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Machinery Horrors

55K views 144 replies 50 participants last post by  captainconfusion 
#1 ·
In relatively recent times mv Dilkara (1971-1986) must take some beating. She had 3 x 18 cylinder Pielstick 2.2 engines (54 pistons,54 fuel pumps & injectors, 12 turbochargers, 108 exhaust valves ...... etc) geared to one shaft with a 3000KVA alternator attached to the two forward engines and all connect by Fawick pneumatic clutches.
I think it was around Christmas 1975 she had a fire whilst entering San Francisco and after establishing that no one was injured there was some rejoicing in the company because it might prove to be the end of her!
I was dispatched to see what could be done and unfortunately the damage wasn't terminal and she was returned to service after a few weeks. But not before she was fined (not for the first time ) for making polluting smoke as she departed. It was long before the days of AIS but if you ever wanted to know where she was, you just had to follow the plume of smoke across the Pacific!
 
#90 ·
Some of the earliest posts on this thread reminded me of the “Leopard” class diesel frigates of the RN, the IN, and maybe a few others, dating back to the early 60s.
Each ship had eight main engines, Admiralty Standard Range 1, which as you will guess were specially developed for Naval use. These were V16s, with four turbochargers each, about 1800bhp at 920rpm.
Two shafts, so four engines per shaft, driving a reverse-reduction gearbox, each engine with a fluid coupling to connect it via ahead and astern clutches. And with CPP, so that any number of engines could be run on each shaft. All very ingenious and compact, two engines forward of the gearbox, two more aft. Three engine rooms, each with four diesels, because there were also four ASR1 L6 diesel generators. (But I hear that some ships of the class had V12 generators of the same type). Forward and aft engine rooms also accommodated a gearbox each. Accessibility? Don’t ask. With the cylinder count of 152, and 36 turbochargers, thankfully most spares were common for main and auxiliary engines.
Not surprisingly, a few such ships were enough to convince the RN, and the IN, to stick with steam, until the gas turbines came along in the 70s.
 
#91 ·
Just been pondering a how crap and crude things were 50 years ago. For our sins, in Ellermans, we had six ships with 75LB6 Doxfords supposedly capable of 8,800 bhp at 108 rpm. Unfortunately all the ships had over-pitch props that limited them to 100 rpm.
The majority of those ships had had most of their crankpins and journals machined in situ and to various different sizes. To minimise the number of spare bearings they were remetalled for the smallest diameter so it was a bit of a bugger if you were fitting it to a large pin. One soon learnt your bearing scraping skills and I remember on one ship finding myself ankle deep in white metal before it was up to size.
This same ship had a centre main bearing pocket that was fractured in several places . It had run ok like that for a few years but had a condition of class against it. Not unreasonably, when the ship was sold the new owners wanted the subject removed so arrangements were made to have the fractures ground out and rewelded.
We had taken great care to try and ensure that no distortion occurred during the welding process so it was of great concern that at the subsequent engine trial the bearing wiped badly after only 5 minutes running as it did with two more attempts.
It was eventually discovered that when the journal had been machined some time previously they had managed to machine a throw into it. With the cracked bearing pocket it seems the bearing could wobble around and run quite happily but with the pocket now secured it didn't want to know.
Because there was no fillet at the journal ends to re-establish the centre we had to hand grind and file to remove most of the throw before the machine could be fitted to hone and polish the journal back to something resembling normality.
I've just remembered that during the trip before, the back camshaft broke and, I think it was this ship, the main exhaust bellows on the top platform disintegrated three days before we could get to Singapore for a repair(Cloud)
 
#92 ·
The majority of those ships had had most of their crankpins and journals machined in situ and to various different sizes. To minimise the number of spare bearings they were remetalled for the smallest diameter so it was a bit of a bugger if you were fitting it to a large pin. One soon learnt your bearing scraping skills and I remember on one ship finding myself ankle deep in white metal before it was up to size.
(Cloud)
I remember visiting one of the oldest combined cycle generating plants in Mexico, just outside Veracruz. The plant was originally coal powered, but they had changed over to HFO and then installed GT's to convert to combined cycle.

