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Lister SR2 problems


Puffin2

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Hello, 

 

so i got this pretty well used engine in my boat and since about 2 months its doing following: 

It starts up fine(just handcranking, Starter is broke) but after a few seconds or sometimes minutes it just slowly looses its power and eventually dies. Some times it fires up again,and dies, some times it doesnt Start anymore. I even had blue smoke coming out of the oil cap of the rocker cover. 

Its not a New Problem and i did a lot of repair already to try to fix it. Injectors got tested and cleaned, fuel is flowing to the injectors (its running fine for a couple hours in between), fuel is clean. 

It is leaking a lot of oil, but all people i asked just say old Lister do that. But its leaking a lot, our bilge is a real Bad oil sump. Its as well leaking fuel on the lines on the engine itself. 

I need more ideas where to look or repair, thanks a lot! 

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Welcome Puffin. 

 

Some well informed experts will be a long sooner or later, but in the meantime I'll suggest the stalling and failure to start again is fuel starvation, usually caused by air leaking into the fuel system. Or perhaps water in the fuel.

 

When did you last change the fuel filter? Did this problem begin at the same time? 

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@david mack 

Oil level is falling quick. Just refilled it a week ago, carefully exactly to top dipstickline and run the engine maybe 2 hours since then. Now its at the low dipstickline. I Tried to repalce some of the gaskets, but could not reach some, like the cylinderhead gaskets and beyond. 

So there is a Hose out the back for airintake, there was an electrical blower at some point, but not anymore. The outlet is big and effective, out of the engine room.

The grid is rather dirty i reckon. 

Thanks!!

 

@ Mike

Air leaking in could be it. I will check that. 

Fuelfilter is waterseperating, hadnt had any Water in there since months and chanched the filter last about  2 months ago. But this particular Problem began  at a different time. 

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i once see a problem like this caused by a small piece of rag in the fueltank,floating round with the fuel./....if you live in a hot climate,dont discount "fuel fungus" that blocks filters quickly.................On something like this,I try to blow back back thru the piping back into the tank,and listen for bubbles in the tank...................And are you sure the  hand throttle isnt closing while the engine is running.

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The running problem sounds like fuel starvation, or air gettng into the fuel line. If you have the fuel filter fitted onto the engine, worth checking for air there.

 

I had a similar problem on a boat with an SR2. The fuel leak off was routed to the filter, so any air leaks into the fuel line just built up there. Eventually solved by re-running and re-routing the fuel line.

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If you have blue smoke coming from the oil filler cap and massive oil loss i suspect fuelling is the least of your worries. A blocked breather would be the less major cause, a worn bottom end is a strong possibility. 

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1 hour ago, BWM said:

If you have blue smoke coming from the oil filler cap and massive oil loss i suspect fuelling is the least of your worries. A blocked breather would be the less major cause, a worn bottom end is a strong possibility. 

It's an old Lister, it's probably got a bit of blow by

Edited by RLWP
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42 minutes ago, RLWP said:

It's an old Lister, it's probably got a bit of blow by

Visible blue smoke from the oil filler cap on any engine is normally a bad omen, and up to a litre of oil in a couple of hours is likewise - unless there is a pool of it under the motor. 

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You likely have more than one issue here, and it's easy to confuse yourself by trying to lump them all together hoping for a common cause.

I suggest three that are connected to the engine dying might be .

1 You say fuel is leaking out of the lines, so air will likely be replacing it.

2 Sump oil level isn't rising so, the lost fuel isn't ending up there

3 Engine dies shortly after starting, because of the air entering the system at 1.

 

Because the fuel loss isn't ending up in the sump you should check the fuel line from the tank to the fuel filter and from that to the point where it enters the single element pump housing.  For the moment you can forget from that point onwards as any fuel leaking out would go into the sump.  Finally if you haven't located it so far then check the spill back lines from the injectors once they've left the rocker covers. That returns unused fuel back from the injectors to either the tank or a union on the top of the fuel filter.  Again being external to the engine any leaks there dump the lost fuel into the bilge and not the sump.

