This monster of an inline-six turbodiesel was eagerly stomping on the ground as if there were no tomorrow. An overland, working classic marine diesel, under a bright blue sky. I wasn’t expecting this, to say the least, when I walked by a collection of old farm tractors. It made an idling Lanz Bulldog sound like a diesel powered food processor.
A Lister Blackstone ER6M marine diesel engine from Dursley, England. Maximum power output 337 hp @ 750 rpm.
Lister Blackstone was formed in 1936, when R.A. Lister & Co. Ltd. acquired Blackstone & Co. Ltd. The company was best known for their generators, marine engines and railway locomotive engines.
This might as well be the skyline of some chemical plant.
A Pegson-Marlow production.
Turbocharger by Napier.
The towing vehicle is an all-wheel drive Ford 7710 Gen 1 with a turbocharged 4.4 liter four-cylinder. This series of Ford farm tractors was introduced in 1982.
Surely an old Ford(son) tractor must have towed a Lister Blackstone before?
Very interesting. I presume “omw3min” is rpm … 750. Sounds slow, but I bet the loads on those big pistons, rods, and crank are huge even at low piston speeds.
“omwentelingen per minuut”. That’s rpm alright.
With a long enough stroke, 750 RPM will produce some pretty high piston speeds. I recently watched a YouTube video explaining that the maximum piston speeds between a Honda S2000 and a Formula 1 car that revs twice as high is actually the same, because the F1 car has a shorter stroke than the S2000.
Judging from the deck height on this engine, I’d expect a pretty long stroke and some pretty high piston speeds on this engine!
Served on some old Navy diesel electric submarines and 750 rpm is the speed I remember for essentially all of them. The supercharger did 1500 rpm with a 2:l geared chain drive. Their forte was driving a generator which did propulsion and hotel load as well. Have a story or two hanging out here in the archives. One of them iirc talks about the propulsion systems.
Hard to know from pictures but that thing looks about half the size of the sub diesels. Good find and interesting stuff.
I was just searching for an used marine diesel engine for the yacht of a friend and stumped into this! But he needs a much smaller one, maybe one cylinder of this one would do it 😉
Was the engine connected to something (pump, generator, agricultural machine, etc.) or is it just for demonstration?
It ran, without propelling anything.
They need to hook it up to run some comically small device.
Decades ago National Lampoon had an illustrated article on “Devices in the USSR.” The one I remember was the diesel-powered vibrator. The engine reminded me of a V-12, and there were handlebars (like a motorcycle) and stirrups to … um … mount the … er … driveshaft.
Y’know, of all the things I considered, that wasn’t one of them.
How about an ice cream maker? Then sell ice cream cones?
Bob
Lister made one cylinder engines:
https://youtu.be/qReu9PuP4yQ
and here:
https://youtu.be/qlNG41uG1MY
Almost the same engine as used on the BR diesel-electric Class 10 shunters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_10
Not as long-lived as their English Electric counterparts, though often the actual diesel engines have seen further use.
Impressive. And a bit surprised to see a turbocharger. Do you know the vintage of this engine?
On a Dutch website I came across an inland vessel that had a 337 hp Lister Blackstone ER6 engine, the year built of the vessel was 1963.
And maybe the number 63 (as a part of the Motor No.) stands for the year 1963. All in all, I’d say it’s about 55 to 60 years old.
That is just too cool for words!
Wonderful workmanship. The engineers/builders/mechanics really took pride in their work.
Biggest Lister Ive ever heard of, I was amongst a dozen or so Listers today but smaller single and twin cylinder models, I didnt know they made anything this big, very cool and turboed, that was new technology in the 30s.
Lister Blackstone introduced their turbocharged diesels in 1951. See here (at the bottom of the page), the link to the main menu is in the article too:
http://www.oldengine.org/members/blkstone/History5.htm
Very useful pictures! I have an ERSM6 rated 495Hp@750 rpm to be assembled and the engine above is really neatly configured. Some small changes compared to mine though. It seems to be centrifugal pumps, mine are impeller.
Thanx,
Peter
I came across a Blackstone ER4 in the Pilbara Western Australia. How do I find out more about it?