First lister D, and first time everything else in old engines.

Update,

The main housing is apart, I have the bearings off and cleaned up and I believe they are original as they look like in house markings rather than cross reference friendly.
I think they are originals as the ball retainers are riveted brass.

Looks like R&M or KLJ made them but the numbers 9D3T (outer race) or 9E3T (inner race) make no sense. These were on the big bearing.
The smaller one has 9E3T on the outer and 9F12x on the inner.
Looks like I have a bit of searching work set aside for me.

I know that Stationary Engines has the replacements, but cost for me would be prohibitive to get them here.
I guess I'll have to if I can't find any, but I'll try searching first.

The main assembly came apart easy and gave no problem at all, punching out the bearings was easy also.
The inside of the housing had been dry for a while and the bearings are probably worn because of that, shame, all because of a splash pin. But maybe 86 years of service had something to do with that too.

Next is the governor housing, and that will maybe happen tomorrow as I have the weekend off too.

No pics here as it was pretty straight forward, although I did take a few. If you want to see them just ask.
The pics only show the parts after it was all laid out on the bench.


Time for a sleep soon, cheers, John.

For all my bearings over here I use a guy who's company is called Vintage Bearings (or The Vintage Bearing Company, something like that). I usually just read the numbers to him over the phone & he tells me how much a replacement will be. He seems to know all the different bearings (strange, but true, the man is a walking encyclopaedia of bearings). My dad used him for some obsolete sidecar wheel bearings in the past & what he does is uses a modern bearing with the correct size outer race & machines up a sleeve for the inner race, so no bearing is obsolete to them, they even recondition old bearings (at a price I imagine).

You might try emailing them, he could possibly translate those bearing numbers for you & possibly even give you a price including shipping to Canada.

Shame really, I'm trying to get some bits from Canada to Britain right now, & you want some bits from Britain to Canada. Bloody typical. But I may well be seeing Mr Vintage Bearings this weekend, as I'm off to the Bristol Classic Bike Show (which isn't actually in Bristol), maybe I'll have a chat with him, if he's there?

Anyway, I will look up the company & come back with some details later....

I've found if you take the bearings you have to a bearing specalist store he should be able to sort them out for you without to much hassle and match them up with something he has in stock.

Stu.

Trouble is, some of these very old bearings have numbers which mean different things these days. It almost happened to my dad. When he wanted that obsolete bearing for his sidecar the guy from Vintage Bearings told him if he'd phoned up a normal bearing supplier with those numbers he would have received a completely different bearing.

So, like Stu says, take it to a shop, or ask the man on the phone to describe it to you.

These are the people I use, very helpful & they really know their stuff. (I've used them a few times now, every time I call I don't even finish reading the numbers & the guy tells me what bearing it is)....

http://www.vintagebearings.co.uk/

They ship world wide too, but they may just be able to give you information which you an use over there. It could well still be a commonplace bearing, especially as they still use feet & inches on that side of the pond.

nutgone wrote:For all my bearings over here I use a guy who's company is called Vintage Bearings (or The Vintage Bearing Company, something like that). I usually just read the numbers to him over the phone & he tells me how much a replacement will be. He seems to know all the different bearings (strange, but true, the man is a walking encyclopaedia of bearings). My dad used him for some obsolete sidecar wheel bearings in the past & what he does is uses a modern bearing with the correct size outer race & machines up a sleeve for the inner race, so no bearing is obsolete to them, they even recondition old bearings (at a price I imagine).

You might try emailing them, he could possibly translate those bearing numbers for you & possibly even give you a price including shipping to Canada.

Shame really, I'm trying to get some bits from Canada to Britain right now, & you want some bits from Britain to Canada. Bloody typical. But I may well be seeing Mr Vintage Bearings this weekend, as I'm off to the Bristol Classic Bike Show (which isn't actually in Bristol), maybe I'll have a chat with him, if he's there?

Anyway, I will look up the company & come back with some details later....

Matt, you're priceless mate, Thanks for the info and reply.

