ok Guy where do i start?
me thinks you paint with a broad brush and very thin paint!
please don't try and gloss over my efforts to discuss this topic by stuffing me into a preconceived group of folks that you
find tedious to converse with.
i may have taken an opposing side to the arguement, but i would appreciate learning what i can from the discussion, perhaps others will learn a bit in the process.
the way i figure an arguement (discussion not fistfight) is, it is made up of components. i am not likely to accept an arguement without first analyzing each of those components. bottom line each component of an arguement has to hold its own, or "wash" so to speak.
before i go any further, i would also like to go on the record and state
a. i am no more a cheap bastard than the next guy, but... just because something costs more is no measure of quality
b. i had no blind spots to the limitations of an indian lister, believe me here, i have enough experience to fully understand what i was about to purchase. i knew up front that the likelyhood of one of these running anywhere near 50k hours much less 100k hours was a longer shot than winning the lottery.
c. i have stated many times before that the things typically are a 95% proposition, in that they should be blueprinted and balancing is certainly a part of blueprining any engine.
d. (now the hard ball) the original listers were a series of comprimises and anyone that takes the position that they are the
next coming of christ is out of their minds. are they vastly better than an indian copy? certainly!
now i fully realize i have probably pissed you off with (d) above, if so i am partially sorry
now back to the subject.
"1/ Listers have been making these (and other stationary engines) longer than you or I or anyone else can shake a stick at, they went bust because the world changed, and nobody wanted to buy stuff that was built to last at least a human lifetime any more, plus the world changed and everyone went on grid in the developed world which basically eliminated the domestic and near market. Note well, neither of these are changes in engineering or physical properties.... to a certain extent Listers were a buggy whip factory, they still made some of the best quality and craftsmanship buggy whips in the world, but everyone was driving cars..."
this is a fair statement and i would agree
"2/ All engineering is compromise, designing an object is no less of one just because that object is expensive, you need to understand that Lister CS engines were designed to literally last a lifetime, no corners were cut with this criterion, but even so there is still more than one way to skin a rabbit. The Lister factory was down a small lane in hilly english country, and products were shipped by taking them to the local railway station where they were literally manhandled, so shipping weight and size were an issue, and included in the price was a Lister engineer coming to your premises to comisssion the engine."
i would agree to most of this statement, with the exception of... "no corners were cut with this criterion"
corners may not have been cut, but there was certainly an evolution in the engine, most particularly big end oiling.
"3/ That compromise meant it made practical sense to specify that a ton+ of concrete was poured at the installation site, instead of adding a ton of iron to the engine at the factory. There is nothing wrong with this practice, but it means you have to accept the Lister CS was designed from the ground up to be mounted solidly to a very large block of concrete, you can do anything you like, but unless you do as Lister intended you are straying away from their tried, tested and true recipe for a lifetime of reliable service"
i have no reason to fault this statement, seems reasonable that it was far easier, more expedient, chearper, and predictable using the one ton block of concrete. but....
this does not negate my arguement re: the design, fabrication and implimentation of a steel superstructure with "rubber" mounts. So far you have made the assersion that it is the wrong thing to do, without supporting your position. perhaps you could direct me to some documentation that lister in its wisdom made recommedations against this approach, based on their research and testing.
"4/ You lot are not running Listers, you are running clones where corners have been cut solely to save money, Lister plain bearing mains give a very soft, smooth and cushioned ride to the crank, tapered rollers give an unyeilding hard ride to the crank, I cannot quantify how this changes things without experimentation and a lot of analysis of a Listeroid, which I have never laid eyes or hands on, but clearly it will make a difference. There are other important differences throughout too, and they all add up. The CS design camshaft experiences very light loads, low RPM, mild cam profiles, soft valve springs, and the injection and oil pumps draw negligible torque. It may be that were a proper analysis done we would see that a combination of all these factors, plus the lack of a proper mounting, are directly responsible for all these camshaft idler failures."
no we are not working with listers, but copies i agree.. we can all speculate on the rest, but i would suspect it has more to do with quality control of the metallurgy more than any other factors.
"5/ I stand by everything I said, get and read the books I listed, this isn't pie in the sky, it is fact."
i have no doubt these are excellent books on the various subjects covered, but do they source lister development in particular? also....
it would seem your contention is that the clone engines are having serious failures such as broken crankshafts etc., to date i am unaware that they have serious failures and flaws. further...
without evidence of a sufficient number of failures attributed to vibration i see no reason to spend alot of time researching topics such as those covered in your suggesting reading list. what we are talking about here is the mitigation of the transfer of these vibrations to other structures. to summarize
if i have a 1500 dollar listeroid, running on a one ton block, which would i rather sacrifice (using the resilient mounting method)? possible engine longevity (which has not been proven to be shortened by the use of properly designed rubber mounting) or damage due to cracking of my use of stucco in the surrounding structures, namely my home... really its not a hard one to decide for me,,, i would gladly kill an original lister with zero hours fresh out of the crate at 10k hours than have issues with the house.
all of this assumes that your assertion that resilient mounting will shorten the life of a lister/oid, which i will ask again for support of that position, where is the beef?
