Engine identification SR2 or LR2 or LD2 or SL2

[Chris_DK]

Greetings from rural Denmark and thanks for letting me join in. This is my first post and I am new to Listers and diesels. I have for some time thought about making a homebrewed genset for my homestead and before I long had five aircooled Listers sitting in my barn.
Two of them I think are SR2’s. One of them has no engine ID plate and the other has a rather odd plate, indicating that it may have been produced under licence at a Portuguese producer, but no numbers to indicate model or build year. One of them came with a lister gear
I hope you guys can give me a hint as to which design details reveal the true model and year of these two engines.

Engine 1(my guess is SR2)
Fixed rpm
Cast in crank case: 202 50012
CW rotation
It has inlet cold start cups
Says “Lister Diesel” on rocker covers
Engine ID plate says:
“Metalurgica Duarte Ferreira
AV. Dom Carlos (21??)
Lisboa Portugal”
As far as I can see Metalurgica Duarte Ferreira was a Portuguese farm equipment manufacturer that employed 800 workers at its peak. The company existed from about 1900 to 1984.

Engine 2(my guess is SR2M)
Variable throttle and mounted with Lister gearbox with forward and reverse
Cast in crank case: 202 50012
It has inlet cold start cups
CW rotation
Says “Lister Dursley England” on rocker covers

Thanks

[dieselgman]

Marine SR2 as far as I can see. We don't often see the old SRs in clockwise rotation in North America. The raised starter motor is an odd modification, first one I have seen done like that.

dieselgman

[Chris_DK]

Thanks.

I removed the electric starter and the gearbox and handcranked it to life, but definitely not an easy starter, but ran ok on both cylinders once it was running.

Do you have any comment on the one with the portuguese engine ID?

[sirpedrosa]

Hi Chris

Yes Metalurgica Duarte Ferreira was a Portuguese farm equipment manufacturer, colonial war army trucks and other machinery  and a Lister importer from England, for PT market.

Just scratch the paint around and you will find ID plate.

Usualy "marineized" engines are engines that are originaly air cooled and modified to water cooled.

BR
VP

[cobbadog]

Hi Chris and welcome to the Forum the numbers you have posted of 202 50012 would only be a casting number for that component and not the engine number which is what will be needed to date the engines.
As sirpedrosa has posted there should be a id plate ivetted to the engine block and most likely near the fuel pump. If you do find this then be very careful in removing any paint from the plate. The  numbers will be stamped into the plate but the writing telling you the details will be painted in black paint usually. Details on the plate will tell you engine number, model, hp and RPM. Engine number is what is required to date the engine/s.

[Chris_DK]

Thanks sirpedrosa and cobbadog,

I proceeded to the fuel pump/push rod cover plate and had a go at it with fine wet sandpaper - only to find no numbers, so either they have been ground down by previous owner or the rivetted plate fell of at some point.
For now I'll treat them as a SR2 and a SR2 Marine and start figuring out why they start so poorly.

The marine version is almost impossible to start both cold and hot.

The one without gearbox is somewhat difficult when cold, but starts after 3 revolutions of the hand cranking when hot.
Any leads to where I should start first. (New diesel filters and engine oil should arrive any day, but i figure that is not the only problem).

[dieselgman]

Have you tried using the cold-start cups?  Located on top of each intake runner is a plastic cup and plunger. These are designed to boost compression and top lubrication for initial startup - especially when cold. These can help make up for some minor compression loss due to engine wear in cylinders and rings. If the engine is internally clean, then a quick check on valve adjustment is advised.

If your fuel injection tests good, then compression is the next item on the list to confirm. These will not go out of time as far as your pumps are concerned unless someone has tinkered around and changed the shim packs. Knowledge of the machine history will always help in this determination.

dieselgman

[Chris_DK]

First of, the gearbox motor with raised starter setup.
First i bled the fuel system from filter to pumps, though not on the injection pipes. I filled both cups half full of motor oil and cranked before attempting to start it. After several sweaty attemps I filled the cups half with twostroke premix and this fired it up. I has no exhaust manifold and looks like i has quite som residue buildup in the exhaust channel. Also when it ran, it was making a lot of sparks out the exhaust - like fireworks, so I guess the inside of the engine is in need of a decarbonizing at least. I tried to start it again today, but it would not fire. I'll have a look at valve clearance and injectors before I decide to take it apart.

[Chris_DK]

The SR2 without gearbox:
This one has one of the cold start cups blinded. I have used that one cup with motor oil when cold starting. I pulled the rocker covers and checked the valve clearance - which was between 0,7 and 0,9mm, so I adjusted to 0,15 - 0,20mm, which was what I remembered from the manual. When I got back to the manual it said 0,35-0,41 for aluminum push rods, so I'll have to readjust the valve clearence  again. Anyhow, I ran it for about 25 minutes and the mechanical noise seemed significantly reduced.

So measuring compression means I have to pull the injectors and buy or borrow a diesel compression tester? Or can I just unscrew the top of the injector? Anyhow, I should pull the injectors to see if they spray properly.. Are the fuel parts metric thread or some of the funky British threads?

What do you consider healthy compression for an SR2 engine?

Sadly I have no history on the SR2s.

One last question for today. Icant really get my mind around understanding how the fuel overflow pipe from the injectors work and what their purpose is.

Kristian

[dieselgman]

450 psi would be considered fairly "normal" although this is not a spec nor a procedure proferred by Lister for these machines. We sometimes get down to this if we have a balking engine that we cannot get an accurate diagnosis from the usual crankcase vacuum measurement. (i.e. the engine just cannot be started). What you are actually looking for is consistent even compression across all cylinders. 350 psi may be considered enough on one of these very small engines. You cannot test through an injector. Use an adapter made for the purpose.

Injectors should be bench tested for pop pressure, spray pattern, seal and consistency across cylinders. They can be installed inverted onto your engine if you want to confirm fuel pump operation as well, just cannot see as many details when doing it that way.

The leak-off line from top of injector allows the system to be somewhat self-purging of air in the lines. With a new tight perfect injector there may be no fuel bypass at all... with others there may be considerable, but that generally means that there is internal leakage within the injector body. Some CS models actually used a small open container to catch the very slight drip from the injector leak-off. Newer fuel systems route this back into the fuel supply tank or back into the secondary fuel filter as in your SR.

dieselgman

[cobbadog]

I have removed injector/s and inverted them and connected them ack up o the fuel line and cranked the engine over to give me a very rough idea that the nozzle is actually atomising the fuel. But as suggested best way to check is on a pop off tester sothat they can be adjusted if required to the exact pressure required for your engine.
YEs carbon sparks is a good indication of carbon inside and possibly what got it on the move is the 2 stroke oil and not the engine oil.