10kW Generator revamp (Pic intensive)

[ptsg]

I was browsing OLX (our Craiglist) and come up to this ad for a 43HP@1500 RPM air cooled diesel engine for a great price. I though: Well, this would make a very nice upgrade in power over the current engine on my backhoe.

Went there to look at the engine, only to find out that thing was massive! It was a 4 cylinder Lister Petter engine from a big generator, 4.2 liter and weighted the same as a 6.7 Cummins engine! It was in nice shape and the price was right though, but it wouldn't fit my backhoe, plus I'm sure it would sunk on loose ground with that much (counter)weight.

Anyway, the guy show me another engine he had there. It's from a 10KW genset. Powered by a Slanzi DVA1030 24HP diesel engine, also air cooled, with a 10kW Leroy Somer 3 phase generator head. The thing leaked pretty much in every possible, so it had no oil and was supposedly something wrong with the regulator part of the generator head.

I still bought it, knowing that the engine was running when it was parked X years ago and the electrical fault on the generator head. Classic, right?

Got it home, start tinkering with it. Put new oil, got a battery, bleed the injector pump and cranked it to bleed the injectors. I was getting no fuel at the injectors, so I took the cover of the side of the engine that access the linkages for the governor and injection pump, only to find out that it was assembled wrong by whoever messed with it before me. Got that part squared away and got fuel at the injectors and fired right away. Running very nice, although the crankshaft had like 1/8" axial play. It looked it really wanted to get out of that engine. More on this later.

After I got the engine running, I figured, might as well check the generator head. Went online, found a French manual from Leroy Somer for that particular head. Turns out the problem was on the voltage regulator. Someone didn't tune it right and it wouldn't hold the excitation to keep it running. The electric panel was a mess, rat's nest of wires everywhere, none of the meters were working.

At this point, I scrapped the idea of putting this engine on the backhoe since I got a really good 10KW genset all running well. I then proceed to do a full restoration on this unit.

Here are some before pictures:

I started by taking the engine apart after I could source a gasket set for the entire engine.

Here is a list of things wrong with the engine:

- All the sheet metal was either broken, cracked, badly patched or had hollowed out holes.
- Mounts were completely shot, in fact, it was only held in place by one bolt.
- Crankshaft thrust washer was broken in two pieces and laying on the oil pan. It was impossible to find a new one, so I made one out of pre-hardened steel. Come out surprising well.
- Leaks all over the place. Fixed with the gasket set
- Shut off lever was also broke and laying on the oil pan but someone made one out of sheet metal to get it going again. I took the repair one off and fixed with the proper one.
- Couple broken bolts here and there, along with stripped threads. All fixed.
- Someone used at least 3 full tubes of RTV on the entire engine
- Everything was pretty much covered with oil, fuel, dirt, crap, everywhere.
- All the bearings and bores were in good shape. Only a few scored lines on the connecting rod bearings but no big deal there.

Here are some pictures of some engine parts spread all over the shop. Some pictures after cleaning, other before cleaning.

And the engine all back together after a coat of high temp paint. And of course, the mechanic. Gotta give credit where the credit is due.

 

[ptsg]

With the engine done, the generator and dolly was next. Not much to do there, other than fixing some stuff here and there. Also changing some old and brittle wires inside the generator head. Being that this post is already way too long. Here are some pictures of the final product. I redid the entire electric panel, added some new meters and an hour meter I had laying around. Ignore the 37k hours on it, I'll use it to keep track of oil changes.

Fixed a bunch of rubber mounts for the battery, electrical panel, engine mounts, etc. The air box is now attached to something. New battery hold down clamp.

This engine is most self destructive engine I've ever seen!

And a video of the engine running:

 

[K5lwq]

Nice work as always ptsg!

 

[plastikosmd]

Wow
Nice job

 

[dodge man]

That came out nice. I can’t tell if your dog approves or not.

 

[grsthegreat]

Great job....

 

[Industrial Toys]

VERY NICE! GREAT Pictures. Thank You. You gotta love old skool quality and things a man can repair by himself. In todays world, (for it's age) that thing would have been obsolete a hundred times already.

 

[ptsg]

Nice work as always ptsg!

Wow
Nice job

Great job....

Thanks everyone!

That came out nice. I can’t tell if your dog approves or not.

Yeah, the dog does have a short attention span, sort of... Pretty much like the owner.

VERY NICE! GREAT Pictures. Thank You. You gotta love old skool quality and things a man can repair by himself. In todays world, (for it's age) that thing would have been obsolete a hundred times already.

Thank you. Yes I do like these old school projects. Nice and simple to work on, no need for a laptop with proprietary software and other non sense.

The fact that this voltage regulator consists on three simple coils and 8 simple diodes allowed me to fix it without spending a penny. If the regulator was one of the newer electronic regulators, that would cost as much or possibly more than what I paid for this entire genset.

These older air-cooled engines are also a breeze to work on. I've never had an engine fully apart. This was my first one and got it back together and running very easily. The only thing I don't like on this engine, is that the oil filter is around €40 and the fuel filter is like €35.

I forgot to add in the first post, so I'll leave this here. Slanzi was bought by Lombardini back in the day and more recently Kholer bought Lombardini.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Buying up the good old companies to eliminate and destroy them forever!

A friend recently struggled to get this 12KW beast going. VR issues. Ended up ripping out a pile of descrete equipment to replace it with a $20.00 E-Bay Generic VR. All good now! Tank underneith is OIL resourvoir, not fuel!

