First post

[NoSpark]

Hello, I am the proud owner of a new Listeroid sitting in the middle of my garage floor. Its a 6/1 Powerline by Anand I'm hoping to generate power and have fun with. I'm waiting for a price on an ST gen head. Hard to believe I just learned of these engines 6 or 7 weeks ago on YouTube. I was searching alternative fuels and stumbled upon a video of a man I believe in England who was showing off this interesting engine/generator he was running on WVO in a shed behind his house, think he had a laptop graphing its heat output or something. I googled the name of the engine and the rest is history. He could be a member of this forum, if he is, my wife thanks him . I have since watched many videos and read many posts on these engines. Ive got a bunch of newbish questions and hopefully some good answers, ideas and opinions. Ive been a mechanic for over twenty years.

Newbie Question #1: The inside of the crankcase is very clean, I wiped around it with a rag.(its already been "Tested" by Powerline) Someone did a pretty good job with a die grinder making the inside smooth but it isn't painted or sealed and has almost no rust. Is it necessary to paint or seal the inside of the case?

[SteveU.]

Greetings NoSpark,
 I have a two month onld Anand/Powerline too and faced this very same question.
My opinion is all cast iron crankcases would benifit from a smoothing coating of high temperature oil proof paint. This allows the oil to drain back down quicker and allows better/quicker cleaning and inspection of the crankcase. Also any area that would have enough casting pourousity to bleed through oil would be sealed. But even given all of this I still haven't painted mine YET.
It had enough oil and splash in it it would have needed a complete teardown and degreasing to allow the paint to stick. And as I live in a humid martime climate it was already beginnig to rust up inside in the nonoil spashed areas. So I thoroughly oil washed, scraped, picked, brushed and wiped out the interior and am running it untill it gives me a reason to compleatly tear it down. Then I WILL work over the inside and all interior pieces with an air powered needle descaler BEFORE I paint. The most difficult area to do was up inside the crown of the piston. Just like a gun barrel I didn't stop untill the WHITE lint free rags came out not blackened anymore.

A personal choice. A personal responsibility. A personally assumed risk.

By the way do Not Paint aluminum parts that cannot be seen: too much thermal expansion and contraction will ussually cause paint failure.
                                       
ALL myown opinons.
Steveu.

[ronmar]

Welcome NoSpark. 
  Have you seen the Utterpower website, www.utterpower.com ?  Lots of good info there on listeroid setup and ST heads. There is even more on the CD he sells.  On the website, I would reccomend looking at the kit engine build articles by Quinn.  Excellent info on the areas to look at in these engines for potential problems.

I am driving my ST-5 using one of Georges Serpentine pullies, and I like it.  Runs very smooth!  In fact,it was the only thing in my generator build that was a direct bolt on, and required no modification, fabrication or customization to suit my needs.   If you don't mind sharing, in what part of the country are you located?

As for paint, I agree with Steve that due to the porosity of the cast iron, it will weep oil if not throughly coated inside.  Also you don't want it rusting inside and perhaps contaminating your lube oil do you?  Some spots in my case were without paint, and I removed quite a bit in looking for sand.  At some point I did not completely re-coat the inteior and have a slight weep of oil from my 6/1.  One of the really good ideas I saw here was the incorporation of a inexpensive sheet metal drip pan into my generator mounting.  You can get them at most any auto parts store or even wallmart.  They are about 3/4" deep and come in at least 2 sizes.  I drilled 4 holes in it and sandwitched it between the engine base and the generator frame.   

[contaucreek]

When I reaasemble my 6 I was thinking about a small magnet or fridge magnet in the sump to hold worn metal particulate. Any thoughts ?

[oliver90owner]

Hi Paul,

The mention of fitting magnets came up recently on another thread.  I said Ok to get an idea of if there is wear but if you expect to collect more than that which almost settles on it you will be disappointed.  I would think the fines will settle all over the floor of the sump.  If it was a fully pumped system, there might be more flow and strategically placed magnets would do a good job, but so would a filter.....

Regards, RAB

[NoSpark]

To be honest I was hoping the engine would have looked like a piece of !@#$ so as to give me a good reason to tear it down immediately, I know what lies beneath that thick green paint and there are some obvious issues but it just looks better than I had expected. I think once I get it mounted and run it for a little while I'll be more content to tear it apart and give it a good going over and maybe paint the inside of the case. The outside paint job is so thick I can't imagine oil coming through it. I live in the middle part of the state known for its lobsters and its already feeling like winter. Yes, I've  been to Utterpower many times and I plan on getting the CD.

Speaking of magnets, in my engine there is already a magnet mounted to the end of the pickup screen in the sump that goes to the oil pump. I think that is a pretty good detail.

[horsefly76]

Welcome No spark!

About 1 month after I stumbled across Rocketboy's video of his Listeroid twin on youtube I had a Metro 6/1 sitting in the center of my checker board garage floor 

You will find a video of it running on youtube somewhere under "Aaron" via a myspace video

It is a enjoyable fun/practical engine that you get to do some R&R/ TLC to. I find the metro 6/1 very relaxing to listen to and work on.

[NoSpark]

Welcome No spark!

About 1 month after I stumbled across Rocketboy's video of his Listeroid twin on youtube I had a Metro 6/1 sitting in the center of my checker board garage floor 

You will find a video of it running on youtube somewhere under "Aaron" via a myspace video

It is a enjoyable fun/practical engine that you get to do some R&R/ TLC to. I find the metro 6/1 very relaxing to listen to and work on.

Hey Horsefly, saw your videos, Nice! You obviously wasted no time fueling and starting that thing up(still on the pallet on the trailer). Is this in a garage that's attached to your home? LOL at the "tree hugger" comment.

[horsefly76]

Hey Horsefly, saw your videos, Nice! You obviously wasted no time fueling and starting that thing up(still on the pallet on the trailer). Is this in a garage that's attached to your home? LOL at the "tree hugger" comment.

 Yes the garage was attached to the house. We are in an app for now. The house was being rented and the owner decided to sell it.

 No I didn't wast any time lighting the fire. I work on diesel generators and battery powered aerial equipment all day every at work but this was very different. I felt like a little kid with a new toy

 I just seems right to have a diesel engine and a bank of batteries in the garage. Have a few solar panels and shopping for a wind generator right now. Have 10 2 yr old trojan T-105's from work and 7 C&D Tech DCS 100L AGM's that I bought from the Interstate battery dealer next door to work. 

 The AGM batteries were 6 months old so could not be sold as "new" so were sold as "used/reconditioned"   I paid $160 for the 7   Helps to be in good with the manager and the office lady

 Don't plan on going "off grid" but would like to provide most of my electricity.   Had to put the project on hold for a bit as the wife has a bun in the oven (It's a boy )

Aaron.