Lister Diesel engines

Hello, to everyone! Spring is comming to Minnesota I Hope! My question is? I have several projects than I am currently working on and wonder if anyone has purchased a Lister Diesel from a gentleman named Mike Montieth from Rutherfordton, NC. In a conversation with him he indicated that the design and construction of the Lister engines has not changed much and is this a good way to go? I am looking for slow speed diesels to power a few projects and just wonder what anybody has to say.

Thanks! Pete

Pete , these are good engines . I have sold serval to the Amish families . They use them to power line shafts and other equipment.

Randy, Listers do run very well. I have worked on these engines in the oil patch where gas was not present in the wells. They do run great. Being made over seas poses a problem with parts sometimes, but there are parts out there. I like the old Witte CD one cylinders. Arrow specialities in oklahoma is remanning a new version of the old ones made in K.C. mo. I really would find one these for parts availability. Bob

I have one of these engines that I bought from Mike. It's an excellent engine IMO. It needed a bit of tuning of things like the governor setting, injection timing and valve clearances out of the box. The machine work is excellent. The cast parts finish is a bit rough. Mine is identical in all important respects to the Lister 6/1, with full parts interchangeability. Some of these engines are built with tapered roller main bearings and have splash lubrication only. The original system uses bush main bearings with an oil pump that aims two open streams of oil at the oil holes in the mains. The overflow keeps a splash tray full under the connecting rod so that the actual oil level in the crankcase is noncritical. I built a homemade cart for mine, and now have mounted a belt-driven AC generator on it. The engine is rated at 6 HP or 4.4 kW at the flywheel, but I've had 4600 W of electrical load running on it with the rack not quite out to the end of its travel. That means it was putting out a bit over 7 HP.

These engines are built by a wide variety of firms in India. They're assembled from spare parts made for the original Listers (with the exception of the TRB cranks and mains), like the Harley clones now being built in the US from aftermarket parts. Indian Lister parts are widely manufactured, but there's not much dealer infrastructure in this country at the moment.

Mike is an excellent fellow to deal with, and he can get you any parts you may need; it may take a while if he doesn't have them in stock.

I have some year-old pictures (without the generator) at the link below. :-)


http://users.chartertn.net/johnculp/dolly.html