How Much Fuel Does This Vintage Engine Use? Bamford stationary single-cylinder diesel efficiency
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 เม.ย. 2023
- How efficient are old engines? I didn't know - but it was easy to find out. I just ran my old 6HP engine for an hour and measured how much diesel fuel she used.
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Seeing an old machine like this still running after all this time and being used is awesome. Those engineers from that time designed all machinery to last at least forever, maybe a bit longer if you took care of them.
I worked in a manual machine shop and some of our lathes were from world War 2. One was sold to the navy to machine barrels for battleships weapon systems, but was never used. I was always blown away that machines that old could be so accurate. Our tolerance levels were .001-.003
You should go to a tractor show
You took the words right out of my mouth. Last night i was looking at our 2007 car thinking no matter how well i look after it it was built to last a certain amount of time.
to be fair many modern diesels last just as long. Ship engines long outlast their hulls for example.
@@CriamWe still use WW2-era manual machine tools at work. I don't know, in an absolute sense, how accurate they are--but they are still good enough to hold the required tolerances on the finished parts.
I have a 4000 acre property with two old listers a 1/5 and a 1/6, The 1/5 runs a 12 volt Alternator that charges up my battery system and heats up the shower water and heats up the cooking oil fuel tank.... Has a 10 lt diesel tank and a 60 lt cleaned cooking oil tank... Runs for 5 minutes on diesel then switches over to cooking oil.. then for shutdown it switches over to diesel for 5 minutes. The 1/6 has the same set up for fuel and I use it to pump water from a spring fed dam to the two non spring fed dams..
This is what I would like to do. My solar system is lacking in the winter. And I love these old engines. Got any videos of your set up
@@kansasadventure1831 No videos, But I just bought another 5/1 in good running condition that I will be doing exactly the same thing for my house in town.. Its a 6 hour round trip to pick up the engine.. Once I get It I will start putting together a parts list that Im more then happy to share.. I guess I could do a few videos of how Im going to mount the Alternator etc.. Fuel tanks, Switch overs
@@HebrewHammerArmsCo I'd watch 😎
Would love to see more details on this.
@@HebrewHammerArmsCo i would also like to see how it can be made to power a house
450ml for 45¢ per hour of work seems good value.
I love how you appreciate the history behind your machine & your obvious affection for it
I assume under load it uses more.
Under load that would go up quite a lot. Though for the amount of work its doing, it would be interesting to compare to a more modern portable diesel, like a 2 or 3hp.
@@wishusknight3009 Exactly what i would like to know.
Id say you are a very smart man and the old girl is shining bright . They still use these type of engines were I live in Texas with gas right out of the ground . The same gas we heated our homes with every four or five years we had to replace the teak wood chips in the vessel scrubber that the gas ran through to help an take h2S gas that is common in our part of the world . The only things my paid for was electricity and if my father had wanted too he could done that to . We drilled our own water well . I sure miss those days .
@@wishusknight3009 The losses for low-speed engines with these oversquare designs are lower than even some of the modern DI engines.
We have a Lister Engine built in 1924 looks very similar to this one in our shearing shed in New Zealand…it has served 6 generations of our family flawlessly and we would never ever get rid of it…enough said!
Wow! That is very impressive indeed! That would be such a pleasure to see and hear it.
We have one also in new Zealand running a water pump it's a great old beast
@@daveneil3963 i’ll do a clip on it when we do the next shear if i remember to
I once worked as a maintenance man for a land holder in southern hills, South Australia who ran Angus beef and sheep.
The shearing shed had a Lister diesel and it was my annual job to ready it for shearing season. Always reliable, never need any tinkering and always started easily.
I eventually left there and some years later there was a bush fire. I went visiting to see how everyone and everything was.
Sad but true, the Lister had been moved from the shearing shed to the workshop across the road and while the all wood shearing shed survived the bush fire, the workshop didn't and neither did the Lister.
what does it do for shearing? is it a generator to keep the lights and heater on?
Im a great fan of engines that use a heavy flywheel, this stores a tremendous amount of energy which helps with efficiancy
Me too. I and my son both have International LB engines. We love messing around with them and just watching them run. My son named one of his Gertrude after my Grandmother who passed away many years ago. Here is his video: th-cam.com/users/shortsIBeI4l7FyQs
the weight of the flywheel has nothing to do with efficiency... efficiency is 95pct+ determined by what happens above the piston in terms of thermodynamics.
