Last Chance for Diesel Engine Theory ‘09

Hi Diesel Fans — we have one space left in our 2009 Diesel Engine Theory class and I know that one of you wants it.

We’ll be taking apart and servicing cylinder 4 on the Arthur Foss here in Seattle, starting this Saturday the 6th of June.  This is your chance to be a real diesel mechanic — just like your heroes at OTM Inc — for five whole days:

Northwest Seaport and the Center for Wooden Boats have set up easy online registration here, and you can pay online or in person.

I better see at least one of you there on Saturday.

2009 Week 20 in Review

Back to Illinois

On Monday, it was back to Illinois. I picked up the bearings with the rental car on my way to Quincy, and spent the rest of the week measuring the bearings and cautiously fitting them into the number three engine. There is no one “right” way to fit bearings: so much of it depends on the individual circumstances that it changes often.

This time, I needed to do a lot of extra measuring because the first time around the bearings were wrong (back in Week 17). Then, rather than bluing to fit, I installed each bearing and then installed the squisher tool, then lapped the bearing in a little, and then scrape down the high spots. This process insured that the bearing was the same shape it would be when running. The lapping shows the contact area much better than bluing in this case. It is a little extra work, but I’m getting great results, so I’ll continue to do it this way.

On the other hand, the rod bearings are very rigid and so bluing will work well on them.

OTM Inc on KUOW

KUOW, the local NPR station, ran a Weekday program on “field recording” the sounds of everyday life around us. They played a lot of different sound clips, including one from OTM Inc’s everyday life: old engine sounds!

The program is archived on the website here. They play the engine sounds clip at about 30 minutes into the program. Take a listen!

Thanks to David for letting us know we’re famous.

A Visit to Oblong

On Saturday, I needed to drive to St. Louis to pick up the next set of bearings. On my way, I thought “what’s another four hours of driving?” and continued on to Oblong, Illinois to see the Fairbanks-Morse (2) Y semi-diesel at the Oblong Antique Tractor & Engine Show grounds:

The engine is really neat: it was removed from the Mt Erie drainage district pump house in 1990, after 68 years in service. It has two cylinders with a 14 inch bore; it produces 100 horsepower and weighs about 12 tons. Mike met me at the grounds even though they’re not open yet to show me the engine and tell me about the Antique Tractor Association. They have \about 200 members and a handful of them are very active on the grounds, acquiring and resurrecting engines and putting together working displays of how it all was done in the past.

The Oblong Antique Tractor & Engine Show formed in 1961, but was idle for a while, then in 1987 it picked back up. They partnered with the Illinois Oil Field Museum for a while, but then the Oil Field Museum got big money, grabbed up some old engines, and moved to the other side of town. Now, like bookends, the two museums display their collections: the sterile and seized-up Oil Field Museum to the west, and the open-air tractor show permanent displays to the east. Best of all is the second weekend in August: the tractor show roars to life, running all their engines and more than 200 visiting displays, while the western collection sits, rusted yet funded.

This year’s Oblong Antique Tractor & Engine Show is August 7th through the 9th at the Crawford County Fairgrounds in Oblong, Illinois.

The guys in Oblong told some great stories from the last 20 or so shows they were a part of. My favorite was the one about a huge horizontal Superior with an air-starter. Before the owner hits it, he winds a string around the governor shaft and pulls while hitting the air, so the crowed thinks it’s like the lawnmower. I love it!

I’m really glad that I made the trip out to Oblong, and I hope that I can make the big summer show someday. Thanks for the tour, Mike!

A new season for the Cape Cross

The 1941 fish packer Cape Cross (formerly the Cape Scott) with the six-cylinder G Enterprise is preparing to get underway. Dan reports that the new owners are working hard to prepare the boat for a season of fish packing and that the Enterprise runs well. This is great news and we are all very happy to hear that the new owners have the patience and boat-maneuvering skill to run the direct-reversible.

