A Life of Diesel.

[Tinkicker]

In a bit of a nostalgic mood. 

 

It struck me that after probably 1000+ diesel engine overhauls, I probably rebuilt my last one, just gone three years ago.  I made a move to cut out the daily grind of a commute and now work 5 minutes from works car park to driveway.

In winter, I have to actually drive the long way around to at least get a bit of heat in the car engine.  Not good for it at all.  I have to make sure it gets at least one long trip a week to rid the oil of a buildup of moisture.

 

Where  I now work, my employers overhaul transmissions and axles from heavy construction and mining equipment, so no chance of ever overhauling one of my beloved diesels ever again.  For some reason, they are scared to death of them...  Dunno why.  Wish they would, the transmissions and axles, even if impressively huge, are boring as hell.  But no.  They have heard horror stories with competitors trying the engine route and getting burned.  Shame because I have set up a few successful diesel overhaul shops up for various employers over the years.

 

So a life with my beloved diesels.  My first diesel engine bought around age 8 and in very short order, taken apart and put back together again.  I remember it was a birthday present and cost £5.

 

 

 

And my last, 50 years later; which was completed just three days before I started my new job.  That overhaul cost £52K and is currently towing Airbus A380s and Boeing 787s around the tarmac at Heathrow Airport.  CAT C18 twin turbo of 1150hp.  Twas quite the responsibility.  If I got something wrong, and it blew itself to bits, it had the potential of bringing down the firm.  Buying the new parts for another full rebuild would be well over £120k as well as penalty clauses.  Big toys mean big rewards and bigger risks.

They were not best pleased that I was leaving for pastures new... Would I still care enough to do my best?  Of course.  A lot of friends jobs were in the firing line.  A few of whom I had known for over 30 years.

 

So far as I know it is still out there, but my old firm decided not to try break into the big boy market and stick with bus and truck motors.  They found being so over exposed a very disturbing experience.  I bet they were counting down the days to the day the warranty ran out.

 

 

Edited August 16, 2024 by Tinkicker

[Simon Davey]

@Tinkicker I am in awe.

Makes me want to rush out and resurrect my model aircraft, mostly the Hirobo Sceadu running a Hyper 50, which hasn't run for over 10 years....

[Tinkicker]

Yup.  This is the daily bread of the tinkicker day to day grind these days.  Impressively large, but no soul....

 

 

And yes, engines do have a soul.  Be kind and whisper nice things to them and they do respond...

 

And we have the ooopah loopah of the engineeringworld.  Yes it was actually one of mine arriving on the trailer.  Boring...  6 inch diameter pinion shaft snapped like a carrot because someone forgot to grease the prop shaft.  That will be £75k please.

 

Edited August 16, 2024 by Tinkicker

[Simon Davey]

Not sure if I'd want to be tasked with getting those studs and bolts loose. 

[RideWithStyles]

Dont think my local halfords will have a torque wrench and socket that fits?

 

I wonder if the Sod’s Law of the ratio to how many fused bolts are the same as to bikes and cars etc?
do you make bets on how many before hand?

[Tinkicker]

Oxy Acetylene is my friend...and constant companion.  My most used tool in my box is my 2000nm 3/4 drive twin hammer air wrench weighing in at 12 kg and a 30mm socket is considered small.  Largest socket in my box is 65mm.  The firm provides stuff larger than that. I do have torque wrenches from 4nm right up to 400nm.  But I rarely bother using them.

 

The tightest torque I assisted in setting was in a final drive for a ships anchor windlass.  That was an 18" diameter ring nut and was torqued hydraulically to 22,000nm.  We had to hire in the equipment and have the machine shop make the "socket" specially.

 

It was pretty scary.  You could almost feel the stresses in the air.

Edited August 17, 2024 by Tinkicker

[Ian Frog]

Some of the values and figures you use so casually because you are used to them are proper impressive and the atmosphere around 22,000nm doesn`t bear thinking about.

Cheers

Ian

[Tinkicker]

1 hour ago, Ian Frog said:

Some of the values and figures you use so casually because you are used to them are proper impressive and the atmosphere around 22,000nm doesn`t bear thinking about.

Cheers

Ian

 

Yup.  You have to use special paste on the threads because at that force, the threads would pretty much weld themselves together otherwise.  It took two hours to torque it about a half turn from hand tight.

 

Most of my stuff goes underground and my biggest customers making 75% of my workload are a large Polyhalite mine near Robin Hoods Bay and a couple of large gypsum mines.  My other customers hire out 300tonne cranes mostly.

