Seems the current crop of shop managers with business degrees and no shop savvy are slowly killing once productive businesses. My son worked a while in a well known car and farm machinery dealership and could not understand the decisions. He phoned me one day to get down the shop in a hurry, and I arrived to find a top brand valve refacing machine and matching seat cutter system on a pallet ready to go in the skip bin. The excuse was "Nobody here has been trained to use it, and we just fit exchange recon heads now".  Taught myself to use it in about twenty minutes, and it does a perfect job.
          Got a similar call a little later and arrived to find a top class Japanese lawn mower in the skip bin, and was invited to get it out of the way promptly. Seems they were now agents for a well known brand of green and yellow farm machines and mowers, and could not be seen to mow their tiny front lawn with a machine of any other colour. Gave the machine an oil change and a pair of blades, and it has not missed a beat in years. Still trying to understand the logic applied by their leadership.
          Combustor.

           Somewhere in the early'60'sLister supplied a batch of VA StartOmatic gen sets to the old Postmaster General's Dept.(now Telstra and Aus Post) to power remote phone exchanges and post offices where regular maintenance and good cooling water were in short supply. They were fitted out on a skid base with an extended oil reservoir and connected to a large overhead fuel tank in a locked enclosure. The service crews arrived evey 7 or 8 weeks to service them and refuel. They ran continuously unattended and I believe they survived remarkably well on that service schedule. There are still one or two of these plants in existence as living proof of their durability, so perhaps a little healthy neglect is not all bad.  (VA = aircooled version of 8/1).
Combustor.

Hi there Mikenash,
                          Am sure there are experts here who can pinpoint your problem, but if you are sure the timing gears are correctly meshed, then time to look elsewhere. The hollow cams are fixed to the camshaft with taper pins. Is it possible that a pin is broken or wrongly fitted ? Time to check valve train timing. First properly locate TDC. Rig a pointer near flywheel timing marks. Pull injector and poke a rod down on the piston.  Rotate crank till rod is say 20mm down on piston before TDC, mark flywheel at the pointer. Then mark again when say 20 mm down after TDC, Measure half way between flywheel marks and this is accurate TDC. Now rotate and watch valves at the junction of intake and exhaust strokes (not compression stroke). Exhaust valve should be just closing and intake about to open right at TDC. If this is not happening then you still have a valve timing problem somewhere. Hope this helps. Regards,
Combustor.

Your little LT1 will govern better and sound happier at 1500 rpm than it will at lower speeds. It is still only running at half its design speed. If it was delivered with a max 1500 rpm rating then the injection timing will be set for that speed range. If the nameplate says max 3000 rpm then it is worth retarding the fuel timing to make it sound happier and more efficient.
       Engines specified for generator service usually have a governor set for closer speed regulation than a general purpose engine. You may find load response a bit slow at 1500 rpm, but with lighter or non-critical loads this may not matter. Fuel economy is hardly a factor if it's just for outages so easy to set up a simple 2:1 pulley ratio and let it loaf along at 1500. Good luck,
Combustor.

Hi there EdDee,
                      Carefully read as much as you can on the topic of burning WMO in the threads on this site and others, and then make up your mind as to whether it is for you.  Some report good results but others have sad tales to tell, as there are many variables and unknowns with its use. Factors affecting results include
Source and type of oil
Contamination with unsuitable oils, (synthetics, gear lubes. coolants, fuels etc.
Blend ratio's, with diesel, heating oil, kero, jet fuel, RUG, other secret brews,
Heavy metal residues, (cause deposits and abrasive wear),
Your ability to achieve fine filtration and remove residual water/detergent "goo"
Possible need to preheat to keep flowing in cold weather
Legalities of transporting and storing, in some places, once oil is used, it is classified as Dangerous Goods.

If you can secure a source of an un-contaminated oil of a single type,then it may be worth some careful trials but be prepared for a lot of research and experiment and learn from other
users who have succeeded.  Also look into waste veg oil as fuel or the possibility of turning it into bio-diesel. Either way, you will need a lot of spare time.
          Do not listen to anyone who says you can build a refining setup that will turn WMO into diesel. It is a very hazardous process,not very successful and illegal almost anywhere.
Good luck.
 
Combustor.

            Hi GraderDude,
                                In desperate times when parts are not available I have resorted to lapping the joints together. You can carefully remove the fuel pump cap and hold in lathe chuck or similar, apply a dab of fine valve grinding paste, then gently oscillate the pipe cone in the cap seat. Clean and inspect at intervals and check final fit with some bearing blue. Guess you could do the same with the injector end. Wash up very clean and refit with fingers crossed. Has worked for me on occasions, but if new parts can be found that's the easy option.
Combustor.

          Careful alignment and tightening of the line from pump to injector is required. Tighten both ends in small increments and wriggle them to ensure they align correctly.
Those bakelite washers under delivery valve holders also gave me pain. Not sold as a separate Lister spare, and I had to shop round till I found a fuel injection shop that did
not want to include them in the price of a pump re-build. You need to see the guy in the back of the shop who services pumps and he will have a bag of them in his drawer.
As Dieselgman says, replace those Dowty washers while you are in there. Regards,
         Combustor.

Hi Gippslander,
                   No chance of a backfire when cranking a prpoerly timed diesel in the right direction. If cranked too slowly it may bounce back off compression, but will not generate enough compression heat to actually fire, or "backfire" in the way that a poorly timed petrol engine will. Think you would have to crank a 'roid backwards at considerable speed to get it firing, as timing would be less than ideal.
         Have seen older multicylinder truck diesels run in reverse when rolled or towed backwards when in a forward gear and that's a bit frightening. Newer rotary pumps are built to shut off when reversed.
          Am sure your 'roid will start much easier when it has bedded in and has a few working hours under its belt. Load it to near capacity once you are sure all is OK with it. A multigrade oil will help cold cranking.
          Combustor.