That’s saying a lot – one must be patient to wait for reverse; observe the boat’s motions; and use forethought in predicting currents, wind, and prop walk (and in shallow water, lack of prop walk). One of the best recommendations we can make for these direct-reverse captains is to count your starts or have someone else count them, then log it in the ships’ wheelhouse log book and review it occasionally. This way, the measurable goal is to come in with fewer starts as you get better at maneuvering.

2009 Week 19 in Review

Breaking down the party

I spent the first part of the week finishing the big M4 Party. Volunteers and I worked around the clock to clean up and return all the stuff, following the amazing show. Thanks to all those who helped this year!

If you want to be involved in the next M4 party, please contact me and I’ll put you in touch with the crew.

Preparing for Illinois

I talked two weeks ago about how I’d been talking with the Indian Grave Pump House in Illinois about installing re-babbitted main bearings in their Fairbanks-Morse engines. I ended Week 17 hearing “we’re waiting for the bearings to come back from the shop,” and by this week they were back to “hurry hurry hurry,” so I’m getting ready to go to Illinois again.

I picked up more lapping compound (a big 5lb bucket this time), and cleaned up the shop. This time, the trip is indefinitely long, so I had to be sure the bills are paid and the chickens have feed. It’ll probably be two or three weeks, so stay tuned for blogs from the Midwest.

Business as usual

OTM Inc got audited by the insurance company. Lame.

Elliott Bay Tugboat Races

On Saturday, OTM Inc went to the tugboat races on Elliott Bay aboard the Maris Pearl. It was a great day for racing, and we had a blast:

We also saw the Fearless out in fine form:

Tugboat Night!

We had another session of Tugboat Night aboard the Arthur Foss. The next session is June 13, so we’ll see you there!

Labor versus Capital

There’s been lots of talk about our ideas of labor changing these days, but I want to know if our ideas of efficiency will change. I think it might have to.

Let’s say we give billions to the auto industry so that they can keep people employed. We as tax payers will pay them to make cars, but then no one wants to buy them. Did it work? No but if we give billions to an auto industry that makes cars by hand, using hand tools. And turn out less cars people keep their jobs.

By the same token, if we give billions to highway improvement, it will be under the banner of creating jobs and employing people. It sounds like a good idea, but I’m worried that what will happen when the government starts awarding contracts. If the lowest bidder is the company that wants to buy a big automatic highway re-paving machine that was made in China and can be driven by one person, then did the plan work? I say that it didn’t, if the original plan was to create jobs (unless we’re counting off-shore manufacturing jobs).

I’m worried that billions will go to replace old diesels for no reason except to keep the Chinese who build Caterpillars employed for another day. Ultimately the money earmarked for a cleaner and better running fleet should be spent to have engineers and mechanics replace the rings and injectors. A billion dollars can service a lot of engines and keep people employed right here – plus it will help protect the environment by both cutting emissions and preventing new engines to be shipped around the world and old engines to be shipped to the scrappers.

Really, if we clean up the engines that are already in use, the benefits will be compounded. We’ll have cleaner air, more work with less capital investment, a better life for mid-level educated folks, and no artificially-created demand for the new products. All the equipment serviced will already be in demand due to the fact that someone owns it.

So, government folks, please stop creating meaningless capital investment and buy labor, instead. There are millions of ways to improve the world with out making anything.

2009 Week 18 in Review

M4 Factory Party

Every year, OTM Inc drops everything to help with the annual M4 party. This year, it was held in the loading dock of the Big Building in South Seattle.

I spent most of the week preparing for the party. I even borrowed a bucket truck to hang lights, projectors, and rig the aerialist rope:

The party itself went great: we had a big crowd and it was a lot of fun. We took tons of pictures that are slowly getting uploaded to the party’s Flickr pool here. Here’s a quick preview:

All the performers were great, from the graffiti artists to the burlesque dancers, and OTM Inc wants to thank everyone for being a part of it.

No Smoking

OTM Inc has heard a rumor that the EPA will start to fine noncompliant diesel exhaust-emitting boat operators. To verify, we made some calls.

The EPA said existing diesels are not required to comply with the new requirements – except in some cases, such as when the engines are large, polluting way more than others, and have a certified technology that will significantly reduce emissions available for the type of engines.

