Laidong 1115 The best choice right now?? Article by Butch, ’38C’

 I’d like to thank Butch for his efforts in making acessments of the Laidong Product. Some of you might know that Lee and David have been working hard to access who is making the better products in China, and this brand was identified as one of the top units. We should assume that there are people who would quickly paint the name Liadong on an engine of another make if it lead to a sale, we should also know that there were some requests made by Lee and David as to how these were built.  So we need learn what the real McCoy is before we attempt to buy one like this.  I do reccognize pieces on this machine as being offers usually found on the higher grade engines, I have no personal experience with this brand, but I like what I see.  We now turn over this ‘Living page’ to Butch 38C.   

GB      

Laidong1115

“We are able to make the distinction between bad designs, and poorly made parts. We know how some of these defects are created.. often by people who are paid by piecework versus the hour, and who have no understanding of the parts they pour, hammer, and machine.”    George B 2012

That statement by George struck a chord with me as I have long held that certain engine designs exist in only two states, failure and rapidly heading that way. This goes back to a 1980 Chevy with a  350 CI diesel.  I am pretty sure that if Mercedes Benz built one of those engines and  it be as short lived as the GM.   One of my buddies would say, ” you can’t polish a turd”.  This is part one of George’s equation, a bad design. Side two of  the bad engine world,  engines of sound designs that  are not built to a high standard, or maybe more correctly a high  enough standard is a field that is harder to properly dissect.  I stress high enough as engine build quality is always a compromise, cost vs what market will bear for cost.  The horizontal diesels from China are the best example part 2 that I am aware of. I own quite the pile of them, I am like the neighborhood shelter operator.  Once tossed out and abused they end up at my shop.  I have also collected up some new old stock engines from here and there. For the most part the design has a pretty poor reputation with our big local users of such, the Amish community. Myself I am impressed with the design but to tell  the truth not one of the examples I had in my possession impressed me for build quality.

 Although simple and slow speed as compared to more modern designs the horizontal is not as “underbuilt”  friendly as say a CS Lister.  With the slow RPM and other over engineering in the CS design Lister created a low stress environment. They could almost be built  in a cave  and have some life expectancy. Build a 200o RPM horizontal with the same quality that our current crop of Indian Lister clones enjoy and you would have a grenade with a very short and fast burning fuse. More HP into a smaller package equates to more highly stressed parts and there is no way around the materials and tolerances needed to make it all work.   The engine the Chinese chose to clone needs a lot more attention to build quality than the one that India chose, that does not make it a bad design. It means it is ,much easier to build bad ones,,,big difference

Recently  I laid my eyes and fingers on a Laidong brand 1115 and was  impressed. How good is it? The difference between the Laidong and my other examples is about on par with comparing my 1938 Production 6/1 Lister to a Listeroid. While I am not about making claims that cannot be supported with operating hours this one has a chance to be the real deal in my opinion.  I crowed to George about it and thus received the job of starting this blog. All I know at the present is there has been an attempt here to import a high quality engine and I think they have met with success. Hope that the importer and his “man on the ground” chime in. Will make for an interesting read.  Meanwhile I will be adding some content here myself with pictures and material details soon and putting some hours on one.    

You can check out  the 1115 Laidong at Belleghuan Ltd http://www.woodnstuff.ca/

We have posted a short clip of ours on you tube.  Impressive for sitting on rubber-tired casters I think?  Will be motionless when bolted to it’s work platform driving a 15KW ST head.  Vibration is only one portion of build quality but it appears that Liadong has it down pat.

Thanks,

Butch 38C