I'll try the name and see if any additional info can be had for me.
I am sure I can locate a source over here, and if I do I'll post the info as some of you may want to try elsewhere too.
I have no beef with Stationary Engine for making a living, but one has to try to be frugal in this business of spending money we don't have.
I found another "D" up for sale, but it's a tad rich sofar.
I only want a spare to re-do, at a price I can't refuse as it were.
It's got an interesting head on it and looks like an oddball.

Thanks for the reply, regards, John.

stationary stu wrote:I've found if you take the bearings you have to a bearing specalist store he should be able to sort them out for you without to much hassle and match them up with something he has in stock.

Stu.

Thanks Stu,

I am doing that as we speak, it's how I found bearings for a few antique motorbikes that had individual rollers and retainer cages.
It was a chore and a lot of phonecalls, but it got the job done and one old '39 Harley (61 CI knuckle head), and a '30's Villiers single 250 are purring like kittens again as original. Those bearings were hard to find.

Regards, John.

John,

This may help you, Ihad some time this afternoon, work owed me some time back and i pulled the crank assy apart, like yours no problem.

The bearings in mine are both R&M (Ransome and Marles), one is LJ 1 3/4 (crank end) and the other LJ 1/1/2 , those numbers being the inner dia - no problem to get hold of over here.

Got the head drilled a tapped this aft so its all good

Update,

Found the big bearing from a mate in a shop that makes the mining drill rigs we haul on the trucks.
He says the big one is a common size and he'll probably have it there! "Come and get it" (prices you can afford!!)

The small one may be harder to get, and my machinist mate will take accurate sizes of the small one when I get there today, and will then call some of HIS mates to see if it is obtainable here locally.
If not, the small bearing has wear but is serviceable and can be used again (if all other efforts fail.)

It has less wear than the big bearing which is the fulcrum point and bears most of the load in the first place, the smaller one is just a support for the inner end of the shaft which runs the timing locator and governor spiral and suffers light steady loading only.

I want a new one though if I can, it's why we call it re-storing.

And I get by with a little help from my friends!!!! .
Life is good.

Regards, John.

biomed32uk wrote:John,

This may help you, Ihad some time this afternoon, work owed me some time back and i pulled the crank assy apart, like yours no problem.

The bearings in mine are both R&M (Ransome and Marles), one is LJ 1 3/4 (crank end) and the other LJ 1/1/2 , those numbers being the inner dia - no problem to get hold of over here.

Got the head drilled a tapped this aft so its all good

Geoff,

Good that you got your studs out and done, it's another step in the direction of seeing it all come together.

Thanks for the R&M answer, that clears up the question of who the heck they are for me!, off to write that one down in the book!
Manufacturers other than on the main continent here for people like us who tinker, are not always well known and it sometimes makes it harder to search out the sources we need.

Thanks for the info, cheers mate, John.

John,

Great sounds like you are also getting sorted, the small one is also known as an RLS 12 1.5" ID 3.25" OD and 0.75" wide, i can get a budget one here for £6.69. I would go for a brand myself. then again I have used smaller budget bearings and they are fine, whatever way you its still going to be sensible.

If you are really in the stuck, I am happy to get one here and ship it to you, its not going to cost that much for one bearing and its another option for you, you can paypal me money or what ever.

If I can help I will if you keep going up blind alleys.

Geoff

biomed32uk wrote:John,

Great sounds like you are also getting sorted, the small one is also known as an RLS 12 1.5" ID 3.25" OD and 0.75" wide, i can get a budget one here for £6.69. I would go for a brand myself. then again I have used smaller budget bearings and they are fine, whatever way you its still going to be sensible.

If you are really in the stuck, I am happy to get one here and ship it to you, its not going to cost that much for one bearing and its another option for you, you can paypal me money or what ever.

If I can help I will if you keep going up blind alleys.

Geoff

Hahaha,

That's one blind man leading the other blind man up the blind alley, a good recipe for ending up in the muck without a good pair of boots and no paddle lol.

Thanks for the small bearing info Geoff and especially the offer to send it if i need to do that, I'll search again as my mate hasn't yet and he's gone ice fishing. (Got lots hanging off my eves here for him lol)

We had another 10 inches of snow here, It looks like the North Pole. Been there and didn't take to it much!
Nice weather to be in the shop/livingroom/beer hall rebuilding engines lol.