This means the there are only a few engines that are effected, but the most notable is the Washington State Ferry System. They’re still running some EMD two cycle engines that can be modified to run cleaner. If they can be modified, then the requirement may be in effect.

Most of the changes to the rules are for new engines, so this is a battle for the manufactures.

Voluntary compliance is a nice thing though. There are a few things to consider for owners trying to reduce their emissions.

First, how does the EPA test exhaust? Apparently, there are lots of ways to figure out the exact chemical breakdown of an engine’s exhaust, but the most important test to pass in the one that measures Particulate Material Density by opacity. This is a scientific visual test, where the engine runs at full rated speed to produce 100% rated horsepower. Then, without much relative wind, the inspector (engineer) looks at the exhaust and determines the percentage of light that passes through the plume. Black as night is 100%, dark haze is 50%, and a vapor trail is 0%. Most trucks on the road are allowed a score of 40%.

Second, smoke can signal that something is wrong with your engine. The concerned owner and engineer should take immediate action if they see smoke, as it is more than just a signal. Smoke will carbon up the valves, causing more leaking, and then more smoke, and so on until the power is reduced to nothing and the engine stops. This is why one of the ten diesel commandments for engineers is “Never let thy engine smoke, else thou shalt suffer thine owner’s wrath.”

Third, the best way to prevent smoke is to physically clean your engine inside and out, replace the piston rings regularly, and service the injectors regularly. A diesel is a diesel, and the only thing that can be done to clean up its emissions in any circumstance is to add more clean air, squish the air better, and mist in the fuel better. Servicing rings valves and injectors regularly will get any engine closer to the sought-after vapor trail.

The EPA requires some engines to do more: specifically implement something that the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act calls “Certified technology,” which is available at a relatively low cost through government programs. Certified Technology (CT) is some product that the EPA has tested and can prove creates a significant reduction in emissions. CT is hard to create and no company is going to attempt it unless it is profitable. It helps that the technology is required and a large number of the engines are in use, but if designing the technology will not be profitable, then there are grants available to help an “emerging technology” becomes a “certified technology”.

OTM Inc is currently preparing its own application for a grant to pay for the R & D to design a Certified Technology kit for the remaining Washingtons. This kit will include step-by-step instructions on how to service the rings, valves and injectors. We hope that this emerging technology (about to begin clinical trials this June on the Arthur Foss) will be quickly recognized by the EPA as a certified technology.

2009 Week 17 in Review

OTM Inc in Illinois

I spent most of this week in the middle of an Illinois corn field, but it sure felt like the bilge. The worksite is called “the bottoms,” a huge area about ten feet below the Mississippi River. It’s part of the Indian Grave Drainage District, and is kept more-or less dry by the Indian Grave Pump House:

The pump house has three five-cylinder 32E14 stationary Fairbanks-Morse diesels that couple to a ninety degree gear to power three large pumps below. They pump water from about 100,000 acres up to the Mississippi.

Here’s some background:

Back in June, the Mississippi levee broke and the lowlands were flooded, including the pump house and the three engines. The pumps are maintained and operated by a local municipality, but due to the amount of damage sustained by the levee failure, and the fact that the levee is maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Corps is footing the bill to repair the pump house. The project includes replacing the windows that were blown out, repairing the pumps that were damaged, and rebuilding the engines that were flooded.

Any Corps job is swamped with requirements, assessments, a paper trail, bids, oversight, and certifications. The Corps stipulated that the project include rebuilding the engines and that the main bearings be re-babbitted. They entire project went out to bid, and a construction company called Lamar Construction got the winning bid.

They hired a great heavy equipment mechanic named Keith to work on the engines. Keith and his crew disassembled them, sent out the bearings, and ordered rebuild kits. When it came time to fit the newly re-babbitted and machined main bearings Keith called on OTM Inc to help with the job.