Well the flywheel certainly smooths out the power pulses and compression. Mine has a fan cast into it helping with keeping things cool too as well as housing part of the load regulator.
I knew an 84 year old Lady that would go into the machine shed in her night ware (at around 4.30pm) and spin the fly wheel of a Southern Cross single cylinder diesel to start the "night lights" which was a 32 volt light bulb... the old Southern Cross was very similar in design this engine being shown. Ol Sally passed away many years ago now, but I can still see her flicking the decompression lever and pushing the fly wheel to start the engine. Bless her soul.
That's a beautiful memory. I hope one day you will meet Sally again.
you can still see her? ghost?😮
I use old stationary engines for various jobs, later 60-80's engines though as they're cheap to buy, still have parts made and can be moved without a hernia.
That bamford is glorious
I've looked at buying some old stationary engines, but apparently, I need to buy a forklift first haha
A wheeled engine hoist and heavy pickup truck or trailer or agricultural equipment mover trailer is another option as hand trucks can only move the smaller engines around the smaller engines sadly end up as decoration in some cases .
Marvelous! Your product is VERY environmentally friendly. I can understand why people think modern is better, but it always annoys me when they don't value what's already there, and think nothing of scrapping perfectly good solutions that don't break, while spending money on something that probably will, and they always think the benefits'll pay for it over time. The true benefit is had when stuff is kept going, revived or re-purposed, not replaced with expensive new toys.
❤da odličan 😢.....više daje snage, a manje troši money !!😂👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞🐞
I'm still using my grandmother's 1940's era Westinghouse refrigerator. It runs like brand new, and all the drawers, etc are in great condition.
I bought a condo a few years go and it came with a Maytag washer that's half a century old. So I thought for sure I'll have to buy a new washing machine. Well when I moved in I tried it and it worked fine 😂 years later it's still working, it's been washing clothes for literally half a century. Meanwhile my mom's fancy modern washers break after a few years because the control boards go bad. Her LG lasted only a few years and would cost 400 dollars to replace the board. Meanwhile my 50+ year old Maytag works flawlessly still. It's probably not as efficient, but the environmental impact of manufacturing one long lasting washer is probably less.
@@huge_balls a lot of energy goes into making disposal crappola
In this society you're never supposed to be satisfied with the equipment you have be it engines, mobile phones or computers. If you refuse, they will force your hand one way or another.
This has been my dream for many years - to have one of these. They used to run entire shops. I think that the HP of an old engine is actually more than the newer ones because of how much work they did. They run happily for generations while newer engines fail in a few years quite often.
IIRC "Horsepower" used to be from a formulae related to bore and stroke, and this was how the "model number" was derived - more recently Horsepower is determined by attaching a Dynamometer to the output shaft.
India produces a Lister single cylinder of the same design as would be seen in the 1950's, they run drainage and irrigation pumps 24/7 for the cost of a couple of jerry cans of fuel a week. You can even buy them brand new, but they're labelled as used to overcome the emission regs
Horsepower is work done per unit time. So you can do more with less horsepower if you are prepared to spend longer doing it.
The real reason these old engines last so well is that they're massive cast iron beasts that run at low speeds. Less speed means less friction and wear, and all the parts are much stronger than they need to be for the forces they experience. So they take a very long time to wear out if properly maintained.
The trade-off is that a modern engine of the same power would be much lighter and more compact, a modern 3hp engine is something you can easily pick up and carry around vs an old 3hp stationary engine which would likely weigh 50kg or more. The other confounding factor is that nobody is willing to pay for a really durable low power engine anymore. As a result most of out experience is with Briggs and Strattons or similar, which are engineered for cheapness rather than durability... a lot of such engines are designed for a life of 100 hours or so, and are not intended to be rebuilt or repaired if they go wrong, you just replace the whole thing.
@@nerd1000ify you can still repair them by putting new plastic parts in it to replace the old busted plastic parts. Like the plastic cam gears they've been doing.
Honda even provided an "overhead cam" version for consumer market, a version of their GX160 model and called it the GC160. It had a plastic effing camshaft, the cam and gear were one piece of plastic, run by a tiny belt. The disposable society is going to kill itself slowly by depleting limited resources until we are stuck scavenging out own trash to survive
@Goose Not maverick yeah all the small engine manufacturers are up to these sorts of tricks. They last the design life, but not great for longevity or repairability. The other usual suspect is the cylinder bore, many small engines have an uncoated aluminium bore, which naturally means a short life and re-boring or sleeving the block aren't possible due to bare minimum wall thicknesses.
