Getting a Lister CS Mobile

Its not easy rallying "big" engines, and by big, i mean engines from 1/2ton upto 3/4ton, beyond that, your into trucks to carry them.
in July i managed to borrow a friends Ifor Williams 12ftx6.5ft trailer and for the first time i rallied the Lister CS, driving a Domestic pump to circulate its own cooling supply, and a large monopump to provide the load.

this rally went extremely well, the engine never missed a beat all day, and it used about 1/2 a gallon, which, compared to the amount of water it moved, makes it one of the most economical engines around. the problem was however, the whole outfit weighed just a shade over TWO TONNES! more than a car could handle, and as it turned out, almost more than fergus could handle, because we very nearly never got back up the hill out of locomotion museum!

back to the drawing board it seemed, my theory was that a single impressive exhibit will be more interesting than three Lister pumping sets which, despite me knowing how hugely different they all are, basically look the same to the audience, and do the same, the lister CS, driving two large monopumps would look so much better and of course, with two 1.25" bore pipes, would shift huge amounts of water should it ever be needed to do so!

theres a little bit of percieved weariness around about the use of trailer type indepenant suspension units for continuously loaded trailers, certainly leaf sprung suspension gives better long term carrying ability, but i reasoned that a caravans independant suspension units are continuously loaded, and somewhere in the region of 1/2ton, more in some cases, particularly older, better built ones, so this pointed out to me that the drawbar and suspension from an old caravan chassis would do the job.



the drawbar was originally designed for the front of the caravan chassis, with a total width that was 6 and a half foot wide, on the outside of the wheels, verywide for an engine trailer, especially since i was looking at less than 5 and a half, plus, the original axle was behind the drawbar, so the suspension units sat in much closer, for my chassis, they would be on the outside of the frame, meaning the angle of the drawbar would have to be much more acute



as you can see from this picture, the slotted holes at the rear of the hitch have been ignored, this was because to drill the alunium frame at so close to its edges would have created a very dangerous stress concentration, and likely have caused a crack, so new holes were drilled, with comfortable clearences to keep the chassis strong.

the axle beam itself was a new build, made from 50mm/2" angle, at a thickness of 4mm 3/16", I drilled the plate holes on my old hand operated drill press, gives good arm muscles you see! the holes on the vertical edge of the blue angle are just ones that were pre-existant, but not usable for the suspension units. To increase strength, box section would be added between the two angles when it became available.



this picture shows the trailer with the bedplate and the engine fitted, albeit temporarily.

Because this is a single axle trailer great care has to be taken to get the balance right, too much to the front and the hitch cannot be lifted, too far to the rear and the engine will rear up and likely kill someone, so immense care need to be taken, and for this i did some basic trigonometry calculations to get some idea of how far the engine would tilt back when lifted up, the plan was for the trailer to be pretty much level when hitched up, so the difference would be the gain in height to clear the hitch and to give additional cover for gradients, i originally worked the values out for the engine to be 4" forward of the wheel centreline, but this produced too much weight at the front, and eventually i settled for 1.75" forward, at this point, the top of the engine moves approximately 70% of the distance the trailer moves in height at the hitch, so 10" of lift at the front, gives 7" on the very top of the engine, and after extensive tests, the engine could be leaned back, from plum, 14" before the hitch finally went "neutral" i.e. where the weight balance shifted to the rear, so basically the hitch can be lifted 20" before the engine starts to destabilise, a gradient of around 1 in 3, and this was before the pumps were fitted, with those on, the mid chassis would be recieving another 200lbs of ballast.

most hitches by the way, are designed to work in the region of 50-150kg nose weight, but car suspension can be much much less than this, particularly in the case of the citroens i drive, the suspension dips heavily when a person sits on it, which in my case, amounts to about 90kgs, that said, my car is designed for two people to sit in the rear, which is about 12" forward of the rear hitch, so it must still have margin for error.



no doubt some may have noticed the slightly grubby appearance of the kit, this is simply becuase i didnt want to paint it then drill it, the whole outfit will be dismantled when proving trials are finished, and then painted.

since this photo was taken, more work has been done, and once more pictures are available, i'll explain more, in the mean time, fire away with any questions!!

Paul

the pumps are to be V belt driven, and as a result, need to be under tension, thus it is advantageous to build an adjustable base for either the engine or the pumps, obviously the engine weighs 9CWT so thats out of the question, not without some form of mechanical adjuster, so the easier option is to adjust the pumps, which was my chosen route.



the two vertical slots provide the adjustment, and the horizontal runners are to bolt the plate down to the frame. both pumps were fastened onto the one bedplate, to give more room for adjustment.

Paul .

