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 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.
@@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.
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.
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 .
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!
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.
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..
@@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
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
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
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 .
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.
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: ua-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.
32 volts was the operating voltage for Dunlite wind mill generators manufactured in Adelaide Australia. Tools and kitchen gadgets were also made or altered to go with the system. Plenty Dunlite systems were exported to USA and elsewhere before widespread electrification.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“Farm Life,” e.g., getting up at 5am for various chores, before catching the school bus, can teach one a great deal about having responsibilities and doing a job *right the first time* as the farm animals will let it be known if they weren’t fed!
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.
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
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…..
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! 🍀🔆🟢💚🧑🏻🎤🏁🌞🌞😎
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! 👍
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.
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
thats about 6.2 gallons per 24 hours/ or .26 gallon per hr and if you had a 1000amphr battery bank it would only need to run a couple hours aday. 1000amphr 24volt = 24kw storage energy runs whole 8kw small house so you would need 4hours on lister engine to keep battery 1000amphr 24volt bank charged to full which would be about 1.5 gallons $3-4 dollars
What a beautiful machine, love these stationary engines and for an 80 years old engine, just incredible fuel economy. I have a 10hp Hatz diesel from 40 years back, it's about 28% efficient , uses 1 liter of diesel to make just over 2800wh into my 48 volt battery bank. These engines can run forever, build to last, over engineered and heavy, no electronics, I love it.
Why is it I’m even watching this, but it’s bloody wonderful just the fact this engine runs and is actually doing some work. Perhaps I’m just too old to be still living, so many young people feel oaps shouldn’t be allowed to linger on. We are bad for the environment. Great video loved it.
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.)
Ten hours running for a gallon of fuel . Outstanding . You just answered a question I have occasionally pondered that question but I am not really surprised at the economy . Interesting video . Thanks.
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!!
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.
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
yep bamford or lister engine technology running a generator and a large 1000amphr 24 volt battery bank is key. it would be about 4hrs a day to keep huge 1000amphr 24 volt battery bank topped off in a house using 8kw to 10kw per day .
My father bought an engine Bamford diesel 5-5 1/5 hp. used to operate a small rice mill,this engine is very durable quality made until now we have it in our shop
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
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."
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 😊
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.
@@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.
What a wonderful video. I love old engines. There's something poetic in the motion and sound and the history of such a beautiful machine. Thank you for your video. Cheers!
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.
Hello , I have here an old Bamfords engine much like this one , but smaller & petrol fuelled , we kept it for milking the cows with during power cuts . We bought it during the WW2 , wanted a Lister but couldn't get one , however , these had few but MASSIVE horses . it drove an Alfa - Laval vacuum pump without knowing it , although the belt speed was a bit down on the electric motor , ( it needed a bigger pulley on the back of the engine to shift more belt per r.p.m.). From new it was a poor starter , bad compression due to a bit rough boring in the cylinder ( WW2 supplies) , my uncle was an engineer , got hold of a set of "Cords " piston rings for it , problem solved , better compression . My late Dad last used it during the English 3-day week , power cuts , no electricity for lights to see to milk the cows with at night , nor power to drive the vacuum pump , bloody dangerous job to do largely in the dark , I helped him do it , but his cows knew him & me well & allowed us to manage them in the light from an old Tilley paraffin lamp , with the old engine thumping away driving the vacuum pump . he started it with the light from a miner's torch , how's that for a paradox , in the very dim light one night his slop corner wrapped round the crankshaft , he felt his coat tightening up & slammed both hands on top of the cylinder head , the old engine was only just turning fast enough to fire , but fire it did , & ripped his coat straight off him , torn to shreds , but he was uninjured , just very shaken . I don't blame the miners for striking , most of us have had our livelihoods destroyed from outside , they were simply about to get the same , thatcherism , then global warming concerns . I believe the factory site these engines were made in is still there , but now makes tracked excavators for the J.C.B. Company . History for you from an English stock farm .
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.
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.
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!
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 😔
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.
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
25yrs ago I was versed on 1 and 2 lung engines, Arrow ,lister ,Kubota, national and a fairbanks. Incredible engines. Lots of fun and learning from the diesel to wet gas and converted many to natural gas and propane 😊
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.