There had been a serios flood, a 500 year event (rivers flow backwards!) and the ST's had suffered thermal shock to the bottom casings.

I took a young, uni educated, mechanical engineer with me to give him some experience and also to share the workload while they were splitting casings, etc.

At the back of the turbine hall, they were scraping new bearings. I asked the young eng. what they were doing - he hadn't a clue!

I then pointed out the different scraper shapes, the dummy shaft, the engineer's blue, orientation marks, micrometers, torquing the dummy housing down and feeler guages, explaining exactly what was going on! To his credit, the young eng. was very interested and even approached the fitters, asking them questions and even having a "hands on" go himself.

Scraping bearings -Odyssey Works, Western Shiprepaires drydock, Husskisson and many, many others. Like riding a bike, you never forget "how"!

Rgds.
Dave
 
#94 ·
Your Doxford tale brought back some memories. I only sailed with a Doxford as a Junior Engineer with Bankline. Lots of issues and fortunately we had a very competent bunch of engineers to keep them going. We were doing a copra run from the Pacific Islands back to Liverpool, plodding along at our usual slow speed and sure was good to get that first pint in when we got to Liverpool. Thanks for the great story.
 
#95 ·
Our 750 mm Doxfords were indeed horrors. They all had new crankshafts before the ships were 5 years old and one of them broke the replacement shaft 8 years later when I was 2/E and then that second shaft was badly damaged by microbial attack after another 4 years when I was Superintendent.
Interestingly, the Doxfords with 670 mm bore or less were relatively trouble free by comparison.
Too many millimetres spoiled the broth?(Jester)
We did have a twin screw 3 cylinder 60LB that ran on diesel . That was really good (if you could hold the fuel pressure!). However, you were never quite sure which way the engines were going to start but as far as I know it was never the cause of a City of Brooklyn / Cato type disaster:rolleyes:
 
#101 ·
I think you are right about the increased bore increasing the rate of bearing failure, at least initially. The reason to my mind was the distance between the main bearings, already large because of the side rod bearings increasing the bore caused more flexing over the increased distance increasing the risk of main bearing failure.

This brings me to another thought, the reason for the demise of the Doxford. Ship Owners wanted higher powers, there are only 3 ways of increasing the power per cylinder:

1) Increase the MEP, this will increase the crankshaft load, causing more flexing....

2) Increase the bore - this increases the bearing distance....

3) Increase the stroke - we now run into the difficulties of either casting a very long liner or go back to the difficulties of sealing a tripartite liner

Could these difficulties be solved with modern technology - maybe. Is there any appetite for investment to do so - almost certainly not
 
#102 ·
I think you are right about the increased bore increasing the rate of bearing failure, at least initially. The reason to my mind was the distance between the main bearings, already large because of the side rod bearings increasing the bore caused more flexing over the increased distance increasing the risk of main bearing failure.......
Yes, on the 75LB6 the " perfect" centre crank deflection at No.6 was 0.045 inch(1.1mm) ! In fact if the deflection gauge didn't fall out it was sometimes considered okl! Goodness knows what the deflection was in the running condition. On the ship I was on that fractured the crank at No.4 side crankweb ,we fitted a huge strap around the crankweb and had to cut a bit out of the bedplate to allow it to rotate. However, when we started the engine for a trial there was a clonk, clonk at about 40 rpm and inspection showed we had to cut out a bit more! In my experience with these engines the cause of many of the bearing failures was locked sphericals, either from incorrect adjustment or ridges being allowed to develop.
I agree about the 3-part liners of the "J" type. We had sister ships, two with 76J7 Doxford engines and one with a 6RND90 Sulzer. If it wasn't for the liner sealing problems the Doxford would have been a much superior engine. Your analysis of the Doxford demise is probably correct in the long run but I'm convinced they would have been keep in production for longer had it not been for the seriously c**p British Shipbuilders management
 