Hmmmmmm very quiet here atm ....... no matter tho, work progress at a furious rate lol




you can now see (hopefully) the pumps mounted onto the adjustable bedplate, the first time i made one of these was for the ruston generator set, and for that i welded flat plate onto the bolts, so that they would not turn, bearing in mind the underside was inaccessible due to it being mounted on wooden sleepers, this time however, the bottom was freely accessible, so 1/2" whitworth bolts were used, facing downovers, so that only a nut would come off if it slackened.



belt drive was a subject of much debate for me, my original choice was to use the layout above, but it placed a lot of initial load on the engine, and was difficult to tension up, though it had the advantage of independant drive to each pump and seperately adjustable belt tension, but it made the engine very hard to turn over, and it was sluggish to pick up.



this is the layout i went with, the driven pulley is bigger than that of the first design, but because i didnt have a pair of them i couldnt use the same layout as the first design, chiefly because the drive to the second pulley comes in contact with the first pulley, and if the sizes were different, they would rub, cause friction and wear out quickly.

so what i did was to rummage around the belts i have in stock, and made the drive to the first pump a double belt, and then fitted another taperlock pulley behind it, using the original pulleys for the first design, and driving it, single belt to the second pump, this reduced the speed of the pumps relative to the engine, and dropped the load very slightly, so that the engine would warm up, but not so much that it is overloaded.

the pumps themselves are monopumps, which are actually a lot older than you would initially suggest, but they are very well designed, and are still in use in industry.

the pumps work with a rotor and stator, the rotor is stainless and the drive train is high tensile steel, the stator is a synthetic/rubber vessel, and the combination provides a pump which prives high pressure and flow, it does put quite a load on the driver, which is usually a direct coupled motor, running at around 1500rpm, but for the purposes of stationary engine use, 500-1000 is quite sufficient, and will ensure the pumps logevity.

the pumps can actually handle semi solids to the point of thick gunge, but that will shorten the service life, and they can self prime to a depth of 50ft, quite effectively, though they are quite intolerent of running dry, something which be avoided as much as possible.

rebuilding the pumps i think is more complicated then a lister domestic pump, purely because there is a lot more speed involved, and therefore the parts need to be assembled more carefully, there are two knuckle universal joints in the main drive, all of which are greased, and fitted with tab washers, once it goes together though, these pumps require very little attention, except for occaisional greasing and tightening of the glands.



becuase i have two pumps, i can use one for the water circulation round the engine, as well as pumping water, and the other for purely pumping water, dirty water where needed. the front pump would eb the simpler to use for the dirty water, and the rear to go behind the engine and plumb into the system.



i had originally intended to use a small cooling tank mounted off the engines cooling tanks, but availablility of suitable pipe prohibited me from making a new tank, so the engine has been "plumbed in". water goes into the engine at the bottom port, and out through the top and into a tank mounted on the rear of the chassis, i did worry that there would be too much water pressure getting into the engine, but in practice it seems to be okay, and running the pumps slightly slower than i normally would allows a better, and more steady circulation of water, the pipes going into the engine are 1" bsp, which restricts the flow slightly to control it, i have harboured thoughts of a bypass pipe to reduce the water circulation in the engine to keep the temperature up, as i'm not yet sure how hot it will get, i do have capacity to reduce or increase the amount of water in the tank.

comments welcome
Paul

Hi Paul,

Seeing how you have mounted the pumps to the frame has just solved a problem for me. I have to mount a "Lee Howel" pump to my trolly and didnt know quit how to do it, but seeing what you have done here has gave me an idea.

Stand by for pics in the future.


Paul

hi Paul...

looks like you've had your thinking cap on..
very nice set up ...makes life a lot easier to move about the big engines..

my mates go a LISTER CS in bits that he wants to sell,its got new block,piston,injector etc....
who ever buys it will end up with a LISTER CS that's virtually new...
not one for me though...

if any one is interested its in BLANDFORD,DORSET....
pm me and i can give you the details of how to contact him...

regards.........mike..

Mike what sort of CS is it, how much and could he get a courier? PM with details mate

Paul

rab wrote:Hi Paul,

Seeing how you have mounted the pumps to the frame has just solved a problem for me. I have to mount a "Lee Howel" pump to my trolly and didnt know quit how to do it, but seeing what you have done here has gave me an idea.

Stand by for pics in the future.


Paul

Hi Paul,

glad to be of service, hope it works well for ya!

Paul

some eagle eyed viewers will notice there are some dribbles of water on the plumbing coming from the pumps, i'm not too excited by this, purely because 1, if i leave it alone it will rust up and seal itself, chiefly because the threads are freshly cut, and will natually rust up, and 2, if i do want to nip them up, its just a case of taking the flange bolts out and putting a half turn on the fittings, so not to worry. in any case, the whole outfite will be dismantled for painting one its been well worked over and made to do some hard work, such as pumping water 300ft from a stream to the garden, which it will do with no troubles at all.

i did think about combining the outlets into a single 3" bore for the purposes of water pumping, but the pumps will be handling quite dirty water, the deposits of which i dont want resting in my rather expensive engine lol.

another interesting thing is, this engine will shift comparable volumes of water to a modern 3" honda engined pump, however, this engine uses about 1/2 a gallon in an 8 hour day (i know this because it has already done it) could the big (ish) honda produce the same.

could i market this as the most economical water pump in the world today? despite the engine being built in 1942!!!!!

Paul