Progress on the Ruston & Hornsby 1ZHR

[listerdiesel]

Since my last post, we have reversed the mounting of the alternator, re-instated the starter field the 'right' way round, and got the belts and drive all on the same side.

That left us room for the control cabinet which will house the four 6" meters which show battery volts and charge current, output volts and output current. The as yet unpainted 2" X 2" X 1/4" ali angle in the pictures are the mountings for the cabinet's rubber isolators. Two of the re-scaled meters shown below, the original scales were scanned, then digitally modified and then printed on photo-paper and stuck onto the back of the original scales:



We picked up a duplicate set of the very nice Crompton Parkinson meters last week, completely by chance.

Earlier this week we sorted out the rev-counter stand, and today we finally got volts and amps out of the beastie!

Once we were able to flash the generator field with Philip's little variable power supply, we started to see some activity on the voltage side.

At more or less nominal rev's, we were getting 33V, and it appeared that the field resistor was back to front, with too much resistance in the circuit between the brushes and the field.

Once that was changed round, we had 235V on the output, and a load was quickly organised to try the output compensation field.

We had a 1.5kW radiant heater which was a decent starting load, and we dropped 5V when that went on line. Given that we are probably not trimmed up for optimum output, that's fine, and after a few minutes running it has slightly risen in volts.

Battery charging is going to be fine also, there is 36V DC available from the dynamo side of things, and we will have to make up a small regulator circuit that will allow charging of the sealed batteries while limiting their maximum voltage.

Lister used a couple of resistors with a link, so that a high or low charge rate should be selected. That was fine for wet batteries, but not suitable for modern sealed batteries.











That leaves the way open to get the cabinet finished off, and the metering and output circutry wired up.

Peter

[listerdiesel]

More work has been done, I haven't posted all the build/modification stuff, but we had the control cabinet up and wired in, then gave it a run to see how it all worked on load.

The Start-O-Matic alternator ran well, barely warm on a very hot day at 1.5kW load (resistive) no problems with any of the drive belts etc., and we have the luxury of a battery charge as well!











Peter

[cgwymp]

Beautiful setup!  I like the electrical gauges -- are they new or vintage?  (EDIT -- duh!  Just read the earlier posts....)

[Zagato]

What a beauty Peter, and people are telling me not to get a CS because they are too big    Thats a beast of a Discovery you have their as well.........

Chris

[listerdiesel]

Beautiful setup!  I like the electrical gauges -- are they new or vintage?  (EDIT -- duh!  Just read the earlier posts....)

Strange to relate, we picked up an identical set from an ebay vendor, he advertised one which I recognised, and then it turned out that he had the whole set, for for less than $80 I had a duplicate set of meters. Then, he says that he has a THIRD set but later types and square, so he threw them in with the others!

I'm just anchoring the engine, or rather providing a couple of adjustable restraints, as it is creeping along the bed of the main frame under the tension of the drive belt which is driving something on the trolley frame.

We have also added an extra tap to the charge resistance and a 2-way switch, so we have about 1-1/2 amps and 3-1/4 amps charge rates, similar to what Lister did on the Start-O-Matics.

Peter

[listerdiesel]

What a beauty Peter, and people are telling me not to get a CS because they are too big    Thats a beast of a Discovery you have their as well.........

Chris

The 1HR's are the smallest in the range, the 1ZHR is the biggest of the 1HR series. 2HR and above are getting too big to move easily, but I wouldn't turn one down if it came along. 

Peter

[rleonard]

Peter,
What a great project executed with fine workmanship, engineering, and attention to detail.  Congratulations!

Bob

[listerdiesel]

We had a longish run under load today, to see how the temperature rose while on load and on a fairly warm day. Top temperature was 94 Dec C or just over 201 deg F in old money.

We only had 1.5kW loading, as the main objective was to give the engine something to work against, rather than just run it offload and have bore glazing issues.

We also trimmed up the output voltage, we now have 235V.

A bit of maintenance on the oil drain passages produced a lot of rubbish that was blocking the main drain tube, and we also ran a spanner over the ring oiler while the crank guard was off.

The alternator gets mildly warm, only about body temperature, if that. The cooling fan is audible, bit of a drone, but otherwise it has sealed bearings and is virtually maintenance free.

Youtube video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsNfziTsKRc







Peter
 

[rmchambers]

That's a lovely bit of kit you've made there Peter, the only thing missing now is some sort of kettle attachment to brew up a nice cup of tea with all that hot water you've got stored!

perhaps you you can find some screw down feet for it something beefy with Acme square threads that you can steady the whole works and get it off the wheels a bit.

Regards

Robert

[listerdiesel]

It is already sitting on 3pces of 8" X 3" timber on each corner, it bounces too much on the tyres (tires) ! 

We will probably leave it 'as is' for the rest of this year and see what other balancing options we have.

The coolant has OAT additive in it, probably make the tea taste funny! 

Peter

[listerdiesel]

Apologies, I thought that the video editing had produced a single long video, in fact it had separated each chapter into a separate MPEG file, and I had only uploaded the first one to YouTube.

First section:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsNfziTsKRc

Here are the rest of the sequence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXEYG-k6kBc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfuDmkPfsRs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMOKlVANA2Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilzLwhxvFJQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzgYfCTFUhw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ_vqvYoph4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVzRQIQBDqI

Peter

[listerdiesel]

Took the Ruston out to a show over last weekend, here are a couple of pictures.

We did have an internal wire which lost its insulation while getting too close to one of the through-bolts in the alternator, but it's all OK now.





Peter

[Startomatic]

Thanks for sharing your wonderful Ruston project which i have been following the last couple of months. Your passion in setting up this beauty is truly beyond my words.

My 78 years old dad would nod his head with admiration whenever he see those pics of your Ruston. He being an engine driver for many Ruston Genset during his younger days.

warmest regard, swlee aka startomatic from Malaysia or Malaya during the heydays of Lister and Ruston Diesel.

[listerdiesel]

We have converted the rebuild thread on the UK Forum into webpages on our websites, just the rebuild posts and pictures, up to June/July this year. There are over 200 pictures, most of which have not been shown here on listerengine.com.

The links are here:

http://www.stationary-engine.co.uk/Ruston1ZHR/Ruston14.htm

http://www.oldengine.org/members/diesel/Ruston1ZHR/Ruston14.htm

It starts in February 2009, the engine was craned out of its hiding place at the back of the house in December 2008.

Peter

[listerdiesel]

Since our last post we have been designing and building a new trailer, one that will combine the hauling of the Ruston plus living quarters for us while we are away from home, known as a 'Toy Hauler' in the USA I believe.

The design work started last summer, and the actual chassis work was finished in early March. We are waiting for the chassis frame to come back from being shot blasted and Zinc sprayed, then it goes for powder coating.

All of the extrusion sections for the body are here, we just need to order the GRP/Plywood sandwich panels for the sides when we are ready for them.

Pictures below of the finished chassis before we left the fabricators. We spent two and a half days with them, our youngest did a fair bit of the welding with our own industrial MIG set.








Extrusion pile:






Peter