WORKING scale Model vintage engine Lister-D 100 years - FIRST LOOK

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]In this video, we get the brand new Lister D working model four-stroke petrol engine with governor. It's come from Stirling Kit. Thank you, stirlingkit.com. We're going to have a first look at it. Where Jin has got with the quality of his models, how he's going. We're going to look inside it, find out where to put the decals on it.

[00:00:19]We're going to run it. It's going to be a great fun video.

[00:00:25]>> [music] >> Look at this day.

[00:00:30]It's absolutely [music] bloody gorgeous day.

[00:00:36]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Good day. Good day. It's Thomas here from Thomas PC Guru Engines here in Christchurch, New Zealand. It's a bloody gorgeous day. Well, night actually. I'm recording this at night because I want to get this out. Engines like the original of this engine 100 years ago had the most profound effect on Western societies and most of all on one invisible group, children. With labor-saving devices and the engines that ran them appearing on farms, children, which were always used for labor, were freed for education. Even when they turned 12 or 13, many stayed in education. And with the education came social change and the opportunity for better jobs. They could fit into a city. In the early part of the 20th century, this massive migration from land to cities fueled our industrial revolution.

[00:01:45]The same has happened in Asia in the latter half of the 20th century in my lifetime. One man I talked to recalled riding his father's bulldozer as a child in China and seeing his country's rising up from the soil with this power so affected him. He became obsessed with these power units and engines and how they worked. And his name is of course Jin. He started Acme Models. This is one of his engines.

[00:02:14]Today we're going to have a first look, very first look at this engine which he's just produced, a new model of the Lister D, which was an English engine released 100 years ago this year. And that was part of the Industrial Revolution in England and in English areas, the British Isles, Australia and New Zealand where I live.

[00:02:34]This is a challenging engine to model.

[00:02:37]It includes precision castings and hidden working spaces in its revolutionary box-like form factor. It's a four-stroke gasoline engine with a working throttle speed governor through a linkage and its model capacity is just 3.6 cc.

[00:02:53]>> [music] >> You can see here I haven't actually fitted it to this [music] beautiful cart, um historically accurate cart that was sent with it, but you'll get a good you'll get a good view of the engine [music] and its details here. The quality is typically amazing with Jin's models.

[00:03:20]Let me focus that. Okay.

[00:03:22]You can see we're coming around to the muffler.

[00:03:27]Very fine detail on the muffler. And if I bring this around, you're looking at the um what are you looking at here? You're looking at the fuel pipe. This circular part down here, I'm just going to zoom in on that. Okay, right in the middle of the screen now, that contains the uh rotating centrifugal governor. You can see the linkage going off to the left there towards the other side of the uh throttle above it.

[00:03:57]I'm just going to turn this around on its base. Um in the center of the screen now is the uh original um starting crank handle area, which I'm probably not going to use. I'm going to use it directly through the flywheel.

[00:04:13]And next to that, we've got the switching for the spark plug.

[00:04:17]Coming around now, right in the center of the screen, we've got an excess hatch, and underneath that is uh was originally uh a valve to allow air to go in and out of the crankcase.

[00:04:30]Got a very massive flywheel here.

[00:04:34]Okay, so you're getting a good view of the spark plug, the fuel tank.

[00:04:41]Beautiful little tap in the center of the screen there. Does this tap work? Oh my goodness, it does.

[00:04:48]Just going to turn that off. Yeah, that's a working tap we've got there.

[00:04:52]I'm going to bring this around. You're going to see the ignition box there, and okay, there in the middle of the screen is the carburetor. You can see the linkage going down. This is the control for the needle. This is the uh control. That's the throttle control there, and that goes down to the um governor, and here's an adjuster for the tension on the governor.

[00:05:19]Love this muffler.

[00:05:21]As bought, it comes on this base.

[00:05:25]>> [snorts] >> But, you can also buy the cart. Sterling kit supplied this cart and engine for me to test. I think it looks much, much better on this cart. I haven't fitted it yet, but just looking at the the historical pictures of the engine, I think having it on this cart adds to the recognizable uh completeness of the whole engine. And Jin's done a beautiful, beautiful job of this. It's not cheap at $120.

[00:05:53]Um, you can find ways to get that a little bit discounted, but the quality is the quality is superb. To get an engine like this going, we're we're going to need and I have prepared one AA battery for the ignition.

[00:06:11]Jin supplied this really, really nice little oil or water filler, which I'm going to use.

[00:06:17]Probably use that other one for oil because we've got a water filler here.

[00:06:20]I've got my four-stroke petrol with a little bit of, um, oil in it because we're running this engine on.

