Bush Power by Lister

Preamble

Picture this. You pack up your young family and move to your new home, No more Bosses, No more Traffic Jams, No more Smog, Oops!!! No House, No Phone, No Electricity, No Water, No Road beyond the corner of the property. It's going to take at least 3 years for this place to make an income, and 30 years to make a profit. Some men thrive under these pressures, More than some families crack. After two or three years Harry is getting established. He's built a house, sheds, roads, internal fencing etc,etc the children have School of the Air, Chaliville. But still no Phone.

SR2 Lister 240 volt Generator

The Shed

Harry indicated that there had been a fuel leak ( under F in Tips and Trix ) when the engine was new and that it had run a considerable time on very diluted oil, I should check the rings & bearings when I do the decoke. In due course I did do the decoke / overhaul, and found that the paint on one head was burned black from overheating (the one with the good injector would be working the hardest) and the big-end bearings were marked from the diluted oil but there was no other damage.

Another Generator an SR3

More Work on the SR3

I also had with me a work bench complete with a small lathe, a small compressor which used the bench frame as a tank, and a grinder with wire wheel. I placed the bench outside the shed door and set about stripping down the engine. This time when I checked the injectors (see I again in Tips and Trix ) they were a bit sad, also the valves needed attention. By the end of the day I had the engine completely dismantled, most parts cleaned up and inspected for serious wear etc. Most of the parts were arranged in order in piles on my work bench, which was out in the open. I indicated to Dick that I would have to take the heads and injectors back to town for TLC that I couldn't supply here. "You'd better take my ute," he said, as the auxiliary generator was on the back of my truck. Sweeping my hand over the piles of parts I nonchalantly stated that I would leave them where they are, "it'll rain" I said ( Now these folks hadn't seen rain for months, and were approaching drought conditions) The look I got from Dick, as if it was some cruel joke. I went back to town.

On the Sunday after Church I went around to the Service Station (where I worked some years before,) to see if they were on roster (open for fuel only) they were. He allowed me to use his Valve re-facer, Seat cutter, Cylinder hone, & Injector tester. The job took 2 or 3 hours. THEN (You Guessed it ) it began to RAIN, I decided to stay in town till morning. Next day, about half way out I came across two road trains loaded with concrete lined steel pipes. (These fellows weren't allowed to use the main roads around here so they were cutting across country to the coal fields north of Blackwater.) The first truck slipped off the crown of the road and got bogged, but his second trailer was still on the road.

The second truck tried to get around him and got bogged also on the other side of the road and his second trailer was also still on the road. I had no option but to try to weave in between them, then I got bogged. A guy came down from a property nearby and dragged me through with his Landcruiser.

By the time I arrived at Dick's he was getting pretty anxious (normally a quiet easy going fellow) he was beside himself. (About to have kittens) Not long after the rain started the auxiliary generator quit, and it was now more than twelve hours since the Deep Freeze had last run. (This was a very large freezer and would hold a whole butchered bullock plus any turkeys etc that they might want to keep.) I'm not an electrician but I'm not afraid to have a look, so I ventured in to the meter box, I found a bright orange gadget with fins around it in there. (Looked like it should have been on its way to the moon.) I pulled this thing out of its socket, on the back there were 4 or 5 pins , between two of the pins there was a black track where water had run down and caused a short circuit. "Looks like this is the problem." I said. Dick took one look, "there's one of those up at the Airstrip." He said, as he dived into his ute and disappeared up the road. Now there was nothing at the airstrip, just a tin roof on 4 posts. The part must have been left by some contractor. In due course Dick arrived back with this little green box, RECTIFIER was written on the box, part of the fail-safe auto startup & stop mechanism, without that a spring loaded electro-magnet shuts down the engine. We plugged it in and switched the engine to AUTO and immediately it burst into life. Dick had a grin from ear to ear.

Now back to the job in hand, the overhaul on the SR3. I seem to remember having no trouble putting it all back together and having it running before evening. These Lister Air Cooled Diesels are a pretty straight forward design, there are just a few things that you need to pay attention to. 1/ Piston to head clearance must be the same on all three cylinders, (see under C in Tips and Trix ) 2/ The manifold gasket faces must line up, (yes I know! Look under M) 3/ The Injector Pumps must deliver the same quantity of fuel, (Here we go again Look under I Pumps) 4/ Be sure there are no fuel leaks ( under F )

Conclusion

If there's a moral to this story it must go something like this, Read the Manual, Understand what it says, if you don't understand it ask questions. My friend bought a clothes hoist, a tag tied to it read "If all else fails Read the Directions" I'm afraid that is not good enough when you've spent your hard earned cash on a new machine read the directions first, otherwise the noises coming from the machine could be expensive ones.

Ted Lee