Lister very first diesel engine

The author and his new toy.

Two events prompted me in writing this article.

The demise of the almost 150 years old British Engineering firm R.A.Lister recently having gone into receivership and the other, my coming to a rather senior age.

I will be turning 55 in a few days’ time and this give me a perfect excuse to buy a new toy; not just any toy but a desirable one. When it comes to collecting vintage British stationery engine as a past times, it has to be a Lister 9/1 or JP1 as it was called in the later years.

The 9/1 as found among the other old machineries.

Another view

The design of the 9/1 dates back to about 1929. Manufacturing started in 1931. This was Lister first venture into diesel engine shortly after Mr. Rudolf Diesel invention of a compression ignition engine. Although the 9/1 personalities was not as colourful as the CS 5/1 with her history date back a few years younger, the 9/1 represent the epitome of the Victorian engineering heritage. Admittedly It is the best of the best British made stationery engine as my dad concurs too.

CS92909 was sold to M/S Harrisons and Crossfield of Manchester on 24th Aug 1951. One out of batch of 3 which was then exported to Malaya. Note that the 3 countries identities had now changed signifying the rich history of this engine. She weighs close to 1/2 a ton and produces 9hp at 1000rpm. This engine was built to the 1937 Lister specification.

The CS 5/1 (and later uprated to CS 6/1) despite her legendary reliability and popularity lacks the refinement in a 9/1. To begin with, the 9/1 has a fully pressurized lubrication system along with valve train fully enclosed giving it a gentleman like statue. The bevel gear drive from the camshaft to the fuel injection pump and lubrication pump is as quirky as well.... almost French like! And the 2 ¾ inch crankshaft with a 3 inch con rod journal is to be found in engine of 600HP range in  modern day terms. The 4 bolts con rod bearings complete this a bomb proof engine. The 9/1 is almost a stationery hot rod from every angles. Yet, she was rated at a mere 9hp.

Incidentally. the 3 and 4 cylinders JP engines are instrumental in the Allied cutting short the war thus saving thousands of innocent lives and sufferings. As many as 20 thousands units was manufactured to power anti aircraft arch type spot light to bring down enemies aircraft on their dreaded bombing missions. Many of these ex war machine was again put to good use to power up mobile TB clinic x-ray machine soon after the war. Once again saving thousand of lives.
 

I caught my dad toying the 9/1 by surprise before i could lay my hands on her. 

After more than 6 years of searching, I finally found one. Unfortunately circumstances did not permit me to bring her home immediately unless I put to risk by upsetting my mum which is visibly unhappy with my “illness” in collecting old scrap junks which was contagious with the 2 men in the family.

My dad looking rather reluctant to part the CS6/1

So when on one bright and sunny morning, a seasoned seafarer come knocking for a CS6/1 suitable for a critical round the Pacific Ocean 3000 hours non-stop mission; I decided to let him have my beloved CS6/1 serial 8327616. So this make room for the 9/1 and making the home coming journey easier. 

The 9/1 almost fully refurbished. With simple basic maintenance, this engine can outlast 2 generations of ownership. The set of British Whitworth tools set as seen in the foreground I now inherited from my dad. These are now literally in extinction and had serviced hundred of Lister/Ruston engines proper in the heydays of the past under my dad ownership.

These 2 toys would keep me occupied for quite a while.

My 9/1 will likely be call for duty to power up my farm house upon my retirement from corporate life. I have accumulated a fair quantity of spares and consumables so this 9/1 will be in all likelihood to be pass on to my children.   

As for my retirement to come, I ought to be pretty busy with my additional new found toys of a 1942 series 1 Landie and an AEC armoured personnel carrier. 


 

The Testimonials

This is the story of a young lad that embarked on a precarious journey to Malaya then at the age of 3 in 1935. With his grandmother hand on one while his other hand holding onto a big dream..... determined by his steel clad perseverance and sheer hard works to bring success for himself and his family.

Like all the rest of the poor Chinese immigrants, they took a 7 days sea voyage from the southern Guangzhou port in China across the South Chinese Sea and landed in one of the Singapore off shore island where they were quarantined for 2 weeks.