[00:06:27]I'm going to open up a couple of screws here, and that's where we're going to put the 5 mil of engine oil, 3040 or small engine oil 30 SAE is perfect.

[00:06:38]Okay, first of all, I'm going to put the fuel in it, I think.

[00:06:42]And I'm actually going to use this for the fuel. See if that fits in there. It does, perfectly.

[00:06:49]So, what I'm saying is if I push this in all the way, it's it's not going to have enough room to breathe around it. So, if you just hold it out of the air, you can put fuel in and the air will make sure that that goes in.

[00:07:08]I still think a, um, a syringe is a better idea, but I've lost my syringe.

[00:07:13]So, today we're going to use that.

[00:07:16]I think we're pretty full and probably leaking petrol everywhere.

[00:07:21]Not too bad. Right. Don't forget to put your top back on.

[00:07:27]Beautifully made little tops, these, and, uh, you don't want to lose them.

[00:07:32]We have sockets, absolutely amazing.

[00:07:35]We're going to take off this little cover.

[00:07:41]This is part of preparing the engine to run.

[00:07:49]This is where the 5 mil of oil goes. And I'm going to lift you guys up to show you this.

[00:07:57]Okay, water goes in this side.

[00:08:01]Oil goes in this side.

[00:08:05]Your wife is never going to mind if you use her cooking to measure out your oil.

[00:08:11]Well, you see I only had like 1 mil in there, so it just shows you how wrong you can be.

[00:08:16]And you got to be aware that a lot's going to stay behind on this.

[00:08:21]All right, that's 5 mil.

[00:08:23]Some of it's going to stay behind, so I'm going to put this in there and dump the rest of it in there.

[00:08:43]Okay, that's just slightly more than 5 mil.

[00:08:46]Right, before we lose these screws, we're going to put this top back on.

[00:08:50]Here it is.

[00:08:53]Quite long little hex head screws.

[00:08:59]Nice quality.

[00:09:01]Real nice.

[00:09:05]So, love how this stuff has improved over the last 5 years.

[00:09:12]Okay, don't have to do it up too tight, obviously.

[00:09:18]Right, water.

[00:09:21]We need water on the other side.

[00:09:23]You should use coolant or distilled water, but here in Christchurch, New Zealand, we have superb water, so I'm not worried. I'm just going to use tap water.

[00:09:35]Found the drill. It's in my son's room.

[00:09:37]He's the stealer of tools these days.

[00:09:39]He's reached that age.

[00:09:42]Make sure this is rotating the right way, otherwise you'll find yourself very frustrated.

[00:09:49]We are ready to try and start this. We have a 1.5 V battery. Our ignition is on.

[00:09:55]I've turned off the needle up the top here. I'm just going to slowly bring that out.

[00:10:01]Um and we're just going to Okay, let's try that again.

[00:10:45]Whoop.

[00:11:27]Right, we have a problem. So, the most likely problem is your spark is not getting to the spark plug or you flooded it or very likely flooded it. So, we're we're going to take this teeny tiny spark plug out and have a look.

[00:11:40]Sometimes happens that your first start is not perfect. How dare the first start not be perfect?

[00:11:51]This is going to need cleaning and reseating.

[00:11:58]It's what they usually need.

[00:12:04]Yeah, we've got it absolutely I don't know. Let's see if I can get that in the middle here.

[00:12:15]Absolutely soaked with oil and fuel. So, I need to clean that up.

[00:12:22]Uh and then um test that I'm getting spark.

[00:12:28]To clean it up, I'm going to use Oh, yeah, we've got here brake cleaner.

[00:12:32]That's the cheapest cleaner of engine parts you can get. So, brake cleaner brake cleaner it is.

[00:12:45]Right, let's see if we have spark. I'm going to probably go ouch very enthusiastically soon.

[00:12:53]Uh when I figure out that I do indeed have spark. Let's just get that right in the Yeah, that wasn't in properly. Oh, yeah, so that's good. We've got a little um got a bit of wire there.

[00:13:07]We're going to poke that in. This in to there.

[00:13:13]That's making contact and then we're going to turn this over. We'll have no compression, but we're going to check for spark.

[00:13:19]Yep.

[00:13:21]Great spark.

[00:13:23]So, now I'm just adjusting the needle.

[00:13:26]I'm going to only put it out a quarter turn.

[00:13:29]We're going to try that first.

[00:13:35]Okay. Right. So, now I'm going to increase the needle a bit and we're going to try again. Love that sound.

[00:13:42]Always love the sound of Jin's engines.