"5/ I stand by everything I said, get and read the books I listed, this isn't pie in the sky, it is fact."
sorry here, but stating something as fact doesnt make it fact. most especially when used in such a broad sense.
again break the arguement into its components, support each, and then i will accept each component as fact. i don't think
this is being unreasonable... am i?
"6/ What is coming through now in your post, and what has been evident in everyone else's post, is their true motivations, your primary concern is not actually doing it properly so your grandkids can have a running engine as Lister intended, you ma say you want that, but in fact 5 or 10k hours will do you, so your primary concern is personal comfort and freedom from vibration and noise."
yes, you are spot on here, 10k hours will do me just fine,, personal comfort is a minor consideration, freedom from destructive vibration transferred elsewhere is of paramount importance.. but
your assertion that there is only one way of doing it right, seems a bit narrow sighted... i summarily reject the assertion that there is only one way of doing anything "right" .... "right" is a relative term, right for you and right for me can be diametrically opposed,,, then steps in another guy with his "right".... who is wrong? neither you or i, or the other guy. we are all "right" if the end result suits each individual need,,, no?
"/ Put your other hat on and you know you have customers who claim they want the job done properly, but who actually want the job done cheap and fast, this makes sense because we have a forum here full of people who think 1200 bucks is a lot to pay for a diesel engine, nobody here is going to shell out for an Arrow. I rest my case. You have all bought cheap, relatively crap, knock off copies of an original classic, deep down you all know this and know you aren't going to get 100k hours out of your engines, but nobody wants to admit they are a tightwad."
I AM A TIGHTASS,, OKAY I ADMIT IT...
on this engine,,, but you might be pleasantly surprised at another of my projects, that would give the SOM a hell of a run for its money. further....
this statement doesnt take away from my assertion that i can rubber mount a lister/oid and make it live as long as if bolted to a ton of concrete.
"8/ Insofar as the clones have departed from the original Lister design, you still, IMHO can't go wrong with doing everything possible to get as close as you can to the originals, and that means mount them on a ton of crete. Especially with the other clone shortcomings such as roller mains etc."
agree'd blueprint to lister standards, balance to lister standards,,, and i you like mount it on a ton of concrete, or...
engineer a superstructure with resilient mounting. until i can see some documentation that plainly states resilient mounting properly engineered is going to kill the engine it is not fact!
"9/ If you don't want vibes then you shouldn't have bought a 1.5 litre single cylinder diesel, now you've got one on the cheap there is no good compounding the self delusion about the quality of the engine by a further self delusion that rubber mounting it is any kind of quality work, even if it does make for human comfort.... I'm wondering how many of you are embarrased at how your listeroid thumps?"
don't get me started on this one,,, i currently own approx 27 various diesel engines from 3.5 hp to 28 hp,
also i am not suggesting that one should take a poorly assemble cheap copy, that is horribly out of balance and try to overcome these shortcomings with rubber mounts... what i have said is blueprint/balance it first....
"10/ If you want human comfort you should not have bought a Listeroid, which is a clone of a Lister, which was a COMMERCIAL product, not intended for domestic use, costing as it did more than many houses of the day."
here again cost has nothing to do with quality. and again human comfort was a secondary or less consideration at least for me. still skirts the issue of the discussion.
"11/ Starting from where you are all actually at, my suggestion is the following.
a/ Suck it down and accept you did not 100% understand the nature of what you were buying into, it was a learning process"
i fully understood up front exactly what i was buying, and that was a kit engine, assembled by a bunch of folks in a sand pit, sitting on the floor, built as cheaply as they could do it.
i have worked extensively with very well engineered diesel engines of various manufacture, i know quality when i see it, and conversely i know substandard when i see that as well.
"b/ Suck it down and accept you bought a cheap copy built down to a price, and do what you can to bring it back to spec."
of course,,, yup sure did... and sure as heck will do what is needed to bring it to an acceptable level of spec's
"c/ Suck it down and accept the factory knew best, and bolt it solid to a ton of concrete."
no f*ckin way dude! not until i see supporting doc's from lister showing how they tried and failed with resilient mounting
"d/ If you still want a vibration free life, there are plenty of low tech ways of doing it, even 2 tons of Listeroid and concrete will float on a small barge in a small pool dug into the ground, keep it centred with springs and you'll have zero vibration, hydraulic mounting is not new, or you can go the other way, pour your ton+ into a steel box, and mount the whole two tons on some sort of suspension of your choice, trailer springs will do it for you."
if i follow your logic here, then lister failed to engineer their engine properly, in that they needed the added structural support to make them live. can you document that?
"You can all sit back and do nothing and let Mr Belk continue to be your guinea pig, he now has proper mounts, lets see what his experiences are, not theory, but practice."
fair enough,, what will it prove? we all know that concrete works, what we don't know for a fact is that resilient mounting will kill the engine. further..
10 tons of concrete would not have prevented sand distruction to internal components, i cannot see how a ton of concrete would have extended the life of that engine, he didnt break a crankshaft, he just wore out the brgs. are you going to tell me that had he mounted the engine properly as you say to a ton of concrete it would have run many times longer? seriously?
tag! your it
bob g