The icecicles could be a new venture in ice cream sales (flavoured ones) if it was year round. (and it almost is! @ about 5-6 months of the year!)



I am happy not to be out working and dodging cars and people.
I'm quite content to be home piddling with the "D". Living the life of Riley.

Thanks again my friend,

Cheers , John.

Those icicles look amazing, thanks for sharing the photos with us. Glad your Lister D restoration seems to be making good progress, keep up the good work but don't get too cold doing it! If it was me living over there, I think I’d have closed the workshop door by now, put another log or two on the fire, poured myself a large malt whisky and sat and looked through the window at the falling snow!

A Lister wrote:Those icicles look amazing, thanks for sharing the photos with us. Glad your Lister D restoration seems to be making good progress, keep up the good work but don't get too cold doing it! If it was me living over there, I think I’d have closed the workshop door by now, put another log or two on the fire, poured myself a large malt whisky and sat and looked through the window at the falling snow!

Hello Jules,

Everything you said, except the closing of the shop.
I don't know what your work day is like so I can not judge, for myself I ache to be home when I'm out amongst the people aiming for my truck, and so I would do all what you said, but with the doors closed in the house and logs on the fire.
Logs and fire are what heats my place and I have stocked enough so I can stay in for two more years if it wasn't for food, companionship and a post office to retrieve my parts from
My spare bedroom is the mini machineshop and rebuild central. as I live alone and carefree

I went out a bit ago to get a few things in the village, and I had to remove a foot of snow off the pickup truck, and use four wheel drive to get out.
Once back though, the plow man had come and plowed me open again. I hire to do that as I don't feel like it when I get home in the middle of the night and I have to trudge 265 feet through the snow to get in.

It was a circus in the village and quite funny to watch.
Anyway.., The piston is out and that was a chore and I'll show that in the next post to keep things moving in the groove.

Thanks for the reply and I'm glad you enjoyed the view.

Regards, John.

I had planned to take the governor housing off to have a look in there, but I dropped the piston too low in the cylinder and exposed the bottom scraper ring and locked the piston in. .
It bothered me enough to want to attack that first and take it out.

I went at it calm as when I got my income tax return, and found that fat fingers and sore backs don't go together too well, so I had a time with it until I realized that eventhough it is tight in there, the ring will come off with some skin attached if you are careful, which I was
The ring lives!

Getting it out and away from the rod was tricky too as it IS tight in there. Once that was done it was a walk in the park but in the Summer. Here's a shot of the piston, which is good except the head which is not nice. It would seem that it's previous corrosion as one wouldn't think that any one would equip an engine with it being like that, although it surely looks like it was cast as is, maybe a replacement second .



The rod is straight but the bushes are toast and so is the Gudgeon pin which we call a Wrist pin up here. I don't know why we do because we don't have pins in our wrists do we?
The Gudgeon pin is worn as if it was running without any oil as only a Lister can..imagine that , and How would I know I never had any of them before



When I got to checking the clearances on all of the parts, and they do they have it in blessed abundance, the big end is the winner with about 25 thou play



The small end is worn thin and almost through, but stopped just short of ruining the rod bearing face



The splash pin or spike half where it was retained with a split pin did have thread on it and I thought that it may have been made from a bit of threaded rod, but now that I inspected the hole, it is or used to be threaded and the big end bush has the locating hole. ?? Research time!
I thought it was either that a split pin meant no threads or no split pin meant WITH threads. The threaded pin being the bushing locator and splasher at the same time.
Anyway, here's a pic of the elongated hole which will need some beer and contemplating (it goes better with a beer!) as to how to be fixed.



All of this is fixable as no bushing is worn through but one is a few thou from it.
I am happy with it all because it is still an easy restoration job as far as I can tell. Once the gov. housing comes off and I can inspect that last vestige of Demondom, I'll be ready to think my way back to where I started from.

