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Messages - mikenash

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811
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: what size cooling tank
« on: July 04, 2017, 07:12:17 PM »
Y'know Bob, heaps of folks just use a cut-down copper hot water cylinder inner.  Never rust; polish up nice if you like that kind of look, easy to put fittings into etc

812
Down here at the Bottom of the World there are many rural places that didn't get electricity reticulated out until the '60s, and many large old sheep properties (not large by Australian or Texas standards, of course) where it wasn't economic to run electricity out to shearing sheds.  So, in the days before transportable generator sets, these engines drove overhead rotating shaft systems with big flat-belt drives

http://blog.topburds.com/top-birds-everyfing/2016/02/mangatoi-station-woolshed.html

The engines were high-hours workhorses, often running ten or twelve hours a day for three months of the year, year after year, and they have typically been maintained by local staff, especially in the early days when many of them were on sites a day or two's ride with a horse and cart from the nearest railhead.

Typically, they may have been apart many times over the years & decades.  I bought a 12/2 a while back off one of these remote stations which only got electricity to its shed two years ago.  I was a '70s machine, but to the chap running the farm it was just "the Lister".  There had probably been two or three engines sitting on that base running the belt drive since the first one in maybe the late '30s?  He said it had   "Shorn 35,000 sheep twice a year for seventy years"

All of which is a longwinded way of saying "who knows what has been done to that 6/1 to keep it going over the decades?"

I have a spare head off a (I think 1939) 5/1 here anyway if needed

Thanks for the comments, guys.  I'm always impressed with the depth of knowledge here

I'm off up to my "project" in a week to get some work done.  It's a "retire in the sunshine" block of land up on our East Coast - no power there, so the Listers can make a contribution I hope.

I made a steel base for a 6/1 and a generator or two a while back that will lift them about 400mm above a concrete floor (easy cranking height), and one of next week's jobs is to pour the first pad for that to bolt down to.  Once that base is shimmed level and bolted down I was thinking to pour a shed floor around it and maybe 50mm above the level of the first concrete pad so that the whole thing is sort of "concreted-in"  We'll see how that pans out.

Cheers

813
  "agrarian" sorry.  I dropped the laptop a while back and, ever since, the "R" button has been reluctant . . .

814
New Zealand, up until the years immediately following WW2, was a largely agraian country and our cities were pretty sparse places

A great many Kiwis lived and worked "on the land" and a farmhouse or farm-worker's house adjacent to the sheep-shearing shed was so common as to be completely invisible.  Often the sheepyards, shearing shed etc, would be accompanied by a few small "holding" paddocks for sheep awaiting shearing or some other process.  Inevitably these houses, sheds & holding paddocks were fenced with a "shelter-belt" of Cupressus Macrocapa (Monterey Cyprus to you Northern Hemisphere blokes)

Fast-forward seventy-odd years and tens of thousands of Kiwis live in "lifestyle block" houses on two or three acre sections carved out from farmhouses left empty by the rural depopulation (from mechanisation) of the 60s & 70s.  Many of those small-holdings are bordered by the original Macrocapa hedge, often three trees deep and offering a sprawling & waterproof canopy up against a fenceline usually only 50 metres or so from the house - an irresistible dumping ground for old tractors, piles of firewood seasoning, dead farm machinery, "spare parts" cars - you name it. 

Thus there is a time-honoured tradition, in rural New Zealand, of parking something that you don't want cluttering the section, the shed or the driveway; but which "might be useful someday" and which is, anyway "too good to throw out"  . . . "under the Macs"

The lower branches also provide a convenient anchor for chain winches, carcass-lifiting swingletrees, front-end-loaders with leaking hydraulics . . . home-made engine-block lifting devices and the like.

So when one comes home with a new CS 6/1 which needs to be lifted off one trailer and kept up in the air for a few weeks before being dropped onto another trailer to be towed to its destination on a concrete pad somewhere else . . . "Under the Macs" is the obvious repository

I paid $500 for this one.  It has, allegedly, "Had the valves and rings done five years ago and never subsequently used . . . "  time will tell.  I suspect if I just buy an Indian pump/line/injector assembly and splash a bit of diesel around it might be a good runner.

I guess we'll see :)

815
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: Just some eye candy
« on: June 29, 2017, 03:52:47 AM »
Cool.  Thanks very much

I had been in denial, thinking maybe I could do an OK job through the inspection hatch in the case.

But, reading your thoughts, i will wait until it's concreted/bolted down in it's permanent (ish) home then take the barrel off so I can get at it properly

That description of the amount of lateral rock that is OK makes good sense

Thanks for taking the time to explain

Cheers, Mike

816
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: Just some eye candy
« on: June 27, 2017, 11:00:31 PM »
Fresh out of the wash cabinet is a late 6/1 that came in for rebuild.
 I think all the black in the world hides inside hi houred CS engines?  No amount of scrubbing removes it from my hands, it just has to go away on its own. Thank goodness for the spray wash cabinet dont think I would enjoy the work if I had to do this with a pan of solvent and a brush.