 

[ptsg]

That's a nice unit! Looks like a 3 cylinder Lister engine to me. That thing takes a lot of oil! Mine is like 3.5 liter.

You have me a nice idea if I ever have problems with the current voltage regulator. I didn't realize that I could just use a generic one.

 

[Industrial Toys]

It is air cooled so I guess they use the 100 litres or so of oil for cooling. Canadian Cost guard Light House service. No hours at all from this 60s era machine.

It had really unusual field voltage though. He is lucky he found the right one, between help/info from Stamford and Flight Systems. He sent me a pic of the stuff he ripped out next to the cirgarette pack size VR.

 

[dstig1]

I was browsing OLX (our Craiglist) and come up to this ad for a 43HP@1500 RPM air cooled diesel engine for a great price. I though: Well, this would make a very nice upgrade in power over the current engine on my backhoe.

Went there to look at the engine, only to find out that thing was massive! It was a 4 cylinder Lister Petter engine from a big generator, 4.2 liter and weighted the same as a 6.7 Cummins engine! It was in nice shape and the price was right though, but it wouldn't fit my backhoe, plus I'm sure it would sunk on loose ground with that much (counter)weight.

Anyway, the guy show me another engine he had there. It's from a 10KW genset. Powered by a Slanzi DVA1030 24HP diesel engine, also air cooled, with a 10kW Leroy Somer 3 phase generator head. The thing leaked pretty much in every possible, so it had no oil and was supposedly something wrong with the regulator part of the generator head.

I still bought it, knowing that the engine was running when it was parked X years ago and the electrical fault on the generator head. Classic, right?

Got it home, start tinkering with it. Put new oil, got a battery, bleed the injector pump and cranked it to bleed the injectors. I was getting no fuel at the injectors, so I took the cover of the side of the engine that access the linkages for the governor and injection pump, only to find out that it was assembled wrong by whoever messed with it before me. Got that part squared away and got fuel at the injectors and fired right away. Running very nice, although the crankshaft had like 1/8" axial play. It looked it really wanted to get out of that engine. More on this later.

After I got the engine running, I figured, might as well check the generator head. Went online, found a French manual from Leroy Somer for that particular head. Turns out the problem was on the voltage regulator. Someone didn't tune it right and it wouldn't hold the excitation to keep it running. The electric panel was a mess, rat's nest of wires everywhere, none of the meters were working.

At this point, I scrapped the idea of putting this engine on the backhoe since I got a really good 10KW genset all running well. I then proceed to do a full restoration on this unit.

Here are some before pictures:



View attachment 692215 View attachment 692216 View attachment 692217

I started by taking the engine apart after I could source a gasket set for the entire engine.

Here is a list of things wrong with the engine:

- All the sheet metal was either broken, cracked, badly patched or had hollowed out holes.
- Mounts were completely shot, in fact, it was only held in place by one bolt.
- Crankshaft thrust washer was broken in two pieces and laying on the oil pan. It was impossible to find a new one, so I made one out of pre-hardened steel. Come out surprising well.
- Leaks all over the place. Fixed with the gasket set
- Shut off lever was also broke and laying on the oil pan but someone made one out of sheet metal to get it going again. I took the repair one off and fixed with the proper one.
- Couple broken bolts here and there, along with stripped threads. All fixed.
- Someone used at least 3 full tubes of RTV on the entire engine
- Everything was pretty much covered with oil, fuel, dirt, crap, everywhere.
- All the bearings and bores were in good shape. Only a few scored lines on the connecting rod bearings but no big deal there.

Here are some pictures of some engine parts spread all over the shop. Some pictures after cleaning, other before cleaning.


View attachment 692218 View attachment 692219 View attachment 692220

And the engine all back together after a coat of high temp paint. And of course, the mechanic. Gotta give credit where the credit is due.




View attachment 692221 View attachment 692222 View attachment 692223

Beautiful restoration! How long did it take you to do all that? That looks like weeks of works unless you are doing it full time.

 

[ptsg]

Thanks Dave.

Took me about three weeks, working only a couple hours here and there during the week and pretty much full days on weekends. . Also sometime waiting for parts.

Cleaning all the oil caked on the engine and cart was probably the hardest part.

 

[PCABE5]

Turned out great.

 

[CADplans]

It looks great,, how much fuel does it hold?
How long will it run on a tank of fuel?

 

[ptsg]

It looks great,, how much fuel does it hold?
How long will it run on a tank of fuel?

It holds 8 liters or about 2.11 gal of diesel. I can't say how long it will run on a full tank because I've never tried and with the diesel at around $6.389/gal, I'm not sure if I'll try anytime soon.

I don't really need the generator at home because we rarely have power outages. Heck, the last big one (over 12 hours at least) was probably 15+ years ago. I live right on the side of an highly industrial area so the electric grid is actually very stable and even during a storm, in case there is damage to the grid, is often restored in less than 2 hours, so it's not even worth to fire the generator up.

I've put about 8 hours on it with the tank about 3/4 full, however, 2 or 3 hours were mostly playing with it, adjusting the old school voltage regulator and so on. The remaining hours were done when using a big demolition hammer to bust a couple big boulders but mostly 1 or 2 hours at the time. Not constantly running. Plus the hammer pulls about 11 amps @ 230v out of the generator, which is nothing on this 10kw unit.

So far I'm really happy I have the generator, otherwise I couldn't have dealt with those boulders. After 8 hours or so, I do need to readjust the voltage regulator as things have loosen up a little bit and I have now a 10 volts disparity between the 3 phases and it's also almost at 260 volts on the worse phase instead of the correct 230v.