[jamesgpobog]

My old Navy ship had Fairbanks-Morse opposed piston diesels running the aux. generators. They were used in some U.S. subs too. What do you experienced engine guys think of the Fairbanks-Morse?

[surfaceblow]

My experience with Fairbanks-Morse engines was that they were loud, cranky and hard to do regular maintenance on them. The biggest problem was the outboard generator was to close to the skin of the skin of the ship. During an overhaul of one of the Generators a fuel leak developed on the remaining engine. In order to fix the fuel leak we had to transfer the load to the shaft generator before shutting down the engine online. This normally wouldn't been a problem but we were at anchor and the Deck Watch did not call the Captain. So when we clutched in the Main Engine to run the shaft generator with the CP at zero pitch and about 100 rpm the Captain ran up to the bridge in his PJ's thinking he sleep through his wake up call and we had orders to leave.

While we where doing the overhaul of the inboard engine the person guiding the vertical shaft in place got stuck in the crankcase. The longer he was in the crankcase the more bloated he got an could not slide pass the vertical shaft. So the engine gang started to close up the crankcase doors leaving him with only one way out of the engine. In the process of climbing out of the engine he torn up his clothes and cut up his chest legs and arms.

Joe

[Malcolm K.]

Originally Posted by Peter Short

I came across this 19 minute film Polar Power about British Polar from 1974:

http://ssa.nls.uk/film.cfm?fid=3268

Ideal for marine engineers who can't get off to sleep....I noticed a couple of odd things: the plastic-sheeted frames used in the factory to isolate engine building areas. Any ideas why? An attempt to create a clean area, or perhaps to keep the heat in....

Also, at 12:50 the V-12 engine arrives in France - it looks like one of the valve covers has fallen off!

Thanks Peter for the film about British Polar Engines. Like Jocko I also served my apprenticeship with British Polar. 1965 - 1970. It was expected that once your time was out that you went to sea. As was said to me " We have taught you the basics now go to sea and become an engineer".

Happy days