16/2 Weathered the storm

[Rom]

Well they have restored power to our house now for the second time since Irene passed through. We had power back since Sunday 11pm, and Monday around 4pm a lightning storm came through and blew a fuse to our transformer leg. Do to more lines being down on the next island, they left it to this evening to come and finally restore power.

Just a couple of notes. One, do not think you can run a centrifuge on the same line that you would normally run the battery charger that charges the battery for the rad fan.
I ran the centrifuge on Monday afternoon for an hour to make a batch of fuel, and when I came back I saw the overflow bottle pissing a bit. I must say I didnt pay it much mind beyond that, just plugged the charger back in and set it to 20amp charge.

A couple hours later, after dark, I went to check the fuel level with my trusty iphone 4 flashlight app, and as soon as I aimed the light at the shed you could see the smoke bellowing out the door! I ran inside to find what looked like the paint flaking off the exhaust sides of the heads, and smoke rising off of both exhaust valves. Well being that I am not the government run electric corp and I hate turning the lights off on my customers, I poured some 40w oil on each valve set(I know, I know...), nearly drowning uhm, and ran across to the street, up the road to where the tranferswitch between generators and the Broadcrown, started it up, threw the switch, ran back to the Lister and shut it down.

I let it sit for an hour or so with a fan blowing on it. Opened the crankcase and let the smoke outta there, poured in some 40w. Heated some water and filled the radiator, and swung her over and fired back up.

Well it turns out it didnt cook the paint off, just discoloured it and the decals on the front of the cylinder blocks. Still runs like a champ.

Well that was the exciting bit, I have put almost 60hrs on Mr Lister, and just as my fancy 110v hour meter hit 100, it reset to zero! Pain in the butt I tell ya.

Last I fiddled with the governor, I ended up with some hunting, like an old jimmy 671 or 871 would do on startup. Well after 60hrs of near constant running, that has gone, along with excessive dip when a load comes on.

I havent mucked about with machining the tappets yet either, Only the exhaust on cylinder one would somewhat spin when I received the engine. Well now both on that cylinder are spinning like crazy and exhaust on number 2 has started going once and a while. That inlet will have to be machined me thinks to sort it.

Quick Vid of all the fun we were having.

My condolences to all affected.

Rom

[mbryner]

Wow!  Great video!  Glad your Lister is OK, too.

[injin man]

My philosphy has always been if it can't be tested it can't trusted. When Ike
rolled across my compound it tore the place up pretty bad and knocked out
the pole power for 10 days. Some down here didn't get power restored for
30 days! I used a Screamer for about a week of that and finally the power
came on. Back up power sales should be very good in the NE for at least a
year.