I arrived in St. Louis on Tuesday and drove the 100 or so miles to Quincy, Illinois. I showed up at the worksite, but immediately met with some disapproval. To some of the guys in this field, I just look too young to be the “expert” called in to do a finicky job like fitting in main bearings, so the Corps inspector lectured at me for a while about minimum experience requirements. Fortunately, I have ample experience in doing this and lots of other old-engine jobs. More importantly, I have a phone with all the old-timers and trade professionals on speed dial.

The Corps guy eventually left me alone and I began to measure things, starting with the journals and the bearings. I installed a shell as a test and found that it was really tight, so I kept taking measurements and started getting worried. None of the shells really looked right, and the fit was terrible. I started to doubt myself and I had got all these guys breathing down my neck and I was really sweating for a few hours. Then I realized that the bearings really wouldn’t do because they were also non-concentric (by fourteen thousandths of an inch!) and undersized, and the problem was probably with the original machine-shop re-babbitting process.

I knew at this point that I couldn’t accept this kind of work, but I felt like I needed to build a case before I could just reject the bearings. The guys at the pump house were pretty skeptical; they were like “You’re here to fit the bearings; can’t you just scrape them to fit?” I had to explain that the scraping is part of a process where a perfect bearing is fit to an imperfect shaft. To attempt to scrape 14 thousandths out and then make it fit is way too much to ask.

They still weren’t convinced, so I measured the shells in a million spots, then installed a few to illustrate how bad the patterns were, then dug up a new bearing to show how they should be. The guys at the pump house eventually agreed with me, so I then drove to the machine shop to find out what process they used.

The bearing shells are straight with a 175 degree curve to them – like a pipe cut in half. The process that I’m familiar with for re-babbitting shell bearings goes like this:

Once the old babbitt is machined out and the steel shell is tinned, they chock it up and spin in a lathe while melted babbitt is poured into it. The centrifugal force helps ensure that the babbitt is seated well on the steel shell and any bubbles or impurities move to the inside surface of the shell. This shell is thin and warps after new babbitt is attached to it. Machinists hammer on the babbitt to relieve the tension, then fit the bearing into a saddle the same shape as the one in the engine. Then it gets squished in there really tight and machined to the diameter of the journal. This ensures concentricity.

In contrast, the machine shop selected for this job has never worked on shell bearing like these before. I don’t think they really knew where to start, and it showed in the “finished” bearings. They specialized in flame-spraying or “metalizing,” and they used this process to build up the babbitt, rather than pouring melted babbitt into the spinning shell, and the machining was done by holding the shell in an oversized fixture and with one bolt threaded into the back, instead of a clamp. This left the shells twisted and in some cases curled or flattened. The shells must be perfectly concentric or the shaft will be forced to one side and then the other.

Fourteen-thousands non-concentric is a lot when you’re talking about bearings — on other jobs, I’ve scraped and scraped for days and only taken off two or three thousands for all that work.  The machine shop guys said that something like “well, fourteen thousands is the best we can do.” My smart-ass reply was “look, the bearings were perfect in the 40’s and we are, I’m guessing, more technologically advanced now.”

I haven’t encountered using the flamespray process to re-babbitt a bearing shell before; I’ve only used centrifugally cast in my other jobs. I’ll do some homework over the next few weeks and report back about what I find.

For this job, though, the flamespray shop people were in way over their heads, since they’d never worked with these kind of bearings before. The whole situation could have been eliminated if some resourceful person had called a few people and asked a few questions, then a few more, since ultimately that leads back to Dan. I’ve found that the moral of any story like this is to ask yourself “What would Dan do?” and then do it.

So, at the end of the week, I sent the bearings back to be re-babbitted again and I’ll be back in Illinois soon enough.

Tour of the Anheuser-Busch Busweiser Brewery

While I was in St. Louis, I took the tour of the Anheuser-Busch Budweiser brewery and got my two free beers:

The tour was pretty good, but I was really mad that they didn’t talk about how the brewery used the first non-experimental diesel engine in America. It turns out that Mr. Adolphus Busch got the American rights to produce diesel engine sin 1897 and retained Mr. Diesel himself as a consultant. The Busch-Sulzer Diesel Engine Company eventually produced both stationary and marine diesels, intstalling them in big ships, ferries, and public utility electricity plants. They also got lots of US Navy contracts during WWI and WWII.