 

Underground mine truck..

 

My favourites are the underground tractor and telehandler axles.  They are easy.  Most parts are light enough to be able to slide around the bench by hand and the overhead crane only needs to be used to lift the bigger parts.  After a day working on those, I usually have a little energy left.

Mostly, with the big stuff, not so much.  All I am fit for is sitting watching telly.  Totally spent.

 

My precious.. Easy day.

 

Another thing to consider is brakes.  You cannot have drum or disc brakes underground because of the explosion risk.  All of my underground stuff have internal braking systems inside the axle, running in oil.  Think of a very large, motorcycle multi plate clutch working in reverse...it stops rotation instead of enabling it.  The housing held together by groups of 5 bolts contains the brake plates. In this case six friction and six steel discs per side.  This axle has two, annular hydraulic pistons per side, running at 50 bar.  One operates the service brake and the other releases the spring force of four belville springs that apply the emergency brake.

 

The larger stuff tends to have the brake housings right next to the wheel hubs so the braking is independent of the half shafts.

 

Hope you found this brief foray into heavy equipment interesting.  Dunno quite how it got so drawn out.  Must have been in a talkative mood.

 

 

Edited August 17, 2024 by Tinkicker

[AstronautNinja]

1 hour ago, Tinkicker said:

Oxy Acetylene is my friend...and constant companion.  My most used tool in my box is my 2000nm 3/4 drive twin hammer air wrench weighing in at 12 kg and a 30mm socket is considered small.  Largest socket in my box is 65mm.  The firm provides stuff larger than that. I do have torque wrenches from 4nm right up to 400nm.  But I rarely bother using them.

 

The tightest torque I assisted in setting was in a final drive for a ships anchor windlass.  That was an 18" diameter ring nut and was torqued hydraulically to 22,000nm.  We had to hire in the equipment and have the machine shop make the "socket" specially.

 

It was pretty scary.  You could almost feel the stresses in the air.

I presume a person apply 400nm? That's a fair old figure 

 

The socket required for 22k nm must be colossal

[S-Westerly]

On the large diesel engines on board (and mine are nowhere near the largest) the engineers use hydraulic tools to remove / tighten the bolts holding the cylinder heads down. Interesting titbits: the cylinder liners weigh 7 tonnes with a bore of 600 mm, each cylinder has 3 fuel valves and we burn about 250 litres per day of cylinder oil when the engine is running. Underground kit sounds fascinating and I'm no engineer. Far too much of the dark side there!

[Tinkicker]

Yes those big crosshead diesels in ships are something else.  I think it is the wartsilla sulzer that is supposed to be the most efficient diesel engine in the world?

And yrs, those crosshead diesels have two entirely separate lube systems.  Bottom end fairly conventional and cylinder lube system which is a total loss.  The top and bottom are separated by seals on the piston rods.

 

I know of the type of hydraulic tightening you mention.  Once helped as a one off casual " helper" on a piston and ring change on what I think was a  Cummins V16 heavy horsepower engine. Edit: it was a jenbacher natural gas engine.  I remember it had spark plugs!  It was a fast reaction generator unit in a power station, used to start up and quickly feed in power if the normal generators were struggling with demand.  The oil is continually flowing around the engine, even if the engine is not running to ensure it is primed and ready to start at a moments notice.

 

You screw a fitting onto the cylinder hold down studs and a hydraulic jack stretches the studs a certain amount.  You can then undo the nuts with a small tommy bar.  Remove the jack and screw the nuts right off.  Retighten the nuts a bit above hand tight with the tommy bar and let the jack off.  The elasticity of the studs shortening actually provides the clamping force for the cylinder head.

Only time I ever did it and I thought it was pretty amazing.  Never heard of it before then.

 

That is the biggest engine I ever worked on and I stress I was only an assistant, covering someone who was off sick and the job still had to be done over the weekend.  I am not a heavy horsepower man.  I was pretty much just a labourer that could turn spanners.

 

Thats the chappie.  I was somewhat overwhelmed by it.

 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2024 by Tinkicker

[Tinkicker]

If you were wondering what the hell polyhalite is.  Welcome to the only polyhalite mine in the world (currently - a second one is about to open nearby) and the deepest mine in europe.  ICL Boulby.  700 miles of tunnels and miles out under the north sea.  

