R195 cylinder sleeve

[mbryner]

Hi all,

Sorry I haven't been around here much lately.   

My Listeroid 6/1 has about 2500 hours on it now and is chugging away just fine, powering our off-grid homestead.   

Problem is: I made a key-start for it with a wooden starter mount (yes, stupid to make it out of wood, but I can't weld), and Chevy 350 starter.   Over the past several months, the starter would grind on the flex plate, worse and worse over time, probably because the wood was shrinking.    I tried to shim it back into alignment, but I just can't get it right.    Getting a starter mount fabricated would cost $$, but my wife can't hand-crank start it.   

Well, last week I saw a R195 with metal skid frame and Winco gen head on the local Craigslist and picked it up for $800.   Externally everything looked OK, it started a little rough and smokey, but I thought it was because it had been sitting for so long.   To get it into the powerhouse in it's new home, I had to dismantle it.   (I took of the head, but I didn't take apart the engine block.)   When my friend who came over to lend some muscles looked at the cylinder wall, he noticed it was severely scored along the bottom.  It looks like there was a coolant leak and the coolest was just sitting in there for a while.   It feels rough and obviously I'm probably getting a bunch of blow-by and suboptimal compression.   It probably trashed the rings, too.   

My question: what is the best way to change the cylinder liner and rings on these?  Assuming I need to get to the big end bearing and take out the piston, but how do I knock out the cylinder?  It's just a compression fit with rubber O-rings, right?  The only other diesel I've seriously worked on is my Listeroid, but it's simple enough.   I don't really want to get into the timing mechanism.   It ran fine to power the house and charge the batteries for several hours last night.  I figure I can't make things too much worse by running it in the mean time.   It's just hard to start and probably less power.   Also, where do I get a liner/sleeve?   I've seen a couple threads here, but no one is reporting any success in getting parts.   It came with a part kit and manual, so I have a set of new rings, etc.

Thanks,
Marcus

[Tom Reed]

Hi Marcus,

How interesting, there's a N195 sitting in our storage unit as a backup for our Listeroid. Mine seems to run good, but all the fins have broken off the plastic fan on the generator head. It still makes power, just gets hot fast. Hardy Diesel has mfg and sold a ton of generators based on the N195. I got a parts quote from them a few years ago which I thought was a bit high. I've heard they sold their parts business as it's not on their website any more. Alibaba has a lot of vendors selling parts for these engines. This link may work http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Sell-Spare-Parts-Of-S195-diesel_108149657.html. One vendor on there is selling cylinder liners for $5.95 with a min order of 8. Please let us know what you find and to keep in touch too. In fact, how is your hydro system working?

[mbryner]

Hi Tom,

The hydro system is all ready to go....but there's not enough water in the creek!   Last year it worked for about 2 weeks.   The low rainfall is a killer.   The first few years we owned the land, the creek I'm using was flowing strong until May/June.   I think it will take just a little more rain....

Weren't you doing something with hydro, too?

I'm a little leery of using Alibaba -- definitely not ordering 8 liners.

Marcus

[mobile_bob]

if we could get the alibaba seller to sell the sleeves and ship them individually, they might just get past customs without issues.

i have been pretty lucky getting small parts from all over the planet shipped through the mail system,  i wonder if a sleeve might be able to be shipped the same way?

another option would be to contact the gasketstogo guy, he has contacts in that part of the world that likely could provide a cylinder/sleeve and ship it to you. 

as for removal of the sleeve,  you will have to make a puller plate to extract it from the block.

the orings take a set and you likely will damage the block bore if you try to drive the sleeve out.

just make sure the puller plate is smaller in OD than the ID of the block bore, you might wait till you get a new liner and have a plate made to fit it with enough OD clearance to assure it does not drag and score the block bore and damage the oring lands.

something i would probably try before going to all this trouble of a new sleeve.

remove the head, piston/rod assy, and pack the crankcase with clean rags... then get a hone and hone the crap out of the liner.  even if you don't get all the scratched/scoring out it might well be enough to get the unit back into operation again.

the 195 has abit over twice the power of a 6/1 so in my opinion, if you are simply wanting about 6hp worth of power from the 195 it might run a very long time even with a bit of scoring.

the blowby would be much less at lower power output levels, at least as i see it.

if you don't want to risk your new set of rings to the honed bore, just carefully clean up the old rings, and with the use of a magnifier lens take and stone a bit of relief on the face of them... this will cause the leading edge to have more contact or most of the contact and allow the rings to reseat to the rehoned bore... i have done this before and it works.

if you decide to hone, remember to carefully clean the bore when you are done, use ATF and white paper towels, oiling and wiping until you come out with white towels with red oil on them without any trace of grey color (which is fine metal and abrasive materials).

my bet is there are jillions of the 195's out there that have been put back into service with rehoned cylinders and stoned rings, plugging away just fine... maybe smoking a bit more but starting and running reliably day in and day out.

i suspect your engine is a idi engine, if so get ahold of the gasketstogo guy (john) and ask for the s1100 headgskt he got from me from a biz associate of his.... it is made of a superior material and fits the 195 perfectly....

good luck
bob g

[mbryner]

Thanks Bob. 

