Over my career, I have used and admired Lister engines. I have had hundreds of three cylinder air cooled TS and TR type run over 40,000 hours without rebuild. Now that I am retired and living on a ship M/V Haganes, the gensets on board are powered by a Lister TS series two cylinder diesel and a Lister TR series single cylinder diesel. For almost three years, the single cylinder Lister has been running 24 hours a day 7days a week. I worry now about her relability as single cylinder engines are notorious for their short lives (this generator still uses less than one liter of oil every two weeks with no smoke).

So after literally months of research, on 01 August 2006, I placed an order for an Indian built copy of the Lister CS 10/1. This engine series was first designed in the late 1920's, and will find a good fit with the other old diesels and equipment of this 100 year old whaling ship. This engine will be continuously run, and will answer the questions of durability and repair frequencies with proper maintenance of these copies built in India.  The importance of purchasing this engine from a top manufacturer in India is paramount as there is a lot of inferior built engines.  After some research, I decided that no manufacturer was better than GECO Trading Company (GTC) in producing this engine.

The promise of the supplier Waggonner Engine Works westernstar66@aol.com who supplies these engines to the North American market was 45 days. This puts delivery around 15 September 2006. On 29 November 2006, I took possession of the genset in Labuan, Malaysia. I ended up coordinating directly with Mr. Khalid Khan of GTC in India as we are almost in the same time zone. The delay was caused by the generator end sub-supplier failing to deliver (30 days) and shipping company errors (30 days).

Engine Hours to Date: 110 hours (16Jan2007)

Correspondence Link (click here)

Summary of Experience to Date

Overall, I am having difficulties keeping the engine running.  At this point:

• the valve lash keeps increasing.  I keep checking now every 8 hours and adjust.  the wear is happening to the push rod  (the intake now has not needed any adjustment in 40 hours and the exhaust amount of adjustment is decreasing).
• oil continues to be blown out every orifice.  at 102 hours I disassembled the engine because of this problem, and discovered compression rings 2 and 3 were installed upside down.  at this time the amount of crankcase pressure has decreased and I am hoping that as the engine wears in the problem will disappear.  the vacuum breaker is installed properly but may be the problem also as it may have been slightly deformed by the high crankcase pressures caused by the upside down compression rings.
• as this generator is used on a ship, I specified a very tight tolerance on the performance of the generator end.  GTC claimed that they could not get delivery of the specified brushless type generator, but would provide a brush type generator head which was just as good.  the supplied generator  has a voltage tolerance of +/-5% (specified  +/-2%).  I have requested return of money for the difference in price between the specified and delivered generator - or the generator I ordered.  To date, this request has not been accepted.
• neither the person I purchased this engine from or the manufacturer will respond to my requests for assistance.

Inadequate control of chemicals and physical properties of the metals used in the product.

• the valve rocker adjusting screws broke (brittle metal)
• the valve tappets although turning show wear (metal too soft)
• the split pins (cotter pins) used in the connecting rod big end bolts broke during the first reuse (brittle metal).

Inadequate checks of completed work.

• the head was warped, and caused cooling water engress into the combustion chamber (the head bolts at time of delivery were over torqued by manufacturer.  I suspect that this problem was noticed during the run at the factory and the problem was torqued away).
• the valves were not properly seated.
• the frequency meter (hertz meter) in the control panel was inoperative because it was improperly wired.
• piston compression rings 2 and 3 were installed upside down.

Chronological Narrative

We went along side at the commercial port of Labuan, Malaysia to pick up the beast. We were very lucky in that it took only two and a half hours to uncrate, unload 1 ton of spare parts for the main engine which will never be used (but was in the place where this new genset would be set up), and load the new genset below decks. The supplier GTC provided really good isolation feet - these would work really well on land.  A ship moves so I must tie it down.  I design a sarcophogas frame with rubber isolators to tie the genset to the hull while using the supplied vibration isolators on the existing concrete floor (Yes, many old ships have concrete floors).  A new exhaust system was built (diesels cannot share a common exhaust because of moisture as I have learned the hard way).  The first muffler installed turned out not to muffle enough, and the sarcophogas frame leaked some vibration to the hull.  

The startup had some minor issues but unfortunately one big one - head gasket leaked water into the combustion chamber.  The good news that in the process of tearing the engine down I was impressed by the quality of the parts (I have purchased George's cd and a member of the website www.listerengine.com so I know the horror stories). The piston is iron, the crankshaft has counterweights, and the vibration levels are less than expected.

Between 18 and 21 December 2006 I tried to run in the engine.  the crankcase pressures kept increasing indicating to me a ring problem.  In addition, the valve gap kept increasing, and I was adjusting it every 12 hours. finally the valve adjusting bolt broke.  I shut the engine down and disassembled.  I had both the intake and exhaust valve adjustment bolt remachined.  In addition, I found compression rings 2 and 3 upside down.

After restarting the engine on 16 January 2007, the crankcase pressures are greatly reduced but oil is still being blown out the lifters and the crankshaft seals.  I am having issues with the valve gap adjustment, but at this time it may be solved.