 

 

Edited August 17, 2024 by Tinkicker

[Bender]

Makes my days on hgv's seem more like my first 850 mini   

 

I like heavy well engineered stuff but not sure if A I would like to go back to it or B I could physically hack it 

[AstronautNinja]

2 hours ago, Tinkicker said:

If you were wondering what the hell polyhalite is.  Welcome to the only polyhalite mine in the world (currently - a second one is about to open nearby) and the deepest mine in europe.  ICL Boulby.  700 miles of tunnels and miles out under the north sea.  

 

 

7 minutes to descend underground fvck that

[S-Westerly]

The thought of being underground and then under the sea is enough to make me feel like having a lie down in a dark room. Call me chicken but never in a million years.

[Tinkicker]

And when it all.goes wrong.  Kessler transfer box from a Leibherr 300 tonne crane.  I have one almost the same, sat on my bench for Monday morning.  That one is out of a 100 tonne Grove crane so a bit smaller.

Most common failure is the lube oil cascade pump.  Bottom to top, these tranfer boxes are about five feet tall, so you need to pump lube oil up to the top end.

 

Apparently the crane driver only knew something was wrong when a police car saw smoke and flames under the crane.  That particular box was beyond repair.  We could have sorted it, but the cost would have been more than the elderly crane was worth.   We sourced a good used one.

 

1000 hp meets no lubrication.  Certainly the worst I ever saw.  The gears melted.

Grove Kessler transfer case.  Jus waitin....  It usually takes a full day just to get the 5 drive flanges off.  Right bstards they are.

They are held in by 6" diameter circlips behind the flange and the only access is 2 small holes in the flange to get circlip pliers through.  The circlips are usually clumps of seized in solid rust.  Completely ridiculous design as the Germans are very likely to do.  No thought of the poor sod taking it all apart 15 years down the line.

 

 

Edited August 18, 2024 by Tinkicker

[Simon Davey]

Flippin eck, couldn't even fit that lot in the boot of my car with all the seats down. 

[Tinkicker]

The planetary gear carrier on the left I cannot lift.  It weighs too much.  The others I can but not with any precision.  Certainly cannot lift them to chest height.  I can move them around on the floor though.

Everything needs to be done by the overhead crane.  It is VERY easy for the unwary to seriously injure themselves.

 

It can be a very scary place when rigging big lumps of machinery for turning from its front to its back ect.  You get as far out of the way as the crane controls will let you.  Sometimes things happen very fast.... I hate it.  My mouth always goes dry.

At worst, someone gets seriously hurt, at best you can cause £1000s in damage.

[Fozzie]

On 17/08/2024 at 14:28, Tinkicker said:

 

 

 

 

 

f**k you have a cool job!

I used to design power gen system using Jenbacher engines, although most of what I did was with MTU. I primarily used their fossil gas engines, but with micro-grids growing in popularity, diesel backup is a serious need to maintain the power availability. 

 

In my current role, all I get to do is tell people how they should sell/design/install it. If I could get an on the tools job, I would throw this all in without a second thought. 

[Tinkicker]

When I get home on an evening, totally spent.  I tend to disagree.  Mentally, I do still love it, but physically, my aging body cannot hack it.

 

UK government says People of my age retire at 67.  Whether you destroy yourself working with toxic chemicals and heavy physical labour, as well as a mentally demanding job... Or if you are a librarian sat on your arse all day long............... Did I ever mention how lucky I am?

 

 

 

By the way, the drop box I mentioned was totalled.  But I had another job given, another total loss, but I was also requested to check the swinging arm bushes.

They were fine.

 

 

[bud]

Some of those torque figures are crazy. I would need a very long extension bar.

[S-Westerly]

Just been told we have a new cylinder liner waiting for us in Copenhagen. As it weighs 7 tonnes they won't be shipping it to the Emirates. Probably get it in Rotterdam and then the engineers get the lovely job of changing it out.

[Tinkicker]

4 hours ago, S-Westerly said:

Just been told we have a new cylinder liner waiting for us in Copenhagen. As it weighs 7 tonnes they won't be shipping it to the Emirates. Probably get it in Rotterdam and then the engineers get the lovely job of changing it out.

 

 

Do you get to fly home while they are swapping it out?

[Bender]

16 minutes ago, Tinkicker said:

 

 

Do you get to fly home while they are swapping it out?

Hmmm I'm guessing no

[S-Westerly]

Hmm no. It's not quite part of the routine work on board although one that's not unheard of. A good Engine Room Squad can do it in about 24 - 36 hours if all goes smoothly. We have to be in the right place to do as we are immobilised. This class of ship had issues when they were new with poorly designed liners that suffered excessive wear down. This ship was the last in the series so got the upgraded version but now after 12 years the first one is due to be changed out.