The two then boarded a crowded train from the now decommissioned Tanjung Pagar Railway Station in Singapore to the town of Renggam in the state of Johore, Malaya. The British administration then assigned my great grandmother as a coolie (field laborer) in Bukit Benut Estate. One of those large rubber plantation owned by the British.

My dad having brought up in this unprivileged environment was hence deprived of a formal education but was soon pick up the basic of english from his British master. As a toddler, he worked along with his grandma and she was paid a sum of Malaysian Ringgit 3.50 a months as wages (equivalent to about USD 1.2).

In his teenage year, he joined the workforce as a herbicide sprayer and later as a rubber tapper. When a vacancy for a tractor driver arises, my dad joined the long queue to apply for the job. A tractor driver will be paid a fixed monthly wages of Malaysian Ringgit 80 plus overtime work if any. All other laborer are paid daily basis. So my dad see this an an opportunity to improve his life.


The queue was unusually long but was "snaking" at one point. The strong gust of wind earlier the day had toppled a large potted palm tree and the queue must now snake thru the fallen potted plant. 

When my dad reached the position of the fallen plant, he picked it up and put it back into position. The queue is now a straight line. Needless to say he was selected for the one and only vacancy as a light tractor driver for his right attitude!

The many testimonials my dad received over the years. The few simple words signified this man noble characters

A Massey 35 that my dad once operated. One of the popular early light tractor used just after the war.

My dad, a man ahead of his time out lived the many British managers in his years as a tractor driver in the estate. He always request a testimonial from his superior which he never needed it anyway.

A typical housing quarter in the estate. Always scenic with crisp clean air!

My dad would give me a joy ride in a Nuffield 342 as above. Standing just inches away from the expose rotating brake drum is frightening though!

Years later, he obtained his Diesel Engine Driver competency certificate. When receiving the certificate, he was told by the tester he was the only uneducated but Qualified Diesel Engine Driver in the state of Johore.

A typical Stationery Engine Generator set at that time which my dad operate on. Legislation require one to have a competency certification to operate equipment of this kind.

 
With these testimonials and the certification, my dad therefore managed to bring vast improvement to our family quality of lives.

My dad competency certificate in the Malay language. When he was crowned the Lister King in our town, he has his substances, a trait he inherited from his grandma who raise him single handedly in the most challenging ways.

   
To be continue......


18thFeb2013

We Chinese celebrated the arrival of spring New Year of the snake on the 10th Feb. Coinciding the few days of holidays see me taking the role of Sherlock to unearth some history close to my heart.

I visited Bukit Benut Estate and the now youngish management having heard the story of my dad was quick to show me the treasure book. Entries from as early as 1936 (the year of my dad arrival to this estate) was recorded in great details since.

The Record Book

The pages on equipment register show the several unit of Listers with their respective serial number for pumping and electricity generation/ other duties. On the next page, it was recorded a JP4 supplying power to the rubber sheet factory!

Engine register

What was more amazing were 2 unit of Land Rovers were recorded in 1942, a mere 4 years after the series 1 Landie was born in Solihull.

The Choice of tractor was Massey then!

This blog entry cannot be completed without the mentioning of those suffering endured during the 3 years and eight months period of Japanese Occupation of Malaya.

Recorded in red in the record book was an event where 2 British gentlemen were caught and tortured by the occupying Japanese forces at the nearby Railway Hill and the countless names of local staffs killed!

These pages recorded the suffering, torturing and the killings of the thousand innocents by the invading force!

As to my family, the Japanese occupying forces owe us a debt in blood. My maternal grandma too had almost all her bones in her limbs broken one at a time when she was captured and tortured.

Another Hakka woman of great substances, she survived and lived to a ripe old age of 90 plus having past away peacefully in 1989.

As for me, I see stationery engine as a hobby of diplomacy and eternal peace; with too many friends I made to mentioned all here across the globe; sharing this common hobby.  