Get the engine running reliably and then look for the lubricating oil leak.  You might need a mirror on a stick and strong light.  With the engine running check the sump plug for loss and then under the fly wheel housing, a worn end bearing behind the flywheel will lose oil and necessitate an engine out exercise.

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2 hours ago, BWM said:

Visible blue smoke from the oil filler cap on any engine is normally a bad omen, and up to a litre of oil in a couple of hours is likewise - unless there is a pool of it under the motor. 

 

It's a bit unlikely that the engine burns about a litre of fuel AND half a litre of oil an hour

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12 minutes ago, RLWP said:

 

It's a bit unlikely that the engine burns about a litre of fuel AND half a litre of oil an hour

I'm only going by the information supplied by the OP, but it does seem a lot. The blue smoke would worry me, as some of the most terminal motors i've seen generally produce something more like steam from the filler cap. My sister had an Austin 1100 which stopped running when you removed the cap but ran perfectly with it in place!

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28 minutes ago, RLWP said:

 

It's a bit unlikely that the engine burns about a litre of fuel AND half a litre of oil an hour

 

Yes there is probably nearly as much energy in a litre of oil as in a litre of diesel, so that engine must have been doing a LOT of work if it wasn't leaking it. 

 

Edited by Mike the Boilerman
Amend a minor detail...
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9 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Yes there is probably nearly as much energy in a litre of oil as in a litre of diesel, so that engine must have been doing a LOT of work if it wasn't leaking it. 

 

It's a difficult one, i have only come across that sort of volume being used when there has been major issues with the breather system, often compounded by a generally tired engine. 

  I'm not overly familiar with the Sr2 but assume it has some form of crankcase ventilation?

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Crank case breathers are internal. Pipes lead from the top of the cylinder head to the inlet manifold ports. The idea being that apart from consuming its own fumes,  the air suction in the inlet manifold will also cause partial vacuum in the crank case which hopefully should helps to prevent oil leaks.

Edited by bizzard
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Hand start diesels tend to be self limiting for for wear/,bore wear and blowby ,anyway.........they get impossible to start ....The OP says the bilge is full of oil,so its leaks................hard or ,worn crank seals,gasket leaks,who knows?......wonder where the boat is ...Greece ,Syria,India?...........Fuel problems are hard to diagnose without being there............and sometimes even when you are there.

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The small aircooled Listers do seem to leak a lot of oil................when I used to sell SL and SR 2s ,the first complaint was always oil leakage.....and it generally seemd to come from behind the fuel pump enclosure.................nevertheless ,buyers who pay the least expect the most,and I used to fit a new seal in the camshaft / front PTO shaft...............".we do these things ,not because they are hard ,but because they are easy! "JFK 

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  • 1 year later...

Often overlooked is the wire screen in the lift pump which can get clogged up. If the ops engine is burning  this amount of oil 

in such a short time the exhaust would be really blue. It’s an old engine that’s clearly had a neglected past and the oily bilge suggests a leak which should be fairly easy to find. 

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4 hours ago, Tom llewellyn said:

I have an SR2 lister engine in my boat. There is sometimes smoke coming out of the exhaust thing, see on the photo where smoke marks are around the material wrapped around. Should I be worried? does it mean its cracked in there? 

20200809_082846.jpg

I would be surprised if it is cracked, unless the engine has been moving around. It is not impossible though.

 

There is a join between the exhaust manifold and the exhaust pipe somewhere under that lot.  Remove the wire binding and the exhaust bandage (carefully unwind it)  until you can see the join.  Take some pictures and post here.

 

Run the engine and see where it is leaking.  Spraying WD40 into the air intake with the filter removed will produce white smoke which may help with leak finding.Take some more pictures.  Post them here if they show where it is leaking.

 

Buy some suitable Jubilee type clips ready to refit the exhaust bandage.

 

N

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If there is a section of flexible exhaust pipe onthe end of the manifold, it could well have rusted through.

The proper solution is to replace the flexible. The short term repair solution is a baked bean can (both ends removed and split down its length), two or three 2 inch jubliee clips and a tub of gun gum.

And then put back the exhaust wrap to hide the evidence.

Edited by David Mack
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  • 1 month later...

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