Name that Lister

[Quinnf]

Wife and I sold the house under the big drippy trees in Gig Harbor, Washington and found one we liked better on Fox Island on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound.  The groj is about 1200 sq. ft with lots of room for a shop, which I'm slowly working on completing.  Being on the island, lots of houses have emergency generators.  This one was no exception.  It came with a Lister genset.  Twin cylinder engine coupled to a 7.5 kW generator bolted to a heavy steel plate frame with integral fuel tank. 

As you can see from the pic, it's been slathered with blue paint even the rating plate, so I can't tell what model the engine might be.  I'm considering gently stripping the paint on the plate but I thought someone might recognize the engine. 



Here's a closeup of the rating plate on the generator:



The engine sounds to be running fairly slowly; perhaps 1200 or 1800 rpm.  But it makes enough noise to wake the dead even under light load.  I have both of my 6/1s stored  in the groj/shop.  Might end up selling one since we're well covered for the usual and run and heat the shop with the other one just because.

Any help identifying the engine would keep me from possibly ruining the engine rating plate with chemical paint stripper.

Quinn

[millman56]

Looks like an ST2, good bombproof motor. You can always recognise these by the cutout corners on the rocker covers at the decompressor ends.

Mark.

[veggie]

Sure looks like an SR2 to me  (Looks identical to mine).
The Blue rating plate in your picture probably refers only to the generator head information.

veggie

[Quinnf]

Yes, everything's blue, isn't it?  But some genius slathered blue paint right across the engine rating plate, which I didn't bother to photograph.  I suppose I could gently take some stripper to it, but I'm afraid I'd bugger the rating plate, which I'd like to preserve if at all possible.  

Now that I look at a couple pics, I see what you mean about the corner cut off the ST-2 valve covers.  The pic below
which says it's an SR-2, has square valve covers, whereas the others I looked up that said they were ST-2s clearly had the cutout in the corner. 

So I'll take that to mean that, lacking more conclusive evidence, it's an ST-2 with 18 hp at 1800 rpm driving a 4-pole genny.

 


Thanks!

Quinn

[Hugh Conway]

ST 2 it is then, my SR2 looks like the one in the boat, except it belt drives a generator also originally 7.5KW, but at some point was replaced by a 9.4KW Newage/Stamford. Also has blue paint on everything (over the original green). Fortunately the painter masked the data plates on mine.
Cheers,
Hugh

[dieselgman]

Absolutely correct! Great little engines.

dieselgman

[listard-jp2]

Looks like an ST2, good bombproof motor. You can always recognise these by the cutout corners on the rocker covers at the decompressor ends.

Furthermore, from the look of the cast iron flywheel housing, its an anti-clockwise rotation version.

[dpollo]

 Your blue machine looks just like my ST2.  I am not far from you, on Vancouver Island.
 My machine came from Crown Assets which is a federal government agency which sells surplus equipment. Unfortunately
the alternator did not come with mine so I have belt driven a 5 kw Katolight (also crown assets)  These units were often used
at light houses.  Incidentally, the spin on oil filter is the same as the one on my 87 Dakota 3.9 V 6 and other Chrysler products of that era.

[tiger]

Quinn, For the name plate cleanup you might try a product called Goof Off. I just did the name plate for a 50"s lift jack and the plate came out nice. If the EPA has not outlawed it yet I think you will be pleased. use a paper towel dab the goof off on then wipe with dry cheese cloth one layer of paint at a time. Warning the fumes will knock you out! Be sure to do it in a well vented area.
Good luck!

[BruceM]

My Dad used to use half linseed oil and half paint stripper in refinishing antiques- same effect as goof off, you could control exactly how much old finish you removed.

[Quinnf]

I don't know anything about the history of this genset; I suspect it had another life from the look of it.  Bruce, thanks for the tip on Goof-Off.  I have a can somewhere that I've used for that purpose.  It didn't dawn on me to use it to merely soften, not remove, paint like a stripper does.  I'll try it cautiously.   As I recall, it has xylene and acetone in it.  Last I looked Acetone isn't considered a component of photochemical smog, so it's not regulated by you-know-who.  Xylene is supposed to be banned in Kalifornia, but it seems to me I've seen it on a shelf somewhere.  Heck, we can't even get mineral spirits (paint thinner) anymore.  But you can get "brush cleaner" that's made from the same stuff but carries the warning on the can, "Not to be used for thinning paint in Kalifornia."  Kerosene's freely available, though.  Go figure.

q.