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.
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.
If I owned one of these I would most certainly end up actually using it just as you do, so I respect and relate to that very much. The down side is, I would want a bunch of these.
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
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.
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 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. 😅
Just found this July 24,2024. A wonderful old engine that seems to run Very economically. It's obvious that you care both for and about the old girl. If you haven't perhaps you could rig a generator for when the power goes out. Thank you for the video!
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.
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.
Growing up in the Aussie bush, we had an old single cylinder Lister that used to power our pump - watering the fruit trees we had. It was a bulletproof engine.
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.
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.
@@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 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.
@@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.
I had two old Lister Engines the equivalent of your of machine, one single posyon and the other two pistons..brilliant sadly gave one away and the other was stolen from me with a 6Kw generator fitted to each..sadly this is Africa, where nothing is safe..!! Love your machine, a sure winner..!!
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.
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.
About 15 years ago I bought an India built copy of a Lister 6hp engine that makes a wonderful sound at 600 RPM. These low speed motors spend longer in the Power phase of its cycle which more completely burns the fuel. They are not finicky drinkers. Diesel fuel works fine as Well as old motor oil diluted by diesel fuel. I used to make biodiesel using used cooking oil (from fast food kitchen). Biodiesel was my favorite - the fumes occasionally smelled like donuts or French fries or fish. Cleaned up cooking oil also worked if I warmed the engine briefly using diesel or biodiesel. Also bought a 5HP electric motor and the right pulley so it turned the motor at 1800 RPM. With this setup I could run the diesel for weeks at a time between oil changes. Most diesels last a few thousand hours before requiring a rebuild. Lister style engines will run much much longer. Just what I wanted for a SHTF electric generator. The 1800 RPM motor runs cool and should last a very long time. Years later I expanded the setup with a water pump in place of the electric motor. Worked fine. I expect it will be working long after I’m gone. Nephew is handling the farm now. He is very likely the end of our line of farmers.
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
@@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.
yes! Very impressed. If only I could power my woodwork shop with one of those! I have a big diesel V8 ford. The first four-wheel vehicle I've owned. Cost 8k US$ 14 years ago. Doesn't get used much but if driven on highways and not freeways will do 24MPG. I hazard a guess and say it's worth upwards of 35k now but I won't sell it for 3 reasons. It will haul just about anything, I can do most of the maintenance myself (If any) and how many folks can say they only ever owned one car/truck in their entire lives. Old machines rule. Every time!
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😎
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!
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
Where I'm at, we have a few popping jennys... My 3.5hp Briggs gasoline engine, burns about a pint an hour, that about how long it takes to cut the grass.. Love the sounds of these things, almost hypnotic! ✌️💚🙏😁 oh, and definitely a 👍
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.
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!
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.
Bamford Engine Machinery Group. A long history. A large factory. One suspects their engines will be found all over the globe, and plenty still in use, I dare say.
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
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.
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?
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
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
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 .
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.
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: ua-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?😮
32 volts was the operating voltage for Dunlite wind mill generators manufactured in Adelaide Australia. Tools and kitchen gadgets were also made or altered to go with the system. Plenty Dunlite systems were exported to USA and elsewhere before widespread electrification.
@@toasttoriginal One day he will for sure.
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.
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.
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.
“Farm Life,” e.g., getting up at 5am for various chores, before catching the school bus, can teach one a great deal about having responsibilities and doing a job *right the first time* as the farm animals will let it be known if they weren’t fed!
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! 😁👍😁
Lovely old thing. Great to see it still giving useful service 👍🇦🇺
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.
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
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…..
Beautiful engine! Glad to see it still in use. Best fourty-five cents spent in my opinion.
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! 🍀🔆🟢💚🧑🏻🎤🏁🌞🌞😎
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! 👍
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.
I love these old engines. Until today, I didn't realise how cheap they are to run. Thank you.
