Lister LD2 Autotruck, Restoration running story

Background

The Autotruck is a three wheeled vehicle with the front driving wheel (wow, front wheel drive in the 1940's!!) connected via a clutch and reducing three speed (2 forward, 1 reverse) gear box. The clutch is a conventional small car clutch mounted onto the fly wheel, driving a chain drive to the gear box. The whole engine, engine frame, and gear box pivot on the main truck frame for steering. The 'truck has a top speed of 20km/h, and will happily pull 7 tonnes up a slight grade. Being a front wheel drive it does not suffer the dangerous habit farm tractors have of rearing up and falling on their owners when the load is too great. It weighs in (including frame) at around 2 tonnes.

Found one!

On initial inspection prior to haggling and eventual purchase, I noted that the 'truck had been upgraded to electric starting using a Lucas starter motor, alternator and regulator. Lights had also been added to comply with local road regulations. These were the only non-original parts. The engine started after fitting a fresh battery and ran reasonably well without much smoke (ok, so it smoked like crazy until three years of internal oil seepage had cleared :-). The whole engine was covered in about an inch thick layer of seeped oil, grease, and diesel. The main frame of the 'truck was in terrible condition with major cracks and a broken rear wheel. I did not want to repair the frame, so I started ringing around to try and find another one. I came across another 'truck at ACI (Australia's biggest glass manufacturer) which I could have for free. ACI decided to keep the engine for parts for their other trucks until they were retired.

Lets do this thing

The next weekend I obtained an original new gasket/overhaul kit for the engine and set to work. I started by removing the exhaust and inlet manifolds and air filter and surrounding cowling. This is where my problems began. The engine obviously had not been touched for some time. The exhaust ports should have been 3cm (about 1.5"), but were down to about 0.5cm due to being choked with carbon and grease. I left these soaking in petrol in an old bathtub. Next I removed the head covers and inspected the valves and externally inspected the injectors - these were remarkably good. I'm guessing that the engine was pissing out so much lubricating oil, that it always had fresh clean oil due to frequent top-ups.

I removed the injectors, oil pipes, and fuel pipes, then lifted off the heads (there are two, a Lister LD2 appears to be two LD1's bolted together!) and found more poor maintenance. Each head should have had a round steel gasket and three or more shim gaskets, cylinder #1 had the gasket but no shims, cylinder #2 had no gasket and one badly burned shim. Everything was cleaned and put back together. Unfortunately during bolting down, one of the head gaskets moved and was ruined. I cleaned the old gasket from cylinder #1 and replaced the ruined one with it. This part of the engine is very poorly designed, there is no guide to hold the gasket/shims in place whilst bolting down the head - if they move (and you cannot see them once the head is on) you lose them.

I inspected the pistons, and rings - they seemed to be in good condition so I left them alone for now. [Ed. I ended up changing the rings, seemed a shame not to since I had the beast in pieces.

I cleaned the injectors externally and replaced all the seals and rings. I replaced the injectors, fuel supply and oil pipes and tightened everything up. At this point I decided to check the compression (BIG mistake). I turned over the engine and bent a push rod (I had not adjusted valve clearance). The rod was not too bad, and I straightened it with a big rubber mallet and some heat. I then adjusted the valve clearance, and turned the engine over again, no compression on #2. This was again valve related, the decompresser lever had slackened (older diesels have a lever to deliberately decompress the engine by holding the exhaust valve open to facilitate hand cranking). I tightened it up, and presto strong compression on both cylinders and no more oil leaks.

Last Time...

The wheels on the ACI frame are in good condition but need new solid rubber tyres to be fitted in a tyre press. I've located someone with one of these who is sympathetic to engine-freaks (read "charges less") who will sort out the wheels for me. The brakes are non-existent at the moment, I'm seeking an original (or close as I can get) hand brake cable for the front wheel, and have obtained all the parts to build the rear brakes.

As soon as I have some time to begin work again, I'll set the valve clearances (last time I had to guess where TDC was during valve clearance, now thanks to the Stationary Engine Mailing List members I know how to go about this properly and will readjust the clearances) and set the valve, fuel pump, and injector timing. Hopefully at that point I'll have a running engine. After that I plan to tackle the brakes, clutch, electricals, and wheels in that order.

Once everything is complete, I'll be road registering the machine as a "Vintage Vehicle" - which means I do not have to pay too much in fees, and I cannot go out at night. It does have major advantages that modern safety equipment and anti pollution gear which came into effect post the initial registration of the 'truck do not apply. The whole idea of registering it is that you really need a truck to move the thing, and I do not have one. At least this way, I can drive it to the nearer shows (there are three annual ones within 20km of my house).

27/10/96 The present... IT WORKS!

I got stuck into the Lister in the morning with my two year old son's help (his idea of help is to get covered in oil, then hide the sockets from my socket set).

Three months ago I did the pistons and heads (new gaskets, rings, etc). BTW "heads" is not a typo, it really does have two - the LD2 is essentially two LD1's bolted together. I never had a chance to finish the work I was doing then until now.

To cut a long story short, I put on the inlet & exhaust manifolds (does anyone know the "trick" to these? - there are nuts you cannot get a spanner or socket onto) on, cleaned and assembled the fuel filter.

For the first try I filled the priming cups (drops fuel under pressure direct into the inlet manifold - sorta like a carburetor would do it) with diesel, and left the fuel tap closed. The electric starter is not back on yet, so I cranked her over the hard way. Once up to a decent speed, I enabled the exhaust valves by disengaging the decompresser levers. It shuddered a couple of times, back fired then spewed two huge black smoke rings into the sky (my neighbors love me). At that point it died :-(

I checked things out, and could not see anything wrong, so I thought I would try again. I refilled the priming cups, and cranked her over again, this time as soon as I released the decompresser lever she chugged into life, again spewing black smoke rings, this time about 10 per cylinder until the priming cups ran out.

Time for a try on fuel from the tank, I bled the air out of the filter opened the fuel inspection door, bled the air out of the fuel lines and primed the pumps. I cranked her over and released the decompresser lever, she chugged into life quite happily... still with the black smoke rings though. After running for a few minutes, I opened the throttle up to get it going properly to see if the smoking went away after it heated up, unfortunately not, it started spewing grey/black smoke continuously.

After 10 minutes she still smokes, but much less than startup, I guess that is one of the problems of using SW10 hydraulic oil - it runs past the piston rings :-(, but Lister Petter recommend it. Does anyone know what I can do to the LD2 to reduce the smoking? I can tolerate smoke on a cold start, but would rather it ran clean after that - I'm hoping to get the thing registered on the road after the restoration is finished so I can tow a cart with my other engines to local shows with it, to do that it has to pass the emission tests of 1959 (its year of manufacture).

I've started working on the trucks brakes (I figured this might be a good idea before moving it). After the brakes I'll check the clutch and chain drive, both will require cleaning and lubrication, but probably not much else.

I'll post the next progress installment in the near future.

Here are a couple more Autotruck sites...

I sold my Auto Truck