[00:13:49]Just like that.

[00:13:52]Right.

[00:13:54]But it's actually not going to mess with the tuning of that. That's pretty good.

[00:14:01]Well, that's really nice.

[00:14:03]I mean, I always say it. I'm always happy with Jin's engines. I hope you can get the sound as well as I can with my new microphone.

[00:14:13]See a bit of smoke coming out of here.

[00:14:14]That's all right.

[00:14:16]We're in the kitchen. Pennyworth mind.

[00:14:22]So, let's watch this.

[00:14:24]Oh, that's fantastic. I'm going to zoom in. You can see. Center of the screen as I hold the flywheel, you watch the throttle.

[00:14:38]Yeah, I'm putting a load on it.

[00:14:45]I love it when a plan works. You know, the model is really working.

[00:14:54]Yeah, I'm not going to mess with that.

[00:14:55]That would be quite uh fiddly to get that correct, I would imagine.

[00:15:00]Warming up.

[00:15:02]Of course, we can um speed this up a bit.

[00:15:08]Yeah, see the governor uh force that down quickly?

[00:15:17]I'm pulling it up, and then the governor pulls it down.

[00:15:21]Quite hard. That's fantastic. I love that.

[00:15:30]All right. You can see it's self-governing. I'm just going to pull that up.

[00:15:36]And it pulls it down hard.

[00:15:40]Very nice. Very nice.

[00:15:55]Hey ho, it's another bloody bloody gorgeous day here in Christchurch, New Zealand. The sun is shining, the birds are coughing in the trees and falling out occasionally. And I have put this beautiful engine on its beautiful trolley.

[00:16:11]I haven't yet taken off the Sterling Kit logo, which I will do.

[00:16:15]I mean, thank you very much, Sterling Kit, for supplying it. And I'm really impressed with this engine.

[00:16:21]I'm really impressed the cart.

[00:16:23]So, thank you, Sterling Kit. And it's not just a brief thank you because, you know, I have dealt with them for years. Much of my collection of engines comes from Sterling Kit. Uh and were purchased by me with my own money. This was not. However, I would be very happy to purchase this with my own money.

[00:16:44]I think it's an absolutely superb superb effort.

[00:16:53]>> [music] >> Let me tell you about these transfers.

[00:17:04]Beautiful. Really good. Line at the top of them, clear line at the top as you put them on so you can get them straight. Still hard to get straight because they kind of leap onto the onto the paint. And you can't pull them off put them on again. Once that yellow lettering gets a hold of the paint, it is not coming off. And if you try, you'll lift off bits of it and stuff it stuff it up and have to get another set.

[00:17:28]So, these are what I would call the engine porn shots. It's beautiful.

[00:17:34]The finish and the fit, naturally what you've come to expect from from um from Okuma. Now, that yellow arrow is supposed to go on here, but since that's embossed on there, I think that's perfect just like that.

[00:17:51]Um we've got a spare arrow for our um needle position, which you can see I've bumped here.

[00:18:01]Okay.

[00:18:02]That's it there. So, it's 3/4 of a turn for me.

[00:18:06]The Lister logo over here goes to the curly cue from the L.

[00:18:15]Um and as you see, I've put that down there. This writing is so small, you can barely see it. It represents the original writing that was on the engine.

[00:18:22]It was something about Great Britain and the Queen, I think. Something surely it was.

[00:18:28]Let's fill this up.

[00:18:30]>> [clears throat] >> So, I don't know whether you saw me doing that, but that was a complete cock-up.

[00:18:41]I've just soaked various bits of our engine, but hopefully nothing electrical.

[00:18:47]I'm making the mistakes so you guys don't have to.

[00:18:50]You're so lucky to have me. Lucky.

[00:19:33]>> Now I can kind of tell when I'm running it too rich cuz I get oil coming out of the exhaust.

[00:19:43]Too lean.

[00:19:54]And it kind of hunts a bit more.

[00:19:56]A bit hard to to tell.

[00:20:10]Yeah.

[00:20:21]So I'm kind of guessing that this should point that way.

[00:20:28]On my Lister in the garage it points that way like that.

[00:20:38]All right, let's put a load on it see how it copes.

[00:20:44]It's really how it copes under load that tells me if this is right. So I'm putting on a load now.

[00:20:59]Right, I'll do that up a bit.

[00:21:02]Put a load on it now.

[00:21:12]>> Okay, it works much better with a load on just there. That's why I had it there.

[00:21:17]Look at this day.

[00:21:18]It's a absolutely bloody gorgeous day.

[00:21:25]>> [music] [music] [music]