The tour didn’t go into any of this, but I guess that’s fair since they were talking more about how they make beer and the brewery’s history, rather than about the awesome emerging technology at the time. They did mention that they used refridgeration, which was pretty special back then.

Aside from that, I was totally impressed by the whole production and how industrial it all is. The buildings take up many many city blocks with pipes connecting them all and trucks going in and out. If I didn’t know it was a brewery, I would have thought it was a refinery or something.

All that for beer.

2009 Week 16 in Review

This week, I replaced the batteries on the Maris Pearl. They are really heavy, and so OTM Inc had its first insurance claim this year. I chipped two of my teeth while we were pushing the heavy cart up the gang way – the handle smacked right into my mouth. I look like Alfred E. Neuman.

Assessing the Ready

Later this week, I went to Long Beach to check out the Ready, the old tug that sold a few weeks back. New owner Tim wanted to better understand the condition of the engine, hopped down to California for an overnight trip.

We ran the engine for a while, diagnosed a few problems, and discussed the long-term maintenance needs. We had one cylinder not firing and I chose that one for the valve-and-injector drill. I pulled the valves and injectors out, cleaned all the parts, and found the injector was plugged. I put it all back together and stuck it back in, but it still didn’t work.

At that point, away from my shop and with the clock ticking, all I could do was suggest that Tim send the injector up to Seattle for an overhaul (or a core credit towards a new one, if the old one was irreparable). I also told him that all injectors will need the same treatment soon.

It was a good trip, though, because I’m excited to see the boat get some much-needed attention. I can’t wait for the next trip!

Still waiting for Illinois

The folks in Illinois still haven’t set a date for me to come out to work on their Fairbanks-Morse bearings, but I started getting ready anyway. I picked up some Timesaver lapping compound, sharpened my scrapers, bought some new files… that kind of thing. Hopefully, I’ll be making the trip next week.

Shop pranks

While I was out, some jerk (Dan) put wood plugs in the candy machine at the shop. What a jerk.

Praise for Engineer for a Day

I met with John Foster who had many evaluations from the high school class that took the engineer for a day class a few months ago. Overall, the kids thought it was a great class but they overwhelmingly agreed that with out live steam the Virginia V portion of the class was lame. So we applied for a grant from 4Culture to do just that.

2009 Week 15 in Review

Back from Mexico!

I got a sunburn, but OTM Inc moved right along.

Calls from Illinois

While I was in Mexico, Dan was fielding a lot of calls from Lamar Construction in Illinois.

They’re coordinating main bearing work on three Fairbanks-Morse diesels that drive water pumps for a drainage system in the middle of corn fields, and of course called Dan to ask how to fit main bearings into engines like these. They also wanted to know if he had anyone available to fit them in, if he would need any helpers, what tools would he need, is it true that we don’t ship the really good salmon to the Midwest, and most importantly, why is this guy still sunning himself in Mexico when we have bearings to fit?

When I got back to Seattle, I had 14 voicemails from Dan. He was very frustrated with me for being in Mexico while there was a job to be done.

So, I started talking to the guys from Lamar about getting out to Illinois to fit the main bearings in, but their business has the same hurry-up-and-wait schedule as shipyard work: it’s all about juggling jobs. I got the “hurry-hurry-hurry,” then the “wait, the bearings aren’t done yet; we’ll call you when they are.” I freed up my schedule to get out to Illinois at their first call, but am now working day to day here in Seattle until they get back to me. At least it sounds like a great job.

More work on the Maris Pearl

The last half of the week, I worked on the Maris Pearl. I mostly just picked up some more stuff for upcoming projects on the boat.

I also took one injector and one injection pump to Martin at Hatch and Kirk. Jay got the parts from Steve at Striegle Supply, but the pump had the wrong barrel and plunger, and the injector needs to be tested. We had Martin make up aworklist and parts price list, then shelved the project for later.