Bukit Keretapi; literally translated as railway hill where the two British managers were captured and tortured in the background. The skeletal tree on the right of the peak is a 100 plus year old rubber tree.

The End

Note: Permission for printing the names was not prior obtained as the writer has no mean to seek approval from their respective families due to the long passage of time. 

The British Connection

Mr. Peter Arnold was instrumental in this blog. Having spoken and known my dad after paying me a visit one evening, he insisted I must write a biography of my dad for the rich experiences and war history he had gone through (picture below showing Mr. Arnold enjoying dinner with my parents. I am the photographer so I was missed out).

H

He felt that the younger generations are deprive of these history and preserving it in writing is my due responsibility. As my ex boss, I have no other choice but to agree to him with a resounding Yes Boss!

As a young British cartographer who came to Malaya before turning into a very successful business man in the early 60s; he was the man that revolutionaries industrial cleaning in Asia. Mr Arnold bought in the KEW pressure washer agencies that change the industrial cleaning technology overnight. Industrial cleaning then was high volume low pressure cleaning using up to 60 lit water per minute at about 10bars pressure from a multistage centrifugal pump.

With high pressure washing, one uses pressure up to 150 bars at usually a fractional volume of 10~15 lit water per minutes with much better result.

Instantly, every car wash in Malaysia/Spore was turning to install a blue color KEW pressure washer to conserve water with better cleaning effectiveness. The first unit of washer introduced was a 6 cylinders boxer design HS1500. When I told him in early 2010 I have 2 of these surviving units still running having rebuilt/restore from scraps together with my dad, he had to see it himself.

The above HS1500 was in its original condition despite being sold by Mr Arnold company to a Singapore base shipyard engineering customer in 1971.

I was working directly with Mr. Arnold as the product manager for KEW when his company was bought over by my then employer, Jebsen &Jessen SEA in 1993.


Mr. Kew in Denmark despite his success; decided to venture into electric car manufacturing and hence the Kew name in industrial cleaning is relatively unknown today. My 2 units of HS1500 is probably the only known surviving unit in original condition in Asia.

As for my dad and myself, we continue to build high pressure unit as our hobby horse in keeping our cars and home spotlessly clean. Seen here is a Yanmar L90 diesel belt driven to a modern 6 cylinders boxer unit almost ready to be put into service. One of those weekend project the father and son had worked and enjoyed together.

Lister Startomatic set

In the late evening of early Jan 2008, I lost my job of 9 years in KL by surprise.

With that, I took a difficult decision to return to Kluang where my parents reside; where I left 35 years ago. With my dad approaching 77 while my mum not any much younger, I am left with little choice but to stay with these two lonely old folks.

My eldest kid was in second years of uni and the 2nd is about to enroll into a uni too. Bringing the family back to Kluang is no longer possible due to my kids education and the cruel fact that my wife is not in good terms with my mum.

Putting these 2 hard headed ladies under the same roof would be 3rd world war in the making so I packed and came home alone while commuting back to KL on weekend seems the best option available.

Not having to stay with my family give me the time to indulge what I wanted to do with my dad - to rebuild engine together again.

The Lister 6/1 Startomatic above was history remaking as I last overhauled a similar unit with my dad when I was just 11 years old in 1971. He was the king of Lister during that era of his life and I was his trusted apprentice until he left to work in Indonesia working on heavy equipments for the logging industry. The above pic was taken in May 2009, 6 months after I bought it from a scrap yard by the weight. Fully restored and ready to put into service again. This unit with a serial number 8327616 was manufactured by Lister of Dursley in 1956, 3 years my senior.

I ran the engine for few hours 3 months later to coincide R.A. Lister of Dursley 100th years celebration in September 2009. 

Back in the 50s, the senior British estate managers are privileged to enjoy the Lister Startomatic set. All his wife had to do is to switch on a minimum 40 watts lamp or electrical load and the engine will slowly come to life on its own. As long as electrical load is applied, it continues to run until all electrical loads are switch off, the engine then switch off by itself and hence the name Startomatic! This is quite an engineering feat before the days of electronic or the transistors.

