The Most RELIABLE GENERATORS Ever Made? Lister Diesel for OFF GRID!

A brief look into Lister Diesel Engines, and a new acquisition for the homestead to power the house and a future shop. This is a 1968 Lister SR2, 2 cylinder diesel coupled to a 6kw generator.

Removed and edited for audio issues... hopefully this one sounds better.

[jamesmarsh]

I live in the UK in a little town in the Cotswolds' called Dursley where The Lister engine was very lightly made, it was the home of the Lister engine it is where the main factory was, my grandfather and my farther worked and my brother did a Lister apprenticeship which was one of the best you could have in this country, they also made Sheep shears that are one of the best you could buy, It was a big factory that employed about 5000 people in its hay day here in Dursley, people were bussed in from all over the county everyday to work, but in the 80ies the factory burnet down, but buy then it was taken over and sold to the Petter group, so very lightly one of my family had a hand in building your engine

[clayadam]

What a great birthday present! That's a very nice sounding engine.

[clivedredge]

I have sold and serviced Lister engines in Southern Africa since the late 60's.... That old SR is one of the best and you can still get spares.... The newer model is the TR.... I must admit to rolling on the floor laughing when I watched this... Have fun and enjoy... BTW - fuel consumption is negligible as against a petrol gen set....

[rickc]

I once worked on a tug boat that had a Lister as a backup generator for when the main engine was shut down. It worked flawlessly. The only complaint was the noise, they are a bit loud being air cooled.
We also towed an equipment barge that had a ramp on the bow. This ramp was raised and lowered with a hydraulic winch system that was driven by a Lister on a hydraulic pump. We were on the West Coast of Canada where it gets a little cool in the winters and you are %100 correct when you say "it might be a little harder to start when its cold!" Its as hard AF to crank when the oil is minus 10 degrees thick! Either is required, even with two people, one to crank and one to throw the compression release levers. When to oil is tar thick you cant two hand crank and throw the compression release lever shut before it stops turning!
If you run it out of fuel, ....it will run on either long enough to re-prime and run on fuel again!!
Best emergency generator power ever!! If it was running and you shut it down, ...it will start again when you need it. No bells, no whistles just good solid reliable quality machinery!
As a side note, ...I'm in South Africa as I type this, the country is suffering "load shedding" a couple of times a everyone here could use your Lister!!

[therealchayd]

Every time we have a power outage here, I always think "It's about time I got round to fixing that Lister genny that's languishing in the shed", then immediately forget about it when the power comes back on. This video has given me the necessary impetus to have a go this weekend - thanks for the kick up the butt! 🤣

[colddiesel]

I have a number of the CS (Cold Start) series of Lister Diesel engines at my place in Queensland Australia 2 2 cylinder 2 3 cylinder and 1 4 cylinder. The 3 cylinders (both 70+ years old) are used as back up for a refrigeration plant on the property. The CS machines were made by Listers primarily at their Cinderford factory rather than Dursley and they, especially the single and 2 cylinder versions are the real collectors items. They were manufactured from 1930 until 1974 by Listers and subsequently have been made by various manufacturers in India and Iran. A continuous run of 94 years so far. There are a lot of videos of Lister CS engines on You tube.

[randallweaver]

4:33 I believe that engine has a RPM adjustment on the gear cover above the red guard. I think it's a 10-32 stud with jam nuts.

[muhammadanassiddiki]

ufff !! That majestic lucrative sound, that I look for in lister or listeroid (like Ruston) engines ❤❤

[herringchoker]

Listers also had a factory in Wroughton near Swindon (the since-demolished Marine Mountings factory, which I understood had made Motor Gun Boat gun turrets during WW2). I worked on the night shift there in 1964-5, initially assembling the SL and LD 2, 3 & 4 cylinder engines. Later I moved to the test bay, and got to run them on the electric dynos. We had the occasional drama there, such as crank weights that had not been properly torqued down, which when run up punched through the side cover or the block and flew across the test bay.
After testing, the engines were fitted with any auxiliary bits like a generator or marine reduction gearing and then crated. The night shift at the time was a real UN: some English, a few Irish, Scots, and Welsh, Iranian, Indian, Pakistani, Polish, Russian and West Indian. I was the only Canadian. It was an interesting place to work, and I enjoyed it there.

