Lister v Bamford

Just about to start work on my recently acquired pair of engines, and I can't help but notice that the spare parts and general information regarding the Lister, far outstrips the same for the Bamford, is there an obvious reason why the lister is so much more popular? Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I am new to this and just wondered?

Simply put, everyone has a Lister! I'd have the Bamfords, lot better than a Lister and more fun trying to find any bits you might need. No fun in getting stuff "off the shelf" as it were.

Lister's certainly seem to have no end of manuals, parts for sale, Bamfords a little tricker to source parts and manuals but they will turn up eventually, what engines do you have out of interest?

Chris

Appletop wrote:Simply put, everyone has a Lister! I'd have the Bamfords, lot better than a Lister and more fun trying to find any bits you might need. No fun in getting stuff "off the shelf" as it were.

Appletop,

You are so predictable.

Frenner

Lister's to a degree built their engines to a budget, they were the Ford of Stationary engines, where as other manufacturers tended to build their engines to the top end of the market and not so many of them which meant they were more expensive to buy.
all engines had their problems and quirks and the Lister and Bamfords were no different, your average farmer looked for two things price, as cheap as possible, and reliability, he wasnt going to buy something that needed constant maintenance and Lister engines fitted the bill, most dairy farms had a Vacuum sets with a Lister as standby if the electric packed up.
What Lister seemed to also do very well was to offer a package of not just the engine but the pump, hay lifter, milking equipment and anything else you needed they could supply, a lot of other engine manufacturers didnt or wouldnt do this.
I am biased as my collection is with a couple of exceptions all Lister engines and I have a collection of sales literature as well, all Lister related, are you aware that they made all sorts of Furniture, household and Garden, I have a Lister Jardinier in my front room with a plant in it, I have a plant stand and also an animal feeding trough.
One of the reasons there is so much information about Lister engines, manuals, day book engine manufacturing history etc is because when Listers closed down there Petrol engine manufacturing all of their current information including day books was given to David Edgington the founder of Stationary Engine magazine he also wrote several books on Lister engines etc and that information is still available via Doreen, Davids wife.
Each to his own, in that I include Appletop , but to start on the road of collecting the Lister D cannot be bettered, they are cheap, simple, easy to work on and there are still loads of spares of which I have a few for my engines.
Finally, a couple of years ago I took my Lister F to The Great Dorset Steam Fair to rally, after the second day the engine developed a loud squeal and stopped, the big end had seized, when I removed the inspection plate there was white metal every where but none on the big end so I cleaned out all the oil and white metal bit put in fresh oil and started the engine, the engine ran for the last three days without a big end with no sound of a knock, when we got it home Exgrenny and myself pulled the engine apart checked the crankshaft fitted a new big end shell and I'm still showing it now and thats why farmers liked Listers so much.

Maryalice

My only Lister  

Now I'm jealous, I'd love one in my garden, they dont appear very often and they sell high, wheres the Lister tag fitted.

Maryalice

I'm going to have to remember to get my father to leave me my great grandfathers Lister bench he got on retirement from Farm Industries.

chrismac wrote:Lister's certainly seem to have no end of manuals, parts for sale, Bamfords a little tricker to source parts and manuals but they will turn up eventually, what engines do you have out of interest?

Chris

One of each Chris, bought as a pair last week, on a bit of a "lockdown impulse buy" sort of thing.
Maryalice, thanks for the info, it all makes a bit more sense to me now, will look to learn on the Lister D, and then move on to restoring the Bamford, the best looking one will get a spot on my porch with my Petrol pump!

maryalice wrote:Now I'm jealous, I'd love one in my garden, they dont appear very often and they sell high, wheres the Lister tag fitted.

Maryalice

Metal tag (unreadable)  is on one seat bearer and Lister carved ( routed? ) into t'other.





I have another but not yet restored.

Well I've also got both, a 1948 Lister D with a TVO conversion and a recently acquired Bamfords EG1, also 1948.

The Lister was bought as a seized non-runner, needed new rings, main bearings, carb & exhaust. The Bamford however was someone's part-finished restoration project. I've just finished putting it all together but so far have struggled to get it to run properly, need to start a new topic for that probably! There's certainly a lot less info around for Bamfords than for Listers.

I've also got a 1951 Petter A1 plus around threequarters of another A1 that I've been robbing for parts - the garage/workshop is now full

Woodsman wrote:

maryalice wrote:Now I'm jealous, I'd love one in my garden, they dont appear very often and they sell high, wheres the Lister tag fitted.

Maryalice

Metal tag (unreadable)  is on one seat bearer and Lister carved ( routed? ) into t'other.





I have another but not yet restored.

That's the same as fathers, apparently, it's made of Burmese teak. (?)

Like my Jardinier and pot stand early ones had black letters on white bakelite plastic.

Maryalice

StuartTurnerSteve wrote:
That's the same as fathers, apparently, it's made of Burmese teak. (?)

Quite correct. Impossible to get these days, but I have some sapele and meranti squirrelled away so should be able to get a decent match.
I guess we should stop high-jacking a perfectly good engine thread. Sorry!

Lister related so ok
Woodsman, your seat is a Severn and came in three sizes 5', 6' and 8' and the wood is Burma Teak.

Maryalice

Interesting reading especially about the lack of info on anything unless it's a lister, tosh. There is plenty of info out there for non lister engines, for Bamfords you can always try...

https://henrybamfordandsonsuttoxeterengland.co.uk/

And as for listers offering the "full package" Bamfords did the same, and more, were more suited to the farmers needs and the Bamfords engine is easier to work on, in my opinion as you can do everything, even grind the valves without removing the head...

Another good place to look for info is the Internal Fire website where there is a hell of a lot of information for a lot of engines.
Yes the Lister is a basic starter engine and yes Martin is right about them being a "Ford" engine (Something tells me there is a joke or two in there somewhere.... ) And yes, I'm predictable because listers are just so boring.

I'm disappointed, its taken 24 hours for you to respond, you must be slipping.
Just to be a little picky where in the following sentence did I say full package or imply Bamfords didnt " What Lister seemed to also do very well was to offer a package of not just the engine but the pump, hay lifter, milking equipment and anything else you needed they could supply, a lot of other engine manufacturers didnt or wouldnt do this."

Your turn

Maryalice

OK. Last one - I promise  

To be started when it warms up a bit.

Another Severn

Well, as an update, the head is off, valves out, all looks ok to me, will post some photos when allowed, also I've made a video of the piston slop in the bore, would like to have your opinions on whether it needs sorting or ( hopefully ) within tolerance.