Hitchcocks Forum

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The mystery of the third engine.


Oh yes, there's something that I have been keeping from you all.



The forum knows about Thunderbolt, my EFI Woodsman, and Tornado, my Iron barrelled military bullet, But there is a third engine in my life.


It was around long before I got my Enfields. It was around long before I started riding. It was chugging away long before I was born even!



This engine didn't move however as it was stationary (hint).




It is an off topic Lister B stationary engine which was rescued from a garden. It had been there for over 30 years I was told, and took 2 years to remake/find parts and restore. I have now given it to a friend who has better facilities to look after it, but it has got the hump and won't run correctly, I suspect the valves will need grinding in from the symptoms!



Many people dream of having something exclusive or unusual in their collections or possessions, and quite by chance, this engine has so far proved to be a unique survivor. There are many single flywheel Lister B engines, but this one is a Spec 11, made to specification 11, which had a very short production run of one month between January and February 1924, before Spec 12 came in. I no longer have the facilities in the UK to look after it properly, and rather than chance it's future to some ebay winner, i found a guy who was a committee member of the local stationary engine club, got on with him, and just gave him the engine. They don't fetch a lot of money, and at least, I can still visit and help with the maintenance.



But this means that I may be rebuilding the lister there next Sunday, and so will not be able to cover my final trip to the Hollyville, before going back to France for some time. Seeing that Les has done an excellent job of reporting for the Sunday just gone, then unless we arrange another date for the Lister, we will be relying on him for another interesting report with nice photos!


For those who like stationary engines, here's some pics, with a link to a site I made many years ago.


















Scaly's Lister B 11

















tabellarius de verbis ostensor gaudium

It was messing around with vintage stationery engines in my early teens that got me into old bikes. My father had a tank-cooled Lister J type of similar vintage for a while, which he bought for £5 as it had a frost damaged cylinder jacket. It was a bit bigger than yours!

Meanwhile a Lister diesel CS1 Start-o-Matic (Wallace and Gromit eat your heart out) generator outfit might be just the thing for your French pad. Or anywhere in the UK if any more power stations go off-line.

Reagards,

A.

Some years ago I had a converted Norwegian fishing boat which had a Sabb 10hp single cylinder diesel engine not as old as it was made in 1963 but similar with a big flywheel to start you wound it up on the starting handle the threw the decompressor and hope it started



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Next Sunday I may be able to make the Hollyville but it will only happen if the weather is kind which does not happen often during January I will post later in the week if it looks likely

The only day for engine is Sunday, so will have to exchange beautiful old bikes and brekkie for Lister B 11 and mess tin full of "The full monty" canned brekkie instead!



At least if (when) it starts, then can make tea in the water hopper!



Les, hope the weather is fine!

I went to a demonstration night a couple of years ago where a couple of blokes had at least 60/70 stationary engines, I tried to count them at one stage, some quite big ones as well, and 90% of them were all in working order and running on the night. Amazing collection

To slightly misquote Crocodile Dundee - "thats not a static engine, THIS is a static engine!"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_A9m21drwY

Who needs porn when you've got a Merlin, play the video and pass the tissues!