In retrospect; Now I understand where the 1/4 inch ridge came from on the copper head gasket. With the clearances buggered from excessive wear the piston was about to start pounding on the head but didn't. I was lucky again that no further damage was caused, and I can carry on with rebuilding parts that need not be remachined.

This clearance problem may also be responsible for the piston to show a solid uncorroded ring around the top circumference of the head, with the corrosion happily eating up the main face on the one side but inside the ring. Makes sense to me!

Cheers all, John.

Update,
I was wrong on the copper gasket showing a ring caused by piston contact. The head gasket does not portrude into the cylinder for the piston to hit if it were out of tolerance from the bearings being worn. This also shoots my theory of the top of the piston being affected by corrosion in the foot.

The top of the piston looks like it was cast the way it is. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

No matter, as I'll use it and take my chances! J.

Such a shame that so much wear has took place because of an unsuitable repair to the spike and no oil being allowed to lubricate the top end of the engine.
It's not a bad job to do the replacing of bearings but the gudgeon pin could be a little difficult for you to find unless you have one made up. The engine must have knocked a fair bit when it was last run.

Stu.

The early oil dippers had both threads AND a split pin to retain them, obviously they (Lister) decided that the split pin was superflous to requirement and later deleted it. There is a shrunk on steel ring on the big end crankpin that could be worn as well as the bush so that may need replacing, Lister worked on 7 thou clearance but you have slightly exceeded that!

Pete.

Stu, Pete,

Thank you for your interest,

It is no surprise to me with stuff like this happening other than that it amazes me how negectant people can be when it comes to daily routines that take no real effort to accomplish.
Mind you I am no perfect specimen myself but there's a limit to how much can be tolerated!

Back to the little Lister, I think that complacency and very high durability and simplicity of the product in this case led to inattention and more faith than is realistic, and that becoming the daily routine.
Over time it became destructive.

No problem!
It's not to me to keep the world from self destruction
I have a nice example here and it is an older one to boot, which makes me want to give it the chance of rebirth as it were to have it live on a while yet and give pleasure to a few.

All is well with the parts that matter and I will enjoy the effort of restoring as reasonable as I can.

There was a question or two about what was said in the books and what I found.
One being that the grooved oil slinger bushing/ring on the end of the shaft inside the Gov. housing, was said to have a lock ring and a grub screw held in by the lock ring riding in the screw's slot. Mine of course doesn't have that screw nor the hole it would screw in to and the ring only serves as a lock for the bushing.

The other question was as to the split pin holding the splasher in.

As for the Gudgeon pin, I may have one here of the right size, or I can take one that fits and rework the length and fit it that way.
I have a few options that can work short of buying a new one the right size.
If worse comes to worse, I can machine one up and do the hardening in a little home made atmospheric oven I have stored here somewhere.
I hope I have one suitable.

I will attempt to dress the face of the piston, depending on how much is needed to clear it up. A few thou's will not affect the operation of the engine if it can run with two gaskets to accomodate the parrafin idea, but will satisfy me with a balanced piston.
All the little things add up to a big one and cause problems.

My main worry is the oil splash pin at the bottom of the big end, the whole of the engine's function relies on it alone, as is proven with the wear I have come across with failure of that pin.

I need a pic of one or two of them for my own comfort, otherwise I will have to rely on memory of other engines or machinery I have worked with to make one up. I know from the result in my engine that considerable force is excerted on it, having caused its demise, so I need to make sure that this is not going to happen again.

I have sofar ordered all the bushings and some other stuff from Stationary Engine, and hope to be busy with that in a week or two.
In the meantime I can take apart the Gov. housing and clear it of possible gremlins at large.

Lots of fun, and happy to be occupied and learning.

Thank you for the replies,
John.

I will take a pic and measure the oil dipper for you tomorrow, there is no grubscrew in the oil thrower as they came along later!

Pete.

Foden wrote:I will take a pic and measure the oil dipper for you tomorrow, there is no grubscrew in the oil thrower as they came along later!

Pete.

Good to know, and Thanks Pete,
John.

