Compression Ignition

[bc.gold 3,399]

I recently purchased a Kohler 6.5 kw 3 phase generator with a ST2 Lister diesel engine, previous owner ran it low on oil. I've drained what little of it there was and found a lot of metallic particles, so to be on the safe side I'm going to disassemble the bottom end, mic the crank journals to see if I can get away with just a polishing with standard bearings.

 

I'll go with name brand Clevite or Federal Mogul engine bearings,

 

The generator was still on my truck when I went to the local station for gasoline for the truck and the guy there said diesels are hard to start in the cold, told him not real diesel that have high compression. The Lister is 23.5:1.

 

In addition to being high compression the engine has an unusually odd looking cold starting aid, screwed into the intake manifold are two brass cups. You remove the caps from these and fill them with oil, that oil finds its way into the cylinder decreasing the volume of cc's inside the cylinder thus raising the compression further.

 

Ingenious engineering

 

Each cylinder is equipped with an injector but the unusual thing is each injector has its own individual fuel pump each of which is operated by independent lobes on the camshaft. The same cam that opens and closes the valves in the cylinder head.

 

The ST2 is an air cooled engine, each of the cylinders are held to the block via stay bolts one end screwed into the block with the upper ends passing through the cylinder head, each cylinder has an independent head.

 

The forged steel crankshaft with machined counterweights that are affixed via cap screws, I suspect that Lister used the same crank on several different models of engines by simply changing to the counterweight needed.

 

Engine is full oil pressure fed, the oil pump is of the plunger type operated via a camshaft lob as well. The camshaft protrudes from the engine and doubles up as a PTO shaft running at half the engine speed.

 

 

Edited October 8, 2018 by bcgold

[bc.gold 3,399]

Every outdoorsman should have one of these.

 

 

[bc.gold 3,399]

If by chance you acquire one of the following Lister models LD, SR or the ST that is seized access to the connecting rod caps is accessible through a removable side plate.

 

Once I had removed the caps I discovered that the cylinder would not fully lift free of the engine block, the big end of the connecting rod will not pass in between the counterweight only enough space for the I-beam of he rod to swing through while running.

 

The LD2 twin was purchased for parts, I figure the nozzle in the injector could be fitted with a larger one to accommodate the larger horse power of the SR2. Anyhow the block had a large crack on the crankcase that someone had filled with epoxy so in my opinion the bottom end of the engine was scrap. 

 

I used a zip cut to remove some of the block to give the connecting rod clearance to be brought up through the top end. I wanted to save the crankshaft.

 

Had the block been in good condition I would have made a plate with four threaded holes that would have fit around the bottom of the partially lifted cylinder. Essentially it would have looked like a bearing splitter.

 

Next I would have machined from plate steel a cylinder cover that would have been secured to the splitter via four stay bolts, a grease zerk fitted into the top plate, The with a grease gun pump grease into the cylinder pushing the piston down and out of the cylinder.

 

I've used this method on a Wisconsin VH4D, just had to make a dummy cylinder head and release the valves before proceeding with the grease. In later rebuilds found that the pistons were cheap enough to replace that by drilling holes onto the tops of the seized piston they could easily be broken with the bits falling into the crankcase.

 

 

[bc.gold 3,399]

Piston and cylinder assembly removed from Lister a thin copper gasket is used to seal the head to the cylinder.

 

Top ring on piston is chrome, special cylinder honing is required when using chrome rings.

 

Edited October 8, 2018 by bcgold

[bc.gold 3,399]

More cool stuff about the Lister diesel, I found the service manual for the ST2 that I have attached to a 6kw generator, the manual also covers the SR1,2 and 3 cylinder engines and the LR1 and LR2 which was mostly used as a marine application.

 

Both the SR and LR engines share some basic parts, like crankshaft and bearings, probably find that more parts will interchange as this project moves along. After purchasing the SR2   about a week or so later I found a LR2 which was seized. I ended up bringing it home.

 

On the page blow they give the leakage and pop off pressure for the injectors, what really cool is that your using the injector pump on the engine to perform these tests.

 

 

Edited January 24, 2019 by bcgold

[Pullstart 59,687]

Is it common for these to run low on oil?  Is it blow by, or leaking?

[bc.gold 3,399]

4 hours ago, pullstart said:

Is it common for these to run low on oil?  Is it blow by, or leaking?

 

Mostly through neglect will an engine run low on oil, in this incident the previous owner had moved the generator set with a fork lift damaging the pipe thread on the extended external oil drain.

 

This web page on dating your Lister had long ago been removed but was able to retrieve an archived copy from archive.org, for those of you looking for older files now missing from the Wheel Horse forum you just might still be able to find them.

 

Also it might be in the best interest of some of the WH members following a popular topic to submit a link to the archive site, preserving the topic for future reference should it be deleted or lost during routine maintenance. https://web.archive.org/web/20080704065759/http://www.oldengine.org/members/diesel/Technical/dating5.htm

 

An internal look at an SR3 Lister, http://www.mykaskin.eclipse.co.uk/pics/ListerSR3/index.html

 

 

 

 

[bc.gold 3,399]

Now that the Petter PJ is on place and wired, waiting on a power outage. I now have some free time on my hands, I have started to investigate the bottom end bearings on that first Kohler generator that has a Lister ST2 attached.

 

Very easy access to the connecting rods, so far a close examination of the image does not show any damage to the face of the thrust bearings. In the first image far right hand side you can see that the bearing material has not been scuffed away.

 

And the lobes on the camshaft look decent.

 

Tomorrow will see if there's excessive end play on the crankshaft.

 

A closer look at the generator tag says that it's 8.5 KW generator.

 

No wonder Lister and Petter have a solid reputation, full pressure oil system and three main bearings.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2019 by bcgold

[bc.gold 3,399]

Using the formula below my Petter generator has maximized available horse power to KW capable of being generated while the Kohler plant with a 15 horse power engine used to generate 8.5 KW enables the Lister to handle this at a leisurely pace.

 

As for benefits using more horse power than required the air cooled engine would never be over taxed. allowing it to run cool with possible savings in fuel consumption.

 

I suspect the Kohler generator was a military spec.

 

One horse power (1 hp) equals 0.75 kilowatt i.e. 20hp x 0.75 = 15kW