Hey there 38ac

Butch - I'm thinking about your wonderful valve-events guide document.  Without peeing in your pocket I have to say that did great things to further my understanding of the process - and what is important and what is not in real-world terms.

My 6/1 has a noisy big-end and I don't feel I have a good grasp of the issues around clearance, crush and how the shims work and how to make good decisions around that stuff.  I think the journal's OK - has a couple of little scores; but it's a monster working surface and I hadn't intended to do anything to it

I'd appreciate any wisdom before I get in there and take it to bits

Cheers, Mike

817
JP4 - common in marine propulsion service.

dieselgman

cool.  Thanks.  Will google it.  Cheers

819
Going to concentrate on finding a Petter AA1 diesel for my Wheelhorse.  Any help, from USA or UK welcomed.  If you willing to help ship to the USA, I would like to chat with you

http://www.trademe.co.nz/a.aspx?id=1354610870

Sent you an email.  Cheers

820
http://www.trademe.co.nz/business-farming-industry/industrial/engines-motors/diesel/auction-1352937597.htm

Just in case someone is restoring one of these and some light-fingered amateur souvenir-hunter or scrap-metal-merchant has removed the plaque . . .

821
General Discussion / Re: Anyone have a chainsaw Mill?
« on: June 15, 2017, 07:56:47 PM »
Hey Glort

Firstly - have you got the chain on the "right way round" - excuse me for asking

Bars and chains not all the same

Chain "drive" teeth are of two different thicknesses - loosely for Stihl & Husqvarna - not compatible.  Take the bar off, stick it in the vice, put the chain on and spin it manually a bit.  Either it'll be just nice, or real loose in which case it might be wrong, or so tight it won't fit the groove in which case it IS wrong

Bar should have numbers stamped at the bolt-hole end

Bars get worn.  If the groove is sloppy or the bar is worn performance will suffer.  In a very won bar the drive teeth will bottom

For the state of bar & chain it's best to go to the shop - there are several variables

If you take the bar off and run the saw without it - you should see where the oil pump pumps its oil out of a groove.  The oil hole in the bar has to line up with that.  If not, you have a prob

Washers are a no-no I would say - should work without them.  Some saws have removeable side plates.  Might be missing?

If you have a big saw it will have a replaceable floating "female" sprocket driving the chain.  Have you got the chain properly nestled in that?

If you take the whole thing to a shop and ask some questions, the service guy can tell you all that in 5 mins flat - he'll want to sell you a new bar and chain and sprocket so should be happy to explain

good luck

822
General Discussion / Re: Anyone have a chainsaw Mill?
« on: June 15, 2017, 05:57:33 AM »

Hey Glort - after some inspiration?  Check out this guy's Macrocapa furniture pics . .

http://www.trademe.co.nz/services/trades/building-construction/auction-624163655.htm

823
General Discussion / Re: Anyone have a chainsaw Mill?
« on: June 15, 2017, 05:48:35 AM »

A couple of thoughts on chainsaw mills FWIW:

I ran one commercially for several years in a sawmill, breaking big logs (up to 1400mm diameter) down into 300mm slabs for the main mill

It ran on rails and had a wind-up-and-down bar-and-motor assembly.  But it was powered by a 10hp 3-phase motor (a tenth of the running costs of a chainsaw) with a belt-drive to a jockey shaft with a spline to take the drive sprocket and a dummy shaft/tensioner/bearing at the other end

We "converted" the chains by taking off every second tooth from new with the cut-off disc on the angle grinder, and taking a couple of swipes across the top of each depth gauge (as you say, about 40 thou for softwoods)

I bored out the oiler hole to about three times the size and ran water as a lubricant with the garden hose, more or less - zero cost.  Worked fine & never noticed any extra wear or reduced life on the (big & expensive) bar

Wet sawdust made an abominable mess though.  But running costs ( and noise) were way down

Cheers

824
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: Another 6/1 Restoration
« on: June 13, 2017, 02:48:40 PM »


Y'know, our old mate Starfire - who ran that old 3/1 over on the West Coast of New Zealand as his sole generator for maybe seven or eight years - said leave some oil floating on top of the coolant water to radically reduce evaporative loss.

It wouldn't surprise me if it left an oily residue on the tank surface?

Or you could do as I have done and use a copper hot water cylinder?

Cheers

825
General Discussion / Re: Anyone have a chainsaw Mill?
« on: June 13, 2017, 08:03:02 AM »

Hey Glort what you do have to think about is drying those slabs before you can use them?  Rule of thumb is:  an inch a year.  So a 5-inch (125mm) slab will need to be dried away from the sun and with some weights on it so it doesn't warp or cup too much for several years.  You CAN make furniture out of it wet, but it will crack and split and move because as it dries in a different way to whatever it is glued/nailed/screwed/bolted to - something has to give.  If you're OK about coming back in a few years when it has all settled down, and filling the cracks with epoxy, and re-planing the top smooth/flat/square - then by all means use it wet-ish.  Cheers

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