The economic issue is that the labour costs of fixing these things are too high, compared to the labour costs at the factory in China or wherever. So the manufacturers prefer to save a few bucks per engine and sell a whole new one for cheap when yours breaks down.
You can get the 'industrial' model in some cases with real engine parts in it rather than plastic. But expect a higher up front price. IMO in many cases it's probably better to replace small engines with electric motors if possible, even the cheapest TEFC induction motors have replaceable bearings and capacitors and should last almost forever. In the US of course you are hamstrung by the 110V supply to most houses, most other places have 220 or 240V supply so we can run fairly hefty motors (up to 3hp) from a regular wall outlet, and even more from 15A plugs.
@@goosenotmaverick1156 I prefer using old engines myself. Any time I get a chance to buy a good, used old engine I do. I have lawn and garden equipment that are over 40 years old that run well. Modern machines start to break after a year of use.
Well said, Tim. These old engines like your Bamford (which I have not seen), Lister, Deutz and the like, typify a more relaxed way of life which would be lost for you if there were a little 3-cylinder Kubota or Yanmar buzzing happily away in your workshop instead. And where would pre-1965 rural economy have been without these beauties powering milking plants, sawmills, water pumps and generators? 😊 Col, NZ.
There was an engine which ran the milking machines on the farm I used to visit as a kid. I remember the day I became big enough and strong enough to start it myself (no electric motors.) I loved that old engine. And the old Massey Ferguson 1943 pre-select tractor which I was allowed to drive. So lucky to have spent time on a farm.
I had one of the vacuum pumps run by those old gals, came out of a carriage house they were tearing down when I was a kid in 1978. I helped my buddy out on his dads dairy farm. I painted it up and took it to a few hit/miss shows.
I do believe 45 cents per hour isnt terribly shabby at all, and its quite frankly a lovely engine.
At that rate if you ran it all day long it would cost you 2 or 3 dollars US Currency. It's amazing how efficient those old engines were. I'm glad to see that you use it and not make it's just something for taking pictures and showing off. I'm a firm believer of using the old stuff if it's good and it doesn't ruin it or hurt it. As always, thank you for the video. Bob from Virginia USA
Surprised by how little it uses, thanks for sharing.
I don't think a 4,5 kW electrical motor actually consumes 4,5 kW when it's just idling like the diesel engine. So that would change the calculation.
are you sure? I'm told that's exactly what it uses
Under full load it would of course even take a bit more from the grid to put it 4,5kwh on the shaft.
However, as you mentioned the engine is far from really working that hard. The exhaust sounds like normal ideling. So kudos to the engine for doing that well of job. And agricultural diesel being that cheap in Ireland.
But let's do some calculations:
A Litre of diesel contains around 38Mj of Energie.
We've used around half a litre. So 18Mj.
Crunshing the numbers that's around 5kwh.
However, that's input power. Let's be fair and say your engine is 22% efficient, which is probably still too much. So you're about 1,1kwh of work that your engine did, so it made around 1,1. kw on average.
Giving a bit more power as head room, you could use a1,5kw 3 phase motor with a vfd so you could even run it on single phase. That would draw around 6A at 230V.
So you could basically run it from a normal house outlet.
Still with diesel so cheap it would cost you around 150% of running the diesel for fuel costs. But would have its own advantages.
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 There is a difference in power draw depending on the load just as with all engines. Especially AC motors with a set RPM (by the mains frequency). When they reach their rated speed there is less magnetic feild to overcome so the current draw goes down. Electricity is a weird thing.
Another way of supporting this: there is a reading the lamps dim and the motor over heats easier under load rather than when idling.
And in for instance HVAC/R it is common to have a general fan motor and then adjust the pulleys diameters to dial in the power usage.
And I am also super impressed by the idling consumption of your engine.
@@humbucker0076 but as I understand it the use considerable more energy than the rated on the startup (electric motor) compared to normal running hence the need for capacitors etc.
Lovely old thing. Great to see it still giving useful service 👍🇦🇺
That last remark got me wondering how that old engine would go driving an electricity generator. It's funny hearing 6 hp from something that big but, of course, the engine torque is enormous
6HP is roughly 4.5KW but probably something closer to 4KW after conversion losses. Still plenty to run something like a couple electric heaters in an emergency.