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
thats about 6.2 gallons per 24 hours/ or .26 gallon per hr and if you had a 1000amphr battery bank it would only need to run a couple hours aday. 1000amphr 24volt = 24kw storage energy runs whole 8kw small house so you would need 4hours on lister engine to keep battery 1000amphr 24volt bank charged to full which would be about 1.5 gallons $3-4 dollars
What a beautiful machine, love these stationary engines and for an 80 years old engine, just incredible fuel economy.
I have a 10hp Hatz diesel from 40 years back, it's about 28% efficient , uses 1 liter of diesel to make just over 2800wh into my 48 volt battery bank.
These engines can run forever, build to last, over engineered and heavy, no electronics, I love it.
I do believe 45 cents per hour isnt terribly shabby at all, and its quite frankly a lovely engine.
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.
Great to hear the injector "breaking". Wonderful machine.
I love these old engines. I love the sounds they make
Why is it I’m even watching this, but it’s bloody wonderful just the fact this engine runs and is actually doing some work.
Perhaps I’m just too old to be still living, so many young people feel oaps shouldn’t be allowed to linger on. We are bad
for the environment. Great video loved it.
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.)
Ten hours running for a gallon of fuel . Outstanding . You just answered a question I have occasionally pondered that question but I am not really surprised at the economy . Interesting video . Thanks.
I think it is wonderful......the machine, the preservation, the production and the video in general..Thank you!
I love this older stuff especially if it can be used for work. I've become my dad, and proud of it.
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.
I think you're hit upon a winning solution. I wish you all the success possible. Thanks, and continue posting.
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.
Thank you for showing how little fuel is being used by these older Diesel engines!
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
yep bamford or lister engine technology running a generator and a large 1000amphr 24 volt battery bank is key. it would be about 4hrs a day to keep huge 1000amphr 24 volt battery bank topped off in a house using 8kw to 10kw per day .
My father bought an engine Bamford diesel 5-5 1/5 hp. used to operate a small rice mill,this engine is very durable quality made until now we have it in our shop
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.
Beautiful in its simplicity, simple, reliable economical to operate and maintain no wonder they stopped being used
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."
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 😊
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
What a wonderful video. I love old engines. There's something poetic in the motion and sound and the history of such a beautiful machine. Thank you for your video. Cheers!
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
Hello , I have here an old Bamfords engine much like this one , but smaller & petrol fuelled , we kept it for milking the cows with during power cuts . We bought it during the WW2 , wanted a Lister but couldn't get one , however , these had few but MASSIVE horses . it drove an Alfa - Laval vacuum pump without knowing it , although the belt speed was a bit down on the electric motor , ( it needed a bigger pulley on the back of the engine to shift more belt per r.p.m.). From new it was a poor starter , bad compression due to a bit rough boring in the cylinder ( WW2 supplies) , my uncle was an engineer , got hold of a set of "Cords " piston rings for it , problem solved , better compression . My late Dad last used it during the English 3-day week , power cuts , no electricity for lights to see to milk the cows with at night , nor power to drive the vacuum pump , bloody dangerous job to do largely in the dark , I helped him do it , but his cows knew him & me well & allowed us to manage them in the light from an old Tilley paraffin lamp , with the old engine thumping away driving the vacuum pump . he started it with the light from a miner's torch , how's that for a paradox , in the very dim light one night his slop corner wrapped round the crankshaft , he felt his coat tightening up & slammed both hands on top of the cylinder head , the old engine was only just turning fast enough to fire , but fire it did , & ripped his coat straight off him , torn to shreds , but he was uninjured , just very shaken . I don't blame the miners for striking , most of us have had our livelihoods destroyed from outside , they were simply about to get the same , thatcherism , then global warming concerns . I believe the factory site these engines were made in is still there , but now makes tracked excavators for the J.C.B. Company . History for you from an English stock farm .
ha! Thanks. I grew up on a dairy farm and remember when the power went off, or the pump broke down, we'd have to milk the cows by hand..
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.
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!
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 😔
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.
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.
Keep the old girl going! New doesn't always mean better!!! Great video
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
Hi,using Yanmar twin cylinder and 1 metre width flail mower.
25yrs ago I was versed on 1 and 2 lung engines, Arrow ,lister ,Kubota, national and a fairbanks. Incredible engines.