I didn't look in the crankcase yet, so I'm not even sure how to get the piston/rings/con-rod out.  I presume there's a couple nuts at the big end bearing and the whole shebang comes out at the top end (scratching the cylinder liner worse in the process, of course).   Luckily these Chinese diesels seem pretty easy to work on, except what you wrote about taking out the sleeve sounds like bear.  How am I going to make a cylinder puller?   Well, I have some ideas but...

Also, the electric start is quite different.   Instead of a keystart with Off-On-Start (spring loaded), the key turns right to start (no spring back), left to "charge".   Is this common on Changfas?   I was thinking about just installing  regular starter switch -- can't see any reason why not to.

Marcus

[mobile_bob]

my changfa's all have the spring back to on position start switches, even though i don't use them.

if i had what you have, and had to depend on one, i would replace it with such as i have or at least a momentary contact push button for starting.  one of those big rubber booted jobs common to old tractors and such?

the puller i posted about for removing the sleeve is basically a round plate, with a hole in it
so that a long piece of allthread  can be used to draw the sleeve out of the block from the head end.

basically the round plate is made up so that it has a stepped OD, the inner step fits fairly well into the bore of the sleeve, and the outer OD is just a bit smaller than the OD of the sleeve so that as both the plate and the sleeve are pulled out the thing does not catch on the inside of the case/block as it comes through.

the piston/rod assembly comes out the top end, and yes there are two fastners, if i recall they are two bolts that must be removed, or maybe two nuts,, but i am fairly sure they are bolts. at the big end...

remove the carbon as best you can at the top of the liner, remove the big end fasteners, then remove the upper brg shell from the big end and carefully drive the piston and rod out the top end with a long piece of wood, like a broom handle or such.

after that put in the puller plate, and put into that the long althread rod, secure with a nut at the bottom.

at the top end all that is needed is a piece of strap iron or channel, or whatever with a hole in it
so that althread can pass up through it... use a couple of deep sockets as standoffs for this upper bar and screw down another nut... crank down the nut and the sleeve will come sliding out.

the better the puller plate fits the ID of the sleeve the safer it is to use doing this, without worry of scaring the block on the way out.

hope this helps?

bob g

ps. you can get a plate made up by anyone with a metal lathe without much trouble.
i have even made them before by simply cutting out a plate with a torch, grinding to the OD i want and then drilling and installing rollpins for ID locators to keep the puller centered in the sleeve...

you might even be able to get a very large iron washer from tacoma screw products that is large enough to make the thing out of... i know they have some that are up to 4" in OD that i have bought for other purposes... if you had a new liner in hand just stop in with it and see if they can come up with something off the shelf that is sized right to do the job.  that would be a fairly cheap option that would require only drilling for locator pins to keep the plate (washer) centered in the sleeve.  just be sure the washer is about a quarter inch thick so it has enough strength to do the job, i have no idea how tight your liner might be coming out... some come out without a lot of pull, some moreso that others.

[mbryner]

Thanks!

So you've given me an idea:  Wood doesn't scratch metal easily.  Why does the puller have to be made of metal?

I'll stack & glue 2 pieces of 3/4" plywood to make a 1.5" thick plate.   Then cut a disk just smaller than the OD of the cylinder sleeve, and bevel the edges to fit inside the sleeve to keep it centered.  That will be the puller block in the crankcase.  Some decent size washers will distribute the force so the nut doesn't pull through.

Then the wood plate with hole in it that is left over can be used as the block at the top end to push against, after enlarging the hole to greater than the OD of the sleeve.   I have some all-thread around here.  Easy  Now I just have to get the new sleeve and O-rings!

Marcus

[mbryner]

Update:  that cylinder sleeve was a bear to get out.   Wood disks pulling from in the crankcase didn't work.   The wood split and disintegrated (1" thick).   A diesel mechanic friend found a couple of small metal plates lying around in his shop and brought them over.   After a couple hours we finally got it out.   

Installing the new one was easy, except....  the old sleeve had an area ground down on the inside where it protrudes into the crankcase.   After we reassembled with new sleeve, rings, and cleaned-up piston, the big end of the connecting rod hit the cylinder sleeve, so we had to take everything apart again and he took it home and fixed it on the die-grinder.   I'll post a pic later tonight.   Just last night I was finally able to reassemble and test -- and it runs perfect.   No more blow by and it seems quieter.   

Note: that I have a  alternator/electrical question for anyone on a different thread.

Thanks for the help.
Marcus

[mbryner]

Here you can sort-of see the scoring inside the cylinder sleeve.  (mostly you can see the color change)



1st attempt at liner puller.   The wooden disk just collapsed.





2nd, most successful attempt:



My friend Les holding the new sleeve.



Cleaned up the piston.   The rings aren't labeled, but the chrome ring goes closest to the head.

[Tom Reed]

These wet sleeve engines sure are easy to rebuild.