@@big0bad0brad Or charge a bank of batteries, that in turn would run an inverter. This way You could use a far heavier electric load than the engine is rated for. At least as long as the batteries charge goes.
@@sysbofh Then you have more conversion losses, I was thinking just direct AC generation with an AC generator but it could certainly work as well.
@@big0bad0brad Yes, You have conversion losses. But You can run the generator at 100% capacity - this is where they are most efficient.
Also, makes easier to store the energy for latter and You don't have to worry about peaks of usage or the generator rated capacity. Any temporary excess load is provided by the batteries.
With a battery bank you can also have solar, so the diesel might only be needed on cloudy days.
I have a Buda-Lanova engine made in 1905 six cylinder 500 plus minus cubic inches. This engine can run a sawmill for 6 to 8 hours on five gallons of diesel fuel. Not sure as to the number of board feet of wood that will cut. But a huge amount. THE old engines just sip fuel, Today they guzzle fuel no matter what they say Tim.
That was great Tim! Thank you for showcasing the old engine and how it is still a practical machine for your application. Well done indeed! 😁👍😁
I love this older stuff especially if it can be used for work. I've become my dad, and proud of it.
Beautiful in its simplicity, simple, reliable economical to operate and maintain no wonder they stopped being used
if you were to hook up a modern 6 hp small light weight gas engine to your setup it would probably use 4 times the amount of gas, these heavy old engines working like yours is beautiful
That isn't really how these things work. A horse is a horse, and modern engines are objectively more efficient. If you mean like a lawnmower engine, yeah it probably wouldn't be very efficient on this setup, but those are built for high torque to run everything properly. This would likely have very little torque which is far more efficient. There are engines designed for just these kinds of applications and they will always do a much better job per litre of fuel. We just don't commonly see this sort of application in normal daily life anymore. Also certainly never see such massive flywheels, which are extremely efficient. If I had to guess, rollercoaster and ski lifts would be the closest cousins to this machine
I am using a similar Lister engine to run my generator to charge batteries. I haven't measured accurately like this, but it uses about 1 litre per hour and charges at a constant 2kW measured on the battery charger.
For a brief year I entertained locally grown oilseed being the fuel (diesel startup and shutdown) of a liquid biomass to electricity setup. 450g per kWh (kilowatt hour) was the target consumption and your figures tend to suggest this was pretty spot on.
A rule of thumb I have heard is 1/3 of the energy goes to mechanical energy, 1/3 goes as heat out the exhaust and 1/3 goes to the cooling water as heat. What I have done with my engine is use a water jacket on the exhaust, and then circulate that and the cooling water into the house as heating. @@danielduggan7126
we should incorporate these engines in electric cars as range extending charge systems
Beautiful engine! Glad to see it still in use. Best fourty-five cents spent in my opinion.
Interesting indeed. An old teacher of mine had a phrase he picked up somewhere, maybe from a student: "It's all pretty boring until you start to think about it."
Bamford being J.C Bamford, which went on to become the brand we know today as JCB, also still in Staffordshire not a long trek away from Uttoxeter. I've no doubt Tim already knows this though.
I think JCB was a nephew of the original Mr Bamford
They were very wise and efficient back then our high rpm obsession today is ridiculous.
motorsport fans left the chat..
Compared to a modern engine, I would much rather listen to the chugging of your motor all day. To me there's something strangely soothing about it.
You can buy new engines very much like this one in India. There are several firms in Rajkot and in Kolhapur that make them. They are often used to drive water pumps for
farm irrigation.
Very often they are copies of the Lister CS.
They are illegal to buy in the USA because they don’t meet emissions standards
I don’t know what vegetable oil costs in Ireland but R. Diesel designed his engine to run on vegetable oil. Diesel engines before common rail injections can usually run on chip oil if it is well filtered. The only problem is the used chip oil smells of chips and can make you a bit hungry. 😅
Saw a fellla here in uk running his modern diesels on filtered used cooling oil and kerosene mix. 3 parts kerosene to 7 filtered used oil.
Smells of chips.... Sounds like a huge plus.
@@McMahonshaun a little petrol greatly increase performance.
Thank you for sharing this with us Tim. I see using that old engine to power your shop/wood slicer/charcoal chopper the same way I view a sailboat: there are much faster ways to do things or go places, but it is oh so much more elegant to do it that way.
You need to find a friendly chip shop - then you could make your own fuel!
And warm weather you can probably run a blend of diesel and unmodified vegetable oil through it. Maybe a 50-50 mix.
