You Tube Vids

[ronmar]

Well Quinn, at least you are not replying to yourself under a different user name:)

I think another term for him would be "snake-oil" salesman, as his 100,000 hour longevity claim was unrealistic(and unsubstantiated) to say the least.  You know, the kind of guy who would have been tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail back in the old west...

God bless the internet. A new IP, New service provider and you can completely re-invent yourself...

[Quinnf]

Yeah, well, look at the persona he's taken on now.  From the front page of website.  Kind of leaves me speechless:


New WCAEAPS 2012 Rates for NON-WCAEAPS customers:
Shop time is $75.00 per hour.
Telephone time is charged by 1/4 hour ($25.00 per 15 minutes). You must purchase telephone time by going to our support page and ordering telephone time. Someone will call you once WCAEAPS has received payment.
Emails are no longer Free, I receive hundreds of emails everyday and it's eating up my time to make money, so if you want my help I need to see some green. Same rates as for telephone time.
YouTube Videos are Free
Donations are always welcome and helps keep the videos on YouTube Free


Thank you for your support,
Willem

[fabricator]

What a Richard head. What the heck does wecaps stand for anyway? This guy definitely has delusions of grandeur.

[Fred]

Perhaps he is not seling any of his high dollar engines,  now he is charging for his bs.
                                                                                                                      Fred

[fabricator]

I just found his website, $7000 for a 20/2.

[ronmar]

What a Richard head. What the heck does wecaps stand for anyway?

"Willem C. Andree Engines And Power Systems"

[fabricator]

The one video of the engine running in the snow is pretty impressive Looks like it's in a junkyard.

[AdeV]

I think another term for him would be "snake-oil" salesman, as his 100,000 hour longevity claim was unrealistic(and unsubstantiated) to say the least.

I think it's worth bearing in mind that 100,000 hours represents approximately 11 years 5 months of 24/7 running. Willem has been promoting his engines as "100k hour without maintenance" for as long as I've been interested in Listers (at least 3 years), and I'm not aware of any engine oil that's capable of such abuse. Even "sealed for life" gearboxes wouldn't take 100k hours of running without an oil change, I'd be willing to bet.

Anyway, it's all good fun to point and laugh; but I'd be willing to bet that any well fettled Listeroid, or any well looked after Lister, would easily do 100k hours & more with MINIMAL maintenance (regular new bearings, oil, and probably various gears at some point) - but I would absolutely not like to guarantee that...

[dieselgman]

Lister published a recommendation that their engines not be run more than 1,000 hours without doing a full decarb. This would be considered 'major maintenance' by most here, not that it is difficult to perform though.

I remember dealing a bit with Willem on the phone and talking about his operations... he sounded like a very nice well-meaning fellow. However, he did not answer any of my key questions with credible answers and claimed that HIS engines were EPA appproved and that "it was very easy". End of transaction! needless to say!

dieselgman

[Apogee]

I have to give Willem credit where credit is due; he is the ONLY one that I've seen that appears to understand the idler gear failure issue.  I've been perplexed by the theories of stress risers from the punch marks causing the gears to fail.  The crankshaft alignment issue that he mentions in one of his vids makes sense to me and is right on target imho.

The other thing that he mentions in a different vid is how the crankshaft gears are often not aligned properly from a timing perspective because they're not keyed on the crank.  While he doesn't mention it, if that crank gear is off it could cause valve contact with the piston which would in turn load the gear train and could cause the idler gear failure.

The other thing that could cause the gear failure is if the deck clearance is improperly set.

Finally, in a different vid he shows two cam gears one of which has the timing marks incorrectly located off by one tooth.  Besides causing the engine to run poorly, it could also cause piston/valve contact and subsequent idler failure.

I've been puzzled for a long time about the idler gear failure issue because it simply hasn't made sense to me.  The camshafts in these motors simply don't have much of a load on them - certainly not enough to break gear teeth.  Nothing even remotely close to the stresses that a V8 camshaft sees, and yet we've seen this idler gear failure rear its head over and over especially on the twins.  However, factor in piston to valve contact due to a mis-aligned crank gear and it would certainly make sense.

To his credit, Willem's explanation makes sense.

Flame away... (and no, I'm not him and have never met him)

Steve

PS - I do wish he'd lose the BS quotient as he clearly has knowledge from years of working on these engines.  I have to give the guy credit for not being afraid to take chances to try new things attempting to improve them.

[BruceM]

Gross misalignment of the gears is an issue, including idler gear binding against the case and this has been identified by others, including George B., freely and publicly long before Old Style Listers.

