Micro CoGen.

I have just reconfigured my Lima MAC from 120 volts only (Delta) to 240/120. (Zig zag). The Lima unit is a twelve wire unit.
The generator is now producing 120/240.
I have a 10 amp breaker between the neutral and ground on my main panel in the main house. (I wanted to be able to issolate the ground should I need to use my cheapo backup inverter that reqiures an issolated ground or it will be smoked and kaput).
My problem is that now the breaker trips. I am getting 120 volts between neutral and ground. When I try to ground the neutral via the breaker then gen bogs down and the breaker trips.
I am now running with a floating ground.

I did not have this problem when wired delta and 120 volts only.
Any ideas as to what is happening?

Does anyone have the dimensions for this? I need to make one and I am wondering is I just trace the outline of the bottom bearing holder, would that work? or do I have to add a bit for the flange of the bearing shells to stop them from shifting (Rotating). I just replaced the crankshaft on my old VA, (aircooled 8/1) and now I need a shim otherwise the crank siezes up when tightening the connection rod bolts.
Thanks
Chris

Has any one bought from these guys. The price seems to be fair + or -. Ready to run.
www.generatordepotusa.com/generators.asp?prod=SF12
Don't know if the hyper link will work?

I wonder how long they will be able to offer this with all the EPA stuff.

Chris

Happy new years everyone. This forum is the best. Good people to hear from, always, no matter the topic.

Chris

I know it is a little off topic But!

Many years ago, Here in Abaco, Bahamas. I was visiting with some of friends on Elbow Cay (Hope Towns). They had a vacation house that was built buit by Burle Ives, Aunt Pat's Bay, for those that know the area. I know this dates me a bit. Any way they had a Lister, not a VA or 8/1, a 1800 rpm unit, we all had a generator of some sort. No Grid power around in those days. The generator would not start and we had to dismatle the fuel system. Linkages, every thing. Water, dirt, crud had gotten all up through it. Clean everything up, reassemble, and fired it up. We knew it was not running at the right speed, we knew, didn't sound right, but close. Our volt meter had dead batteries. No hertz meter. We were blind.How to get the volts/hertz right?

So this is what we did.
After getting the gen going, we felt pretty proud of our selves. We where only about 16 -18 years old.
Had a couple of Rum drinks, yeh we drink too much, nothing much else to do, we turned on the record player, remember those things? Put the Mama and Papas on the turn table. Turned it on and they sounded like sh&t. The record player was running too slow. SOO we had someone in the gen shed adjusting and another in the house listening, someone in between creaming, faster, slower. We got the Mamas and Pamps sounding spot on.

Chris

There is a thread on the other site, which I have never been able to get signed onto, that has a discussion on how to get a change over valve out of the head. Here is my experience with trying to get the "Main Plug" out of a Lister VA head.

The Lister VA that I have now was rescued from a small Cay that our familly used to own. We used to visit on vacation when I was younger. On one of my vacations I was informed by the caretaker that the Lister had been acting up and the Lister guy came and fixed it, but it was now hard to start. I went and took a look and I could see that parts had been replaced, including the head. I tried to find out what work had been done on on the engine and why. Why-- it would not start. What-- did not know other than when the Lister guy let the unit was running, ie fixed. The engine was a bitch to start. The caretaker said he had to use starting fluid to get it going. I cringed, starting fluid! The valves were sticking and when running, lots of smoke.
I pull the head off and yep all carboned up. Decarbonised the unit and reassembled. The starting was still hard. Checked the spill timing. That seemed OK. Slept on it for a while. (We had a second VA that was working OK, so that was used while trying to figure out what was wrong). I spent weeks that went into months, several vacations, trying to figure out what was wrong. Changed injectors, had injectors re calibrated, check head clearance again. Got the Lister guy back to take a look. He could not figure out what was going on. The unit would carbon up real fast. Say a week with minor use. The engine acted like it had low compression, but why?

On the back of the head, where I guess a change over valve would be, (I have never seen a change over valve. All I had ever worked on were VA and sometimes a 8/1 with no change over valve), is a big square headed plug. I had never taken this plug out before. Never had a need to do so. I thought may be I would be able to see what the injector was doing. Took the plug out. no luck could not see the injector. More sleeping on it!

The next day or so something clicked in my head. Took a look at the parts list and the blow up of the head. Saw the plug I removed and something else, item 1 THE MAIN PLUG was missing! I did not a spare. I checked one of our worn out heads, (Valve seats ground down way below recommend levels), took off the square headed plug and there it was, a MAIN PLUG. Now how to get it out? It was so far in there and no space to get anything in there to try and pry it out. More sleep on it, or as Rom would say, another rum and coke.

OK enough of the back ground story.

This is what I did. Sprayed a bunch of WD40 in the smiley mouth of the head. WD40 between the MAIN PLUG and the screw in plug. More rum and coke and sleep. The next day I bolted
the old head on the engine. Took out the screw in plug. Poured oil into the injector hole, installed the injector. No valve rockers. Slowly rocked the flywheels back and forth and POW, the main plug shoot out of the head and put a big dent in the concrete block wall of the generator shed. If someone had been in the way, bye bye. It scared the sh-t out of me, but I now had a MAIN PLUG. Installed it in the good head. Problem sovled.The VA is running, woomp, woomp, as I type, same head same MAIN PLUG.

Regards,

Chris

 This is part of a post I made under ? living off grid inverters etc. I thought I would copy and paste for those Lister freaks like me.
Regards

Chris


My main power supply right now , cooler time of the year, A/C not required, is a Lister VA (The air cooled version of a 8/1). Which I use to charge batteries, lights, water pump for about 5 yrs per day, with a little solar.  This is an increadable machine. It has been in my family since about 1962. Lost control of it for about 6 years after our familly property was sold. It sat abandon in the gen shed for 6 years. The connecting rod bearing was just about worn out and the air cowling rusted out ,stuck injector pump, bad injector, etc. After the new owner decided it was not worth fixing and with a little prod from me, he gave it back to me. One weekend while he was away I spent about, may be an hour and had it fired up, very temporary. I had to move it by boat off the island it was located on, spent a few week ends repairing the air cooling cowling. I was able to get some new connecting rod bearings from Phil at Central Main. I am looking for a replacment crank shaft, sleeve bearing type, which is different from the roller bearing type that most Listeroids have. If any one out there knows where there is one in this part of the world, let me know. The crank has probably more than a 100,000.00 hours on it. This unit was in service at one time for about 8 hrs a day for about 35 years. A few replacements of bearings, rings, heads, liners etc. I have been messing around with this engine/generator since I was 15 years old, now 59yrs. It's my baby. It's the love of my life after wife, kids and grand kids.  There are still a few other units around here that I know of. Many with broken parts of one sort or another. I will try and locate some pictures I have and post somewhere.

Regards,

Chris