@@tripplefives1402
The big problem running a gasoline engine on kerosene is premature ignition from the low octane fuel.
Heck I would bet if he centrifuged old waste oil (or pump it thru one heck of a decent filter) he could run it in that old school diesel [might smoke like a busted stove though]...even mixed 50/50 with the offroad diesel too
@@haydenc2742
Add a wee bit gasoline too thin the mix a bit which could also help with the vegetable oil.
@@tripplefives1402
Your octane rating are significantly off. Natural gasoline has an octane rating of at least 50 the top of range of kerosene octane rating. By WWII 100 octane gasoline was available and Jeeps were specified for 68 octane fuel.
Incidentally west coast gas and east coast gas had different octane ratings without special additives.
I think it is wonderful......the machine, the preservation, the production and the video in general..Thank you!
You could go down the 50/ 50 route with Red Diesel mix with well filtered vegetable oil. Run a twin tank set up with gravity fed, so the the two cant mix in the tanks. A Y pipe with taps on each leg would do. Start it in Diesel and once warm add the veggie oil
Green diesel..... Because Ireland.
THE PRICE OF VEGGIE OIL. ONE YEAR AGO IN A SUPER MARKET IT WAS 5LE £4.50 and a year later now £11.00. more than double. that was 2022 now 2023,
@@bwghall1
I ran my old peugeot 406 on vegi oil when I could get it for 60 to 70p a litre. Straight into the tank....no additives.
I love these old engines. Until today, I didn't realise how cheap they are to run. Thank you.
The engineers that designed these motors took fuel efficiency very seriously.
Many years ago Tim, there was a push towards total power solutions. These were I believe a small Fiat diesel car engine, a generator and it used a heat recovery system from cooling and exhaust. They were hailed as the solution to "high energy prices" and every house could have one. If the Bamford can do it, let's hope it will not become commonplace.
Fiat diesel engines are Very good
@@goodlife6277 but would you want one running in next to your house, in your neighbours garden all the time, or in all your neibours gardens. Heating oil boilers around me are smelly enough, cheers.
@@ooslum Never
One thing you left out of your math is the value of that lovely sound! :D I find it very pleasant to be around these old engines.
Very enjoyable , twenty plus years ago I got offered a farmyard full of engines like these , I settled with a petter AVA twin with a gen set on it , the oil ( duck hams) was still green ! It had about 52 hours on it , I regret not taking a few more of single cyclinder hit & miss motors . Great to see this old yoke still up & bumping ! My first posh motorcycle came from uttoxeter , they pronounced it “Uzzitter” up there .
ERIN GO BRAUGH! 🍀🔆🟢💚🧑🏻🎤🏁🌞🌞😎
Very cost effective Tim and a lovely sound that cannot and should not be replaced. Not to mention the “Cool Factor”. Making 80 year old tools and machines serve their intended purpose is smart and admirable.
No cause to start “tilting at windmills” here. Carryon…..there’s charcoal to be made here…..
a few years back I with a couple of partners had a gold mining lease and used an old Bamford to run a small generator. it would run every day for at least 8 hours a day with no problems and was surprisingly efficient. end up selling it to a collector
Thank you for showing how little fuel is being used by these older Diesel engines!
Seen the video's of this engine several times now. They are just lovely to watch. Shame you couldn't do some more. This project overall was my favourite. Thanks 😊
I used to work in a factory as a senior maintenance man, before retiring.
We had very modern CNC lathes, milling, laser cutting and turret punch presses,
but there were just some jobs that pre-WW1 equipment was better at than the modern stuff, like screw machines that could turn out more work in a day than a CNC lathe could do in a week. We also had a few presses that are found in museums, happily making thousands of parts a day. Never get rid of something that is good, just because it's old.
"Never get tid of someting that is good, just because it's old."
Especially people . . .
☆
@@fjb4932 I'm 75 and glad to have American healthcare, they are killing old folks in places like Canada now.
@@AdamosDadhappy burfdae!! 🐱👍🏿
@@fidelcatsro6948 Why thank you!
🤛🏼(▨_▨¬)🤜🏼 I'm feelin' 25 inside, it's the outside that's getting a little rough.
Marvelous. Haven't got anything quite as vintage as that Bamford (do have two of their bench saws though). I have a petter AVA1 that I'm hoping to put to good use.