Many years later, while visiting the Fisherman's Museum in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia I heard a familar thumping down at the end of a pier. It was a really ancient Lister single, pumping the bilges of one of their ships. The Cold War radar station chains across northern Canada (Pine Tree Line, DEW Line, etc) all used Lister generators.

[brucerazor]

I am so jealous, as a heavy equipment operator I can appreciate quality. 👍

[JohnSmith-yveq]

The revs that this engine needs to be at to produce 120VAC 60hz electricity are:
900rpm for a 4 pole generator direct drive,
1800rpm for a 2 pole generator direct drive.
There are earlier slow speed Lister CS and Petter (both air and water cooled diesels) operating at 600/750 rpm but with a belt drive utlising pulleys to achieve the 1800rpm rotation speed of the generator...a lot less "noisy"...

[nickdavies]

Have a tS2 with a 7kva generator on it.
Owned it for over 30 years.
Never let me down, brilliant piece of engineering.
Getting a bit old to swing the starting handle now, think I’ll treat her to an up grade.
Love these old engines, engineering at its best.

[JohnSmith-yveq]

If you have the 12VDC or 24VDC starters it's not hard to add a "thermostart" valve to allow a bit of diesel to burn in the metal intake manifold so as to provide hot air for easy starting in cold weather.
In fact even just a small motorcycle battery and a push button with wiring onto the thermostart could do the same

[PeterChapman-rggr]

As you rightly state the lister SR, ST and HR series were the real "Gold" standards in engine reliability. look up the old Lister literature and they quote an engine life of some 120, 000 hours subject to being looked after. also the fuel economy knocks the spots of more modern engines. I used to run over 30 of the SR, ST and HR engines

[donbyers]

Great video, had several Lister light units down at the harbor in LA. One thing, the rpm is important, on that gen set 1800 rpm is probably 60 HZ, if this is off too much can damage electrical motor driven units, like refrigerators. Many multi meters now have a AC frequency setting to check the HZ, may want to verify this before connecting to a motor load.

[andrewcrawley]

I ran several lister SR and ST engines for many years for prime power. As you stated, they are the standard that all others aspire to be. I have rebuilt quite a few of these and I can say that they are quite simple to work on. The RPM is adjusted buy a little screw ( about 1/8" x 1" ) sticking out the front cover by the crank handle towards the top of the cover. The starting procedure is to lift the stop lever over the first catch to where it turns about 90 deg., that allows the fuel system to go to full fuel and will make it start easier when cold. Once it starts, then you put the lever back over the stop ramp so that it is just prior to the stopping position, that position is the run position and will limit the rpm if something goes amiss in the governor assembly. This engine sounds good and should give many years of service, if you change oil every 200 running hours, and keep it supplied with plenty of fresh air. It is air cooled and letting it get too hot will cause it to start leaking oil or worse, and then you will have oil everywhere since it throws it throughout the entire air cooling paths, and you can't usually find the leak since it is usually coming from behind the flywheel. Good luck on your Lister journey.

[brianrhodebeck]

I had 5 Three cylinder of these generators Looks just like yours, I still have one and sold the others.
There are champions of generators for sure. I'm assuming mine is twelve to sixteen kilowat Brunch the house and barn. Nice video Sir

[frankgrant]

Used both the Lister generator and its twin which was a compressor unit to build 1, 000's of homes in the Bay Area in the 70's and 80's. Great unit and yours is very clean. Watch the crank handle on cold mornings. You have bought wisely, the Kabota tractor is great too.

[davesnodgrass]

Have one at a family ranch it's an awesome generator it still starts easy at 115 degrees or zero turn it over three times and flip the compression release

[firex]

It has a cold start device you pull stop lever out and turn anti clockwise then ckld start is set