The far more common problem is that of grossly excessive idler gear lash, which is a consistent problem, well researched and documented by Dave (XYZer) many years ago. Rajkot continues to produce cases with the idler and camshaft locations relative to the crank way off the mark compared to the Lister design.

[ronmar]

The far more common problem is that of grossly excessive idler gear lash, which is a consistent problem, well researched and documented by Dave (XYZer) many years ago. Rajkot continues to produce cases with the idler and camshaft locations relative to the crank way off the mark compared to the Lister design.

Second that!

Steve, take a piece of Rakjot cast iron and start tapping it with a ball peen hammer.  Eventually it will crack and crumble.  The improperly positioned idler allows too much slop or gear backlash in the camshaft drivetrain.  Every time a cam lobe passes past it's peak, it unloads the geartrain, and on a slow speed engine, the cam may actually overrun the drive gears for a very brief period.  This change in load is passed back thru the idler gear to go from being loaded in one direction to being loaded in the other, again for a very brief period.  If the gears are not meshed tight enough due to poor idler placement, this allows the gear teeth to tap back and forth several times per power cycle.  Eventually, if the backlash is great, this "tapping" takes it's toll on the cast iron idler causing it to fail.  Put in a bronze idler, and they don't fail.  The bronze is more malleable and withstands the tapping better.  The proper fix is to set the backlash/gear mesh correctly, and the easiest way to do this with a case that is incorrectly drilled, is with a machined offset idler.  I was ammazed at the difference in geartrain noise when I installed one of Dave's offset idler bolts.  There was a huge reduction in noise when running.   

[Horsepoor]

His videos really are rather entertaining, I found many of them interesting too. But it very difficult to filter out all his excessive BS. I wonder how many new comers to the listeroid world will be misled by this false engine “profit” (misspelled on purpose). An engine running 24 hours / day for one year = 8,760 hours - Now if it runs for 10 years nonstop = 87,600 hrs. If he averages a quart of fuel an hour that means he has burned somewhere around 22,000 gallons or something like $60,000 or more worth of fuel. Sure – I’ll bet. And, I have never heard of a verified owner of one of his 100,000+ hour engines that he claims to mass produce at $20,000.

Too bad his physician(s) can’t find the correct combination of psychotropic drugs so he could return to reality and the forum(s) as a productive member of society. Too bad, because I find some his ideas thought provoking. For example, I have several old bearing shells purchased by in 2005 as spares sitting on the parts shelf, as do several of my nearby friends. Can anyone advise as to his claims of copper reinforced bearing shells being much better or having any merit or have I been misled by a false listeroid prophet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xai0Zne4IiM&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

[Quinnf]

Notice he's got the comments disabled in his vids. 

A while ago some of us were puzzled as to why Jack Belk's (Hotater) long-running 6/1 was destroying upper bearing shells.  After several changes, the general consensus was that the oil film was failing between the crank pin and the upper bearing every time there was an ignition event.  The slots milled in the bearings that were intended to ensure oil was distributed evenly across the width of the crank pin/bearing interface were actually providing a low-resistance pathway for the oil to exit the bearing.  So after much discussion finally John Ferguson (God bless him!) had the temerity to ask, and then insist, and then insist very firmly that he wanted his upper bearings to be made without the slots in them.  When the first ones came in, John, who was (is?) running long hours on his 'roids and Jack, who at the time was around 25,000 hours, though not on all original parts, tried the new bearings and announced the problem was solved. 

It wasn't the materials the bearings were made from, it was the way they were grooved.  Probably those grooves would work fine on an engine with a drilled crankshaft, but on a 'roid, you need all the help you can get to make sure your parts get lubed.

Quinn

[BruceM]

Thanks, Quinn.  I should have remembered to credit Hotater (Jack B) on the bearing issue, as well as John F. I think Bob G was an important technical contributor to the grooveless upper shell, hollow tube dipper fix as well.  I'm running my 6/1 on XYZer's hollow dipper, 55 mil offset idler bolt, and JohnF's bearing shells. 

My only wear gripe is that even after finding the black sand and grease under the crown of the piston, I still have a minor unlocated sand source, my bearings show some sanding (not major) and I have been replacing them every 3rd oil change (600 hrs). This despite the big door gravity fed oil filter box, which I re-stuff with cotton rags every oil change. (Inspired by Hotater's original big door filter.)  Note that my 6/1 is an older Metro, which has no lower oil bath, so there's no place for grit to settle away from the splash dipper.  The oil capacity is 3.5 quarts.

So I wish I'd done as Quinn did, and stripped the the case in a lye bath, then glyptol'd it.  I had flushed and poked and inspected my case carefully, but I guess there was hidden treasure under the green paint somewhere that I missed.