing liquid done the trick, but it was messy and cost extra money and time. I think this "hydrodiesel" is just another way to achieve the same results, but given a fancy name  I guess people will buy it. This is the problem when you acquire literally dozens of 44 gallon drums of selected oils, paint thinners, used volatile cleaning agents, and some questionable unidentified stuff you cant talk about, the passion is to BURN it to create free power.... it can become an obsession..............

13
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: Water or steam injection
« on: April 25, 2021, 08:02:54 AM »
Take a 20 liter plastic oil drum, whack 2 x 2 inch holes thru the top. Insert a length of 2 inch PVC pipe into 1 hole to the bottom, cut the bottom end at an angle to allow and guarantee an  air gap. It just needs to exit the top of the container a few inches, this is the air inlet. Another 2 inch PVC pipe is inserted into the other hole  a few cms and is glued to keep it at the top well above the water level. This connects via flexible tubing to the Lister air inlet manifold.. A small overflow hole is drilled around 1/2 to 1/3 the way up the container to prevent the water overfilling. A third small diameter pipe is inserted thru the container top to supply a slow trickle of water into the container. I used 3/8th clear tubing for this.
Thats all there is to it. The vacuum pulled by the inlet stroke will suck air up thru the water giving a saturated air density into the engine, easy, quick with no moving parts. I got this idea by observing that cars seem to run smoother on rainy days. Keep the pipe to the engine intake fairly  short and use wire reinforced pipe to prevent suck in.
Because its cheap and easy to do, just cobble something together and try it first before making a good permanent one. I think water injection  works similarly to when throwing water onto an oil fire, the heat turns it instantly  into steam that shatters the unburned oil droplets and atomises them further causing total  chaos and mayhem. Even a petrol engine benefits from this, and I wonder why manufacturers havent seemed to follow this up. Piston WW2 aircraft used it frequently to maximise the HP and increase efficiency.  Given enough water, and it takes a frightening amount, a diesel will stop the detonation knock and  will run as smoothly and quietly as a petrol engine.

14
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: Water or steam injection
« on: April 24, 2021, 10:19:48 AM »
What ever method, make sure water cannot drain into the intake if something goes wrong.. Makes for real hard starting .

Steam may condense in the intake manifold

I am a great believer in passive simple  The best no fuss  water injection I have used  is simply a 20 liter container of water with  the  overflow around  2/3rds from the bottom. The container water level is  slightly below the Lister intake, air is sucked in from the top, a 2 inch air hose in the bottom is vented to atmosphere. The air is literally bubbled through the water giving a humid mix of the intake air. also doubling as the air  filter There is no possibility of water straight into the engine. I burn transformer oil, and without water, the engine gets carbony and knocky after several hours, with water, it burns quiet and clean. I dare say the exhaust heat could be directed at/into  the container to increase water /air mix, but I havent found this necessary. It seems to use around .5 to 1 liter an hour I have a CS 3.5. The downside I guess it  causes a partial vacuum in the intake which is naughty for a diesel, but is reduced by having a large air space above the water giving a  good reserve of air for each "gulp".  My prior messing with electric dose pumps and spray nozzles was too complicated and problematic, steam caused problems with scale and blockages.  Water isnt dood for drinking either, the minute I gave up breast milk for water, I have aged considerably.

15
Everything else / Re: Lithium batteries, the care and feeding of
« on: October 10, 2019, 08:28:10 AM »
The real killer i found with lead acid is that final 20 percent or so charge, where the battery will only accept a fraction of the bulk charging current,without excess bubbling so this finishing charge takes many many  hours to complete.
 In real life, the bank is being continuously cycled, charging and discharging at the same time, the final top up never quite happens.... so the things will eventually sulphate regardless..... i know, pessimism right there.
.Forcing wont work, bubbles and fizzing is what sheds plate material. This i think is lithium's big advantage. over lead acid..... or at least they promise this.


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