You could run that thing for years on the same amount of fuel used in a 10 minute flight. Keep her running. She is a beauty
There is true brilliance in these beautifully designed older single piston diesel engines. I think they are still very practical in many situations. Great stuff! 👍
In a shearing shed where i worked after leaving school at the age of 15, had an old Lister 5hp diesel engine that used about 3/4 gallons of fuel in an 8-hour day!!
3/4 gallon as in 0.75 x 5 = 3.75 litres not 3 to 4 gallon as in 15-20 litres per day, I presume.
It probably is hopelessly inefficient, that fuel the engine burnt contains approximately 4.7kWh of energy, but the engine is probably only 20% efficient (probably less, modern turbocharged diesels cap out at ~40%) - so ~1kwh of mechanical work.
Electric motors are usually around 80% efficient at peak, so the cost should be about the same!
In either case this is beside the point, if it does the job at a rate that makes sense for your biochar sales, then it's good enough.
Plus an electric motor solution would be a lot more complicated than a nice old engine.
So great to see the old girl still going and working, very reliable these old machines, made to work. Very cheap running costs and good output too. Thanks for sharing
Fantastic. I too own a similar engine. Thanks for the Demo
Great video thanks. Regarding comparisons,if you put an ammeter in supply to a motor the reading will vary considerably. Just as when governors of an internal combustion engine vary the fuel supplied . But worth the experiment just to listen to the old girl. Thanks Tim.
Just saying LoL I totally get it! Got Mini tractor recently. So much work for little fuel. Heavy flail mower uses 4 L per hour, but try cutting by hand hahaha
Great video. I like to see these old engines being used to do work
YES! Couldn't agree more with your entire approach - you are a custodian of _good sense._
Great explained. It is astonishing that the engine is even 4.5 times cheaper than an electric motor. But the old stuff keeps much better than modern scrap anyway. (Often it is scrap or, rather, special waste.Of course not always.)
Great video. I have a Listeroid from India. Copy of the original Englis Lister engines. Mine is a 6/1 CS like yours. Drives a 5K gen set as back up power for my house in the US.
I wish I had one of those old engines myself. I don’t know what I’d do with it but they are wonderful.
Seeing a sweet old engine like this getting some love got a subscription from me, thanks.
That engine *can* produce 6 horsepower (about 4.4kW), but it isn't in the test. When you start bogging the engine down and the governor gives it more fuel it produces 6 horsepower. In your test it was likely not producing much over 1. This means that an electric motor would not consume 4.4kW. It only does that at maximum load. If your engine generates 1 horsepower, an equivalent electric motor would consume about 0.8kW.
Also regarding biofuel as you touched on briefly: You could probably run that on anything liquid which burns, considering the age and simplicity. The only reason modern diesels can't run on straight cooking oil is because the injectors can get clogged, as well as the the computer in the car possibly forcing it to shut off since it's not diesel.
I second that theory of yours..3.2 to.4Kw gen on single piston engine & 6Kw + on two piston engine " Marcon" gen if my memory serves me correct..!??
Thanks, Edvin - I imagine the max power output is just before the engine starts bogging?
@@wayoutwest-workshopstuff6299 I would guess maximum power is when it just starts bogging down a bit, forcing the governor to give more fuel to produce more power to keep it running.
That exhaust pipe dragon is one of the coolest and only decorations I've ever seen on a listeroid. I always wanted one even if it was casted machined in india with many flaws or casting sand still inside the works. I will have one one of these days.
The farm I worked on had a old Bamford from the 1920's from memory. Was used to pump water from a bore with about 150meters head. Was there pre war and still works today as a back up to the electric bore put in in 1984.
I have a Lister A Junior, built in 1945. I start it up now and then because I like to watch it run but now I am thinking of ways to put it to work. Thanks Tim.
Beautiful old engine, I am part of a group in Australia dedicated to preserve them and put them to work in our museum, a lot are sourced from the scrap metal dealers yard 😔
Using a modern electric motor to start an old diesel always strikes me as ironic. Surprised it used so little, like you say the motor isn't really running at load, more idling. So does make sense that it isn't consuming vast volumes of diesel.
It doesn't matter what we think as long as it's working for you.
Your rain cap over the exhaust stack is very inventive and unusual. I have worked on diesel trucks and equipment for over thirty years and never seen a decorative rain cap and like yours very much.
I think it's a beautiful engine, and if I could get my hands on one I would, im sure it would make for a great generator when the power goes out and im sure it's a hell of a lot less noisy than that rattle can gas-powered generators we have nowadays.