#96 ·
BP Tankers in the 50-60-s had 6 35.000tdw tankers steam turbine plant, all the 6 were built in various Italian shipyards, and had a novel emergency ford fire pump/compressor, which was fitted and had the standard {6? air start attempts}, air start bottle.
The compressor engine was the interesting feature, if my mind is correct.
In a total blackout emergency the engine/compressor was started by air start from the air start bottle.
If one had an empty air start bottle then the engine compressor could be turned over by hand? Here's the catch, one could not pull over the engine with her 4 drive cylinders engage by hand! So one had to disenable two of the four cylinders-by lifting the fuel injections from the cam drive, and apply the decompression levers on the as connected air compressor. Once lucky enough to fire up the hand start and diesel engine, the two drive cylinders worked and the other two engine cylinder acted as an emergency air start compressor-Once the air start bottle was recharged to the starting pressure- the unit was shut down, and the diesel engine of the compressor isolated from the air start compressor, then all four of the engine cylinders were or had their fuel injectors put back into operation on the engine camshaft so that fuel would be available to all cylinders. the complete unit was connected in line to the air compression services such as the emergency forward fire pump, and then the engine unit was connected to the airstart air receiver, the valves opened and the emergency diesel-compressor unit, if success and the diesel/compressor unit fired up on line, one could relax.
 
#97 ·
BP Tankers in the 50-60-s had 6 35.000tdw tankers steam turbine plant, all the 6 were built in various Italian shipyards
I had a friend in BP who told me about some Italian built tankers that had horrendous feed water consumption. He said that it was as if they had porous tubes !
Could they be the same ships?
 
#98 ·
North Eastern Marine

Anyone who had sailed with North Eastern Marine Doxfords may recognise my avatar. Some of their LB engine controls were like this with 5 levers; NEM Stop, ahead/astern, fuel quantity, starting air and fuel pressure.
It wasn't very popular as it proved difficult to train the octopuses (Jester)
 
#105 ·
This is an aside but I was told (Can't remember where, possibly an IMarEST event) that sometime after Doxford's final closure a vessel required a new crankshaft. A world wide search revealed no one capable of building one!!
 
#111 ·
When I was sailing in CP Ships in the 80's I sailed with a number of engineers who had been on the large diesel engined VLCC's they had built in Japan in the early 70's when they decided they did not want any steam ships, to get the power they needed it was Mitsui B&W FF 980 bore 9 cylinder.
One story I remember a 4/E told me he got out of the lift and could not see accross the E/R for exhaust and steam leaks, believe one of them the Port Hawksbury I think went through three ecconomisers, molten steel falling from above, they had fire hoses rigged around them and soot blowing had to be done wearing BA sets.
The two ships with those engines had the problems, the third I.D. Sinclair had a 10 cylinder GF and I never heard of them having much problems.
 
#112 ·
Sort of the opposite on Barber Perseus, built by MHI.

A mate was on watch, doing a round, and heard a creaking, groaning sound. Just then, the economizer (waste heat boiler) came crashing down from way aloft onto the ME cylinder heads.

The investigation revealed that the heat exchange rate was too high at low revs and the exhaust gas was condensing acid rain! It just rotted the entire economizer.

The secret, as I soon learned on Barber Priam, was to leave the auxy BLR on until normal operating temps had been reached and stabilized.

Rgds.
Dave
 
#114 ·
Reminds of a Non Maritime event. Newly built on a Farm 2 package Steam Boilers designed to run on Sewage Gas. At the First Annual, one was opened up and I found the tubes pretty much at the end of service life and already 20% wasting, on the tube plates, the rear was much worse. The cause was the high sulphur content in the gas, being of "Animal" origins. When the boiler was "turned down" the resulting condensation produced Sulphuric Acid. They had a big re-think, and went to Natural gas, pending possible introduction of a "scrubbing" system.

