Drove just under 400 miles to meet my new mate "Dave"

SB118 · 30 Jan 2006 at 21:30

Went to pick "Dave" up from a guy who lives 169 miles away, according to the postcode he put in his address details anyway, unfortunately the postcode he gave me was a location about 20 miles away from where he actually was! Which made following my printed route plan a bit pointless

So after lots of stopping at village post offices and asking silly questions, i got to the farm where "Dave" was waiting for me, loaded him into the van and headed home. I've took plenty of pics, now i just need to find my card reader, gah!

Oh, say hello "Dave"

Can anybody guess the clever method i used to name him ?

SB118 · 30 Jan 2006 at 21:56

Nope. And i've now got a stonking 6hp to play with

SB118 · 30 Jan 2006 at 22:43

Overload said:
Diesel
And
Vegetable (oil)
Engine

This man gets a lollypop!

SB118 · 30 Jan 2006 at 23:06

It's not a generator, it's an engine. I need to add an alternator to the setup to make it into a genset. Lister engines are built to last, not like the rattly things that you get these days.

The black sooty hole is the exhaust outlet, the grey lever is part of the starting system, you turn the engine over until you think it's fast enough, then flick the lever over to drop the valves into place to let the engine fire.

SB118 · 30 Jan 2006 at 23:08

British engineering at it's best, leaking like a sieve and still running

SB118 · 30 Jan 2006 at 23:15

RTFM ? (allows for user ineptitude!)

Hi-tech starting system ....

and this ain't exactly a full stainless system either ... (the pulley wheels are to fit drivebelts to run an alternator)

not forgetting the engine plate of course

SB118 · 30 Jan 2006 at 23:22

The guy pulled this engine out of the corner of his shed and it started second try, stonecold, no electrics, no heaters, nothing to break down, that'll do nicely

SB118 · 30 Jan 2006 at 23:46

It's a VA, the aircooled job so it's a bit noisier that the usual CS versions, i'm going to slap an 8kva alternator onto it then load it up until i stall the engine, should be able to run pretty much everything off it (apart from the smegging shower!)

Running is pretty much free as it's going onto the veggie, it could use a gallon/hour and it still wouldn't matter

SB118 · 30 Jan 2006 at 23:47

St0rmer66 said:
I bet the petrol (or diesel?) it cost you to go 400 miles and pick it up will take a while to pay off (for the generator).

Pay for fuel? :eek:

Somebody hasn't been keeping up has he

SB118 · 30 Jan 2006 at 23:51

Yup, transit with a bosch fuel pump, runs plain veg oil with zero modification.

SB118 · 31 Jan 2006 at 00:37

Listers love veggie, but only once they are warmed up.

SB118 · 31 Jan 2006 at 01:06

Nowt, i collect used oil from local takeaways.

SB118 · 31 Jan 2006 at 11:05

^^ oh do give up, every thread that get's a mention of biofuels somebody hints that i may be running without paying fuel duty.

WRONG! i'm a registered fuel producer with HMR&C, they get their pound of flesh out of me every month without fail.

Besides which, i don't have to pay duty on the fuel that goes into the stationary engine.

SB118 · 31 Jan 2006 at 11:12

HEADRAT said:
OOoh techy

HEADRAT

Techy? yes.

bored of saying that i'm registered with customs? hell yes!

SB118 · 31 Jan 2006 at 11:22

VeNT said:
how much did dave set you back?

A shocking 71 quid

SB118 · 31 Jan 2006 at 20:29

Yup, and dozens of kw of heat energy to boot, heating for free and virtually all my leccy covered too. I'm REALLY looking forward to damp free heating!

edit, and the savings on my utility bills can go towards a bigger engine (but don't tell the wife

)

SB118 · 31 Jan 2006 at 20:42

Must be more DB related dodgyness, wonder when we'll be allowed to put some money in for a shiney server? :confused:

As for the smell, i live between two fryer based establishments already, i'm wondering how much oil i need to burn before anybody actually notices!

SB118 · 1 Feb 2006 at 12:06

The output will be solely for my own use, going to be a while before i upgrade to anything that will actually produce excess current for me to sell on!

As for biofuel, look over in my biofuels thread for the method i use.

SB118 · 1 Feb 2006 at 13:25

Just don't mention Mondeos and Fox should leave you alone

SB118 · 5 Feb 2006 at 01:12

Been doing some digging to decipher the engine code, turns out this engine was made in 1975 :eek:

30 years on a Lister? Hell, the damn thing is barely run in!

As for filtering, i'm using simple cold filtering, yes it takes a while to get the oil through the finer grades, but it does ensure good cold weather starting. Now i've got Dave, i might hot filter the stuff that gets caught in the mesh, it's going into a heated fuel system, so high melting point fats won't be a problem.