Lots of fun and learning from the diesel to wet gas and converted many to natural gas and propane 😊
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.
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.
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.
If I owned one of these I would most certainly end up actually using it just as you do, so I respect and relate to that very much. The down side is, I would want a bunch of these.
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
yep they use 4 times+ more fuel because they dont have the flywheel weight size helping them
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.
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
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.]
They were very wise and efficient back then our high rpm obsession today is ridiculous.
motorsport fans left the chat..
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 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.
Just found this July 24,2024. A wonderful old engine that seems to run Very economically. It's obvious that you care both for and about the old girl. If you haven't perhaps you could rig a generator for when the power goes out.
Thank you for the video!
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.
I have a 1959 Cooper Klipper reel mower It has a 2-1/2 hp Briggs and Stratton engine and still works flawlessly. Sometimes older is better.
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
Growing up in the Aussie bush, we had an old single cylinder Lister that used to power our pump - watering the fruit trees we had. It was a bulletproof engine.
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.
That’s amazing! Very economical! Love the electric starter. Just shows how long these old machines last. Much better than modern motors.
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.
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 !
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 had two old Lister Engines the equivalent of your of machine, one single posyon and the other two pistons..brilliant sadly gave one away and the other was stolen from me with a 6Kw generator fitted to each..sadly this is Africa, where nothing is safe..!!
Love your machine, a sure winner..!!
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.
Seeing a sweet old engine like this getting some love got a subscription from me, thanks.
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.
About 15 years ago I bought an India built copy of a Lister 6hp engine that makes a wonderful sound at 600 RPM. These low speed motors spend longer in the Power phase of its cycle which more completely burns the fuel.
They are not finicky drinkers.
Diesel fuel works fine as Well as old motor oil diluted by diesel fuel.
I used to make biodiesel using used cooking oil (from fast food kitchen).
Biodiesel was my favorite - the fumes occasionally smelled like donuts or French fries or fish.
Cleaned up cooking oil also worked if I warmed the engine briefly using diesel or biodiesel.
Also bought a 5HP electric motor and the right pulley so it turned the motor at 1800 RPM. With this setup I could run the diesel for weeks at a time between oil changes.
Most diesels last a few thousand hours before requiring a rebuild.
Lister style engines will run much much longer.
Just what I wanted for a SHTF electric generator. The 1800 RPM motor runs cool and should last a very long time.
Years later I expanded the setup with a water pump in place of the electric motor. Worked fine.
I expect it will be working long after I’m gone. Nephew is handling the farm now. He is very likely the end of our line of farmers.
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.
yes! Very impressed. If only I could power my woodwork shop with one of those! I have a big diesel V8 ford. The first four-wheel vehicle I've owned. Cost 8k US$ 14 years ago. Doesn't get used much but if driven on highways and not freeways will do 24MPG. I hazard a guess and say it's worth upwards of 35k now but I won't sell it for 3 reasons. It will haul just about anything, I can do most of the maintenance myself (If any) and how many folks can say they only ever owned one car/truck in their entire lives. Old machines rule. Every time!
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😎
Thank you for a pleasing video on the old engine. The size of the thing and only 6 hp.
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!
🐱👍🏿
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 🐱👍🏿
Where I'm at, we have a few popping jennys... My 3.5hp Briggs gasoline engine, burns about a pint an hour, that about how long it takes to cut the grass..
Love the sounds of these things, almost hypnotic! ✌️💚🙏😁 oh, and definitely a 👍
The engineers that designed these motors took fuel efficiency very seriously.
I'd love to add a Bamford to my Lister CS collection someday. Really wonderful, thanks for sharing.
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.
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!
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?
Beautiful old engine, true work of art that will out last newer engines
You need to find a friendly chip shop - then you could make your own fuel!
Great show! Old tech isn’t always sexy, but if you are in the hinterlands of the Emerald Isle, it damn well works!
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.
Bamford Engine Machinery Group. A long history. A large factory. One suspects their engines will be found all over the globe, and plenty still in use, I dare say.
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
My favorite part was the little dragon on the exhaust flapper, but a very cool video.