OK...,

Did some running around today and discussed making a new gudgeon pin for my engine after we (my machinist mate and I) did some measuring on it and the piston. The pin that was in there was home made or at least altered from its original dimensions. After that
I wandered though a half dozen sites looking for pins to fit to no avail, so the decision to make a new one was made, and 4130 is the material I'll use as I just happen to have a foot of that sitting here waiting for something at the moment.
The bad thing is that I need the bushes pressed in the rod in order to know the final size to bore and ream as the piston has wear too.
I tried to find a ready made pin that would allow to be cut to size with the ceramic tool, as that would have been a quick and sufficient fix, but I couldn't find one the right dimensions to have it turn out proper.

Waiting is the word (I hate waiting! ) and I will have to until the parts arrive here from Stationary. That's going to take a week or more so I can't do anything to the piston group till that happens.
All I can do at this point is to dress up the piston face to see if it will clean up.

Next after that is the Governor housing, related covers and cranking plate. I wanted that apart too as it is the last major component to check over before I start on re-assembly.

Off to do some more work,

Cheers, John.

Did the piston head cleanup.

It was a bad casting, low grade and porous but no inclusions. It's good enough and this will help fight carbon/coke buildup a bit. Now I can tell what it's done when I peep in through the plug hole.
The main bearings go in when the small one arrives and that will sow up the bearing group.

Now I can feel good about starting the Governor housing takedown, as everything I could do is done.
Here's a pic of the piston cleaned up,



And the way it was,



I took just under 5 thou off, it won't affect compression enough to matter, and I had thoughts of shaving the crank case face too as it has a few rough spots on it as well, but maybe I should leave well enough alone. The gasket will be ample to cover the roughness I should think.

I'll start with the Governor housing disassembly next,

Cheers, John.

Great job cleaning the piston crown and it sounds as if you have most of your parts issuse sorted for now. I hope you manage to get a pin and bushes sorted as they seem to be the most importan job at present.

Stu.

stationary stu wrote:Great job cleaning the piston crown and it sounds as if you have most of your parts issuse sorted for now. I hope you manage to get a pin and bushes sorted as they seem to be the most importan job at present.

Stu.

"At present" was correct Stu ,

I have the Governor housing off and timing case apart, and ran into this,



The spiral or worm gear is made from a brass/bronze alloy looks like and is knackered, but the opposite gear on the timing shaft is made of steel, which is a bad match IMHO.
This steel gear is worn on the power side, but can be dressed up after some brazing as the profile still exists on the off side. The brass gear is probably beyond fixing.



The main timing gears look well on their way also, and they may have to be manufactured new, as those would most likely never come up for sale.



The shaft bushing is bad enough to need replacement as well, so that leaves some out work to be hired and a bushing to be done here as I can do it with what I have for tools and material.

It is a good thing I didn't attempt to start the engine as that could possibly have done the final bit and hurt something major.

The cost of the whole project will be beyond what it would be worth as a repair, but I am a sucker for things that deserve better and this old girl will get the lift she needs to sing and dance again, although I would never get my money's worth and couldn't possibly part with it unless there were a few old engines involved in a trade.
But then again, that's what marriage is like and we do that over and over again too

Well..., off to go for the last bit and inspect the Governor itself and hope for the best

Cheers, John.

That worm gear has took a good hammering, you made a great job of the piston.

I have taken some pics today of the oil dipper. Pic One shows the dipper in the oil, it only enters for about half of its length.


Pic Two shows the complete thing, it measures 3/4" from the con rod to tip.



Pic Three is of a later dipper which is a lot longer, 15/8" these were fitted together with a splash plate which is shown in pic four.





Might just assist you, also that piston is an early one as they later used three compression rings plus a scraper ring. There are several different D Type pistons but nowadays you normally find the late type as most of the engines have been rebuilt at some time in their life. My 1936 D had been bored out plus 60 thou (there is a brass plate stating that) but later on it was relinered back to standard, some engines were supplied new with o/s bores as the factory made an error with the boring machine!
If you were in the UK all those worn parts would be easily replaceable as there are Lister D parts everywhere, I have a few pistons and valves as well as conrod and crankshafts.

Pete.