Taking deflections on Doxfords was always an interesting exercise, You never really knew what you where going to get, But we never did have any major failure on the Strick Ships, most of which had a Doxford of one type or another. I`ve Hung pistons and run on 5 on other`s Though?.
 
#120 ·
Thank goodness those days of bartering with Saddam with Halau killed mutton for high sulphur Iraqi crude are long gone.
Come to think of it our Dairy Board did a sililar deal with Russia with surplus milk powder for Russian cars .
We had acres of them parked in the Waikato that were so unreliable they wouldn't sell, long after the mutton was hotpotted and scoffed !

Bob
 
#122 ·
Thanks for the comment, this is a nostalgia site after all hence many of us remembering our times at sea and the machinery we loved or hated. However on that idea, when I departed Bankline in the late 1970's I got a position on what were the most technically advanced ships in the world at that time. They were reefer vessels, developed and operated by Hamburg Sud and then bought by Uiterwyk Lines out of Tampa and operating under Liberian flag. Luckily I had a spell with Hamburg Sud to learn the ropes a bit. These vessels were the very first or almost the very first computerized ships. As the Lecky and very fortunate to have been one of the first to start studying what was basic electronics at college, the computer was a massive ferrite core memory device that filled a small room, your mobile is thousand times more powerful, it used punch tape for program loading and was able to control and monitor the twin Pielstick medium speed engines (what a dog of an engine they were) and also a complex system of frig compressors, we had some 80 compressors that were all turned on and off as required, and we ran bananas out of central and south america, frozen lamb out of Australia and so on. Once you figured out how to keep them online they were surprisingly effective for their time. Also on these ground breaking vessels were electric couplings to main engines and a rather complicated shaft generator system, that kept me on my toes a lot. But sailing along at around 23 knots instead of the 12.5 with Bankline was fun, and they were beautiful vessels, we knick named them Daddies Yacht, all white, graceful lines and twin funnels. They had very comfy cabins and so on. They were a machinery marvel of their time. Hardest working ships I ever served on, did 3 trips on the Polar Colombia and Polar Uruguay. Maybe some old hands out there who recall these 6 vessels.
 
#127 ·
Guess what. 30th August, 1981. Las Palmas. Polar Uruguay and Polar Argentina (I think). The two ships were together. I arrive by taxi. The first ship I saw Polar Argentina (I think) and when I saw the name I almost panicked.... I was joining Uruguay! So, I guess I saw you for a minute or two.

The mate I relieved was Richard Head. About a year before my ship was bound Valparaiso. Spoke on VHF to a very lovely reefer passing. The mate there was telling me that the ship was Polar Uruguay and the operation with Uiterwyk. I was interested. Later I was in London and had a chat with the Personnel Manager. Mike Pittar? Anyhow, it turned out it was Richard Head that I had been chatting on VHF.

Who was the Electrician in the URUGUAY when you left?

Were you in the ship when she did a 'raft up' with a Dutch yacht in the Caribbean? The ship drifted for a few days 'with engine problem'. I hear the piglet went to the BBQ. Captain Waldermeer?

Stephen
 
#126 ·
Yes, 1970/71. I sailed him when he was first trip Eng Cadet in Euroliner. Ended up Managing Director of Denholms.

He was superintendent at the time when Denholm took over for temporary management when Uiterwyk folded. He knew that I had been in the ship so I was able to help a little bit of 'info'.

Stephen
 
#138 ·
In the glorious days ( in the fifthies ) when Japan was copying evrything , a belgian company purchased a ship from a japanese yard , they got rid of it after four years . The engine brand was NAM ( a copy of a MAN engine ) , size of the spare parts did not match . There was a buddha installed in the captain saloon who was supposed to protect .
 
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