As a side note, I read a true story of great amusement when the Startomatic failed to stop. The estate manager's wife was planning to have a amorous night and excitedly switch off the lights when the husband is ready for bed. The engine did not stop and the wife then insisted the husband to put on his pajamas to switch it off manually the engine housed some distant away. By the time he returned, the wife was sound asleep. I can only speculate the mechanic that service it a few days earlier must have been severely reprimanded!  

To see how the Startomatic work, please refer to the below YouTube link;

http://youtu.be/wBhjwEBBuo4

The whole process of starting and stopping is shown in the above video.

My CS, before restoration.

The Lister 6/1 is a legendary engine. It must be the coolest diesel of all time spanning a production period of over 6 decades by Lister of Dursley until the factory was raged down by fire in the early 80s.

It was made before diesel fuel was widely available and the engine was initially designed to run any combustible oil or fuel from ground nut oil to palm oil directly. Currently there is a wide circle of enthusiasts running it on waste vegetable cooking oil or waste motor oil. The engine is so basic, reliable and with little routine maintenance, would easily outlast 2 generations of ownership.  

Fully restored to original condition.....minus the coat of midbrunswick green of all Lister engine.

Hawker Siddeley that bought over the company in the 60s from the Lister family than merge it with another diesel engine maker, Petter of Yeovil after the fire and called the new set up Lister Petter.

However, the range of engine soon change to more commercially viable models at the expense of original character of the old Lister.

All done and ready for service to another generation to come!

The Lister 6/1 in Startomatic form or the light flywheel version is currently changing hand at USD4000 for a running condition unit in North America where they are most sought after by enthusiasts and collectors.

The Other Holy Trinity

This blog was created to reconnect myself to my aging dad with a hobby we both shared over 5 decades. The love for stationery engine is very evidence in both our blood.

It all started a few months just before my impending birth in August 1959 when my dad took up secondary job of an engine driver to supplement the family income in anticipation of his bigger family count.

Many of you may have not heard of an engine driver. This is an occupation of manning a diesel generator set in a British rubber estate before the national grid was put in place.

The writer's 1967 Yanmar NT110 vintage driving a Chinese ST5. This is how electricity was generated in the day before the national grid was put in place.

So this became our common love since my birth as dad would bring me along to start or stop the generating set as soon as I am old enough to walk. The engine then was a huge 3 cylinders 40hp Ruston Hornsby  driving a Swedish made Asea 25KVA generator at 1000rpm.

To start the engine, one has to activate the compression release lever acting on the 3 exhaust valves. Hand cranked it with a starting handle with brute force and when the flywheel gain sufficient speed and momentum, the compression release is deactivate and the engine burst into life with cylinder 3-2-1 firing in sequence.  

The same experience of watching the engine started by my dad for the first time was repeated when I first saw Stars War movie back in the late 70s.



For many years, the engine room was filled with activities. Mum would dry our clothes during the raining season as the heat of the engine is perfect for drying albeit the smell of diesel on our clothing.

Outside, there were 2 unit 600 Lit cooling tank for the engine. Since the main engine drive an electric water pump too for fresh water need of the community, it doubles up as a fresh water supply to the cooling tanks. With the heated water from the cooling tanks, we took our hot bath there to save the fire wood needed to heat water at home.

After close to 25 years of service, the Ruston was decommissioned and replace with a Lister HA3 aircooled unit driving a Stamford 25KVA brushless generator in 1979. The modern medium speed Lister HA3 running at 1500rpm create a ruckus every evening when it was fully loaded. Somehow, my dad and I missed the slow rhythmic rumbling of the old Ruston. And we missed out the hot water shower too!

My Lister CS6/1 in the condition i bought. It was left to the elements for years and bought base on the weight. It is now in original working order after a thorough overhaul. 

The piston was completely seized by the weather on my CS6/1 but this is was no big deal. The cast iron (not aluminum alloy) piston and cylinder liner show hardly any wear after close to 40 years of service when it was freed and reused with a new set of rings.