Actually you should be able to run the engine on pure vegetable oil after it had been started on normal diesel and warmed up a bit. Just make sure to switch back to diesel before turning it off so it can start again on (nearly) pure diesel next time.
Perhaps run the coolant lines thru the fuel tank with veg oil to pre-heat it before it goes to the injectors, that's the main reason to heat it...to thin it out so it can pump thru the injectors and pumps easier
Thank you. Good video.
Although we were country folk, our village was only a few miles away from Uttoxeter [the locals call it Utcheter], and my father worked in that factory, at that time. He may well have made some of the parts, especially those that involved drilling, or even done part of its building. It wasn't a very large place.
Nearly every farm around had something similar [often a Bamford] to provide electricity when it was needed [not often], or for milling grain for cattle food. Small workshops, too. Some of the engines, I remember, I think the older ones, were horizontal, with very large slow-turning flywheels - essentially just the next step on from steam engines, I suppose. I loved being taught to oil and grease and even sometimes start them. Absolutely beautiful things.
[By the way, 450 millilitres is almost exactly a tenth of an English gallon, not an American one. More like an eigth of an American gallon.]
Love your engine, and your dragon, and your attitude. When you do up your last will and testament many years from now, make sure to leave an engine lover that lovely spinner.
I used to live in Vista, CA, where the Antique Steam and Gas Engine Museum was situated. I visited it often, and was able to watch them cut wood with the power of a steam traction engine, cut shingles, bale hay, and a whole lot of other things. Loved it.
I'd be interested to see if you could run it off waste vegetable oil without converting it to biodiesel, or possibly from used (and filtered) motor oil/gasoline mixture. I'm fascinated by these old engines, so simple and so dependable.
I suspect it would run just fine on vegetable oil.
Seeing those old engines running is nice, not a lot of noise or fuss compared to the newer engines.
You were not stressing the old girl with the fuel burn you were pulling about two horsepower.
MY friend in washington state,USA..has an OLD one cylinder diesel engine running a generator at his hotel ,HE bought the Hotel in 1950,they told him the engine had been running 50 years AND HAD NOT BEEN SHUT OFF,HE has owned the HOTEL since that time,and he has never shut it off either,it burns about a GALLON of diesel daily...
That is awesome seeing that old iron actually running and doing work. I doubt that any engines being produced today will be running that many years from now.
Thanks for posting this, very interesting! I've got a modern 6hp Honda clone (petrol) that currently runs my firewood saw. Mostly cutting up old pallets, so probably not going to be making the engine work much harder than yours does mincing up charcoal. A full tank (just over 4 litres) will only get me around 2 hours of work. I'm quite happy with that, less wood to have to stack up at any one time 😂
I used to run an old lister D, but thats currently awaiting repairs when I get the time and money
fix that Lister!
@@fidelcatsro6948 it's on the list, as is an air cooled Petter A. Both have magneto issues
@@nathanlucas6465 diesel needs magneto?
@@fidelcatsro6948 it's not a diesel. Its a "type D" and was available as either petrol only or petrol/paraffin
@@nathanlucas6465 i see 🐱👍🏿
You should be able to adjust the speed, on the petrol Bamfords you remove the tin gib head key cover and there are 2 bolts with lock nuts on if you unscrew the bolts it will slow it down, opposite speeds it up😎
Bravo Sir...... Thanks for sharing and thanks for keeping these old gals working as they were designed to do.
It’s nice to see it running. She’s a beauty.
You could also use your old sump oil from any vehicles you have. Just filter it well and mix it with the diesel.
Not exactly friendly to the injection pump. Also used engine oil has lots of additives and contaminants in it that make nasties in the exhaust.
Could, but should you?
That engine only outputs 6hp on full load, which it wasn't doing, so equating that to the potential electricity used with an electric motor is totally wrong. An electric motor will be cheaper to run than that engine for that load.
Especially if it was turning a decent flywheel to maintain it's torque
Ahhh the nostalgia of those old engines. I had a 15 hp lister swm2 in my old wooden sailboat. The cast iron handle weighed several kilos. The engine was 540 lbs.and with gearbox 760. Got the idle down to 100rpm so it was slow enough to maneuver.
My next,another antique and a year older than the first came with a brand new Kubota three cylinder 18hp. About one third the weight of the Lister and 700rpm idle.
The average fuel consumption of a diesel is one quart per 10 hp per hour.
