Internal Fire Museum of Power

Lovely day today so rather than repairing the tumble dryer, I had a bit a bit of a shed tidy and couldn't resist getting a couple of engines out for a tinker.

First up was a Marshall badged Chinese diesel which has been in disgrace since letting me down at a club crank-up a couple or three years ago when the fuel pipe split from end to end - god knows what it was made of, but it appeared to attacked by diesel oil! Then, while carrying it back to the car, I tripped, breaking the duplex pulley and performing a forward somersault over the engine - the bruises took quite a while to go!

Anyway, I replaced the fuel pipe and decided to tidy up the pulley - like the fuel pipe, god knows what it was made of, nominally cast iron but took the edge straight off an HSS tool, carbide tipped job sorted it. Bled the fuel sysyem and it fired up quite quickly. watched it run for a while and looked for something else to play with.

T300 next - no compression as usual after a period of inactivity. Stuck exhaust valve explained this on one side, though it didn't improve that much once freed. Took an age of cranking and sulky running before it finally 'caught' properly and sat happily on the governor at 2500rpm sounding great. Plenty of compression afterwards but I know it will mysteriously dissappear in a few months!

I can still smell petrol and exhaust fumes on my shirt, my knuckles have exhaust pipe burns from replacing the tappet covers while running and I got a belt from the mag - yes spring is here and I feel almost cheerful!

NHH

Sounds like you had a good day Nick
After a morning removing some metal from the shed, the afternoon was spent making some new head studs for a friends Lister. Found some high tensile bar to make them from and wished I hadnt as it was a hell of a job and has completly b******d the 7/16th die
As you say Spring is here!

Mark

A fantastic weekend for getting on with stuff. I fetched a couple of new additions yesterday, and after spending most of the day gardening as the grass was up to the windowsills again, I got chance to play with one of my new toys.

A bit of video here:

http://youtu.be/y176aYt0rcw

Thanks Mark!

Managed to get the top of my head sunburnt as well...

Dan

Dan that is a nice rare engine. I have never never seen anything but the small ones. This is off topic and I am probably giving you something you already have but I thought these may be useful.

Dave
Philippines

Thanks Dave for sharing those, makes me wish I'd not parted with it now.... no, its gone to a good home.
I like the Gen Set, bet there weren't many of those made.

Cheers

Mark

Thanks for the info Dave. I am led to believe that there is not much info on these engines, and this is a useful starting point. The engine will need to come apart at some point for a proper inspection, however for now I am leaving well alone as I have too many started-and-not-finished projects!

I hesitate to say 'rare', there are a several of the smaller 1.5hp ones around, however the 2.5-4hp ones I know of another runner in a local collection, at least one in Oz, and another one cropped up on fleabay recently. Not a good survival rate for a production run of 500+ engines, but I'm sure there will be loads more crop up now they have come into the limelight.

Dan

Dan,
Why hesitate to say Rare.. it is RARE. With a production run of 553 of all sizes over 6 years 31-37 it wasn't exactly the most popular engine on the planet. I bet thats only a months production for the D type in its hey day. 4 survivors so far and OK you can probably double that with sleepers but your still not gonna see one at your local gas-up.

Mark

Good guess Mark - according to the serial numbers Lister made an average of 500 D & F engines per month throughout the same period; '31 to '37 - about 42,000 engines. They also churned out more than 26,000 other petrols, more than 26,000 CS diesels, and quite a few other bits and pieces. I think they were trying a little harder...

Martin.