Not using all 6hp 450ml an hour is in this range.
Wow! That math works out pretty well. Efficiency of using fuel -> steam -> mechanical energy -> electricity is about 1/4-1/3. Not counting electric -> mechanical. Going from fuel -> mechanical energy certainly saves a lot of the losses!
Keep in mind that this engine has a pretty high compression ratio for the time it was built in order to combust the fuel without a spark plug. A higher compression ratio means you can squeeze the air/fuel charge even higher to make a bigger bang.
What you get from this is less fuel burned for more power. That, and the fact that this engine is more precise about how fuel is dispensed than contemporary gas/petrol engines, there's no wonder it uses relatively little fuel. Sounds great, too!
It wouldn't hurt to put new rings in it. It would probably cause the compression ratio to bump back up closer to stock, and actually burn less fuel. That said, it's probably not necessary for what you'll be doing, and it's probably easier on the old bearings if it's not hitting its hardest all the time.
I have a few old gas engines, and they consume way more fuel than this thing does. Of course one of them is a 1917 engine that's so primitive it doesn't even use a carburetor (look up "hit and miss mixer" in google for more info). No real surprise there!
🐱👍🏿
It would be interesting to see the fuel usage after she's been slicing the timber.
Yep - another thing to test
I have one of these from my Grandfathers dairy. We only had it running again a couple of days ago. It ran 24hrs a day for around 30 years before the power came on in the late 60's. It ran a vacuum pump and pulsators to milk cows in an 8 bale walk-through dairy, a pressure pump to wash the dairy and provide pressured water for the homestead, a 32V generator for homestead lighting and power, and a piston pump to suck water from the Snowy River. I doubt very much that my computerised Hilux will still run in 100 years time!
The old time when the engineers created a state of art, not like today, a big-caca! Respect and congratulations to keep alive this engine !
Interesting, about 1 imperial gallon/10hr. FYI. I found that similar Lister/Petter and Lister and Petter engines have about the same fuel consumption as newer 1500rpm engines and that these use LESS diesel than similar 3000rpm engines. You might also be interested to know that for Lister and Petter engines you can source all of the parts (yes every single bit) from Mahindra Diesels in India. They have endlessly tweaked and twiddled these and they are superiour to original parts. You may even still be able to obtain the chromed piston bores that the Listers and Petters used to use. Which in no small part contributes to their longevity in service.
You are right Giles, I had 2 250KVA Merrilees Blackstone gensets that ran at 500RPM, they used less fuel than a turbocharged Cummins of the same output.
they were a 1930's vintage if I remember correctly.
@@user-pb3bk3kc3g Could easily be. Not sure when these particular Bamford engines ceased production, but Lister/Petter continued them right into the mid 70's. Primarily as pumping engines for Africa I believe. A role now taken over by Mahindra Diesels. Yes Cummins, good engines until their not keeping up with emissions debacle. Still used in rail locos I think. Never really known for frugal consumption in trucks or plant though with their cam lifted injection system.
My car consumes 1L/hour just to idle. This machine is more efficient than modern car engine.
Your car engine is also driving fans, belts, pumps, and an alternator to charge the battery and run all the electronics in your vehicle. These are not comparable because you're your car engine is doing more work
Well edited video. Thumbs up. Also I love that weather cap on the exhaust!
I love a stationery engine. Very quiet and amazing on fuel, easy to work on..Andre
That's some quality science right there!
could you run your engine on wood gas? that wood pair well with your hole char coal operation.
Lots of diesel engines run on natural gas so running a diesel engine on wood gas should not be an issue either.
AFAIK a small amount of diesel fuel is injected with each stroke to provide ignition but the main source of power is the gas mixture in the intake air.
I'd love to add a Bamford to my Lister CS collection someday. Really wonderful, thanks for sharing.
Thank you for a pleasing video on the old engine. The size of the thing and only 6 hp.
Pretty decent I’d say!
It would be much more interesting if you measured fuel consumption under heavier load. Any chance you have a generator? Gallons per kWh would be a most interesting figure.
I think you're hit upon a winning solution. I wish you all the success possible. Thanks, and continue posting.
"45¢ per hour of work seems good value" That is dam good in my book.
Very nice video and an interesting trial. I think that there is a slight mis-understanding though, a US gallon is about 3.78 litres and an imperial gallon is 4.54 litres so 450 ml is about one tenth of an imperial gallon. This quibble apart, thank you very much for making this video, it's great to see these old machines still running.