Fisheries Swap Meet

On Saturday, I went to the Fisheries Supply Swap Meet. They hold it a couple of times a year and all the boat people and junk people in the area show up with their trucks to make some deals. I didn’t see as much great stuff as I remember, but I did show up pretty late. I hear all the real deals go down before the sun comes up.

Another Tugboat Night!

That evening, we hosted Tugboat Night for the Northwest Seaport.

We had another light crowd, but we put the show on anyway. It turned out that one of our participants actually worked for Washington Iron Works in the ’70s as an apprentice machinist, and may have machined parts for the Arthur Foss. Wow!

We’ll run the engine for Tugboat Night again on May 9th, so mark your calendars.

2009 Week 14 in Review

We started this week by cleaning the shop really well, since I was headed out of town. I also tied up loose ends on the Arthur Foss and gathered parts for the Maris Pearl.

Tug for sale

The tug Earnest is for sale here in Seattle. It’s a great tug, 91 feet long and built in 1942. It used to have a 600-HP Atlas-Imperial just like the one owned by the Florida Flywheelers. It’s been re-powered with a 1,125 Caterpillar D-399 engine, but it’s still a good boat. Contact me if you or a friend is interested.

Enterprise R-Models for sale

We’ve heard that there’s two 8,000 horsepower Enterprise Model-R diesels for sale in Maryland. They’re part of a genset and that was supposed to power an island, but apparently the deal fell through. We’ve heard that these two were the last off the Enterprise manufacturing line, so we hope someone grabs them. Contact OTM Inc if you’re interested.

Coincidence?

I just found out that an old neighbor of mine is a descendant of the guy who invented the Metal Marine Pilot, which was later turned into a Wood Freeman Autopilot. Huh.

Public Trust

We at OTM Inc have recently heard of a tugboat collection getting pushed around by the government.

Steve is a tugboat guy in Waterford, New York. He’s a little reckless, a little eccentric, and very passionate about what he does, which is to collect old tugboats. I can see you rolling your eyes out there, but if the tugboat collection is doing okay and not harming anyone, why bother him?

Well, the New York State Canal Corporation is apparently planning to remove Steve and his vessels from “their” waterways by systematically attacking him with court orders, restraining orders, fines, and the other non-violent weapons available to bureaucracies. The Canal Corporation is a state-owned operation designed to manage the public trust that owns the canal and river systems in New York. According to Steve, they recently changed the state law to say “no living on boats in the canals.” We at OTM Inc have not looked up the law, but find it unlikely that they made it that general; instead, we speculate that they changed the state law to read something like “no living on a barge called Pennsylvania No. 399 within 100 yards of Lock E-2.”

Anyway, Steve continued living on his boat, so the Canal Corporation had him arrested and issued a restraining order to keep him off the boats. Interestingly, the Canal Corporation then assumed care of the boats, until they can safely acquire title to them through the doctrine of adverse possession. I think we all can guess where they’ll end up after the Canal Corporation has title to them.

Steve is planning to strike back by accusing the Canal Corporation of “interfering with the safe operation of a vessel” and “forcefully taking control of a manned vessel.” Both of these are federal offenses and typically taken very seriously.

While researching this article, OTM Inc tried tirelessly to contact an official with the Canal Corporation, but received no response to any of the voicemails or messages left with the secretary. I can only assume that they are uninterested in making a statement at this time.

While I understand the need to put some vessels out of their misery, and that there are some situations in which a boat collector must be saved from himself, setting a bureaucratic precedent like this is disturbing. The idea that the same entity that obtains the restraining order can gain control of the vessel through taking care of it in the owner’s court-ordered absence is pretty scary, and a scenario I don’t want to see played out.

At the same time, there are some boat projects that really are hopeless and should be shut down before they end up costing a lot of taxpayer money to clean up. These projects are the one that linger for decades, with lots of time and energy and love and hope and money all wasted in the end because the project was hopeless from the start.

From my perspective, it comes down to how to define what projects are “hopeless.” Who gets to make the call on that? What’s their training? Who trained them? Are they licensed, and who licensed them?

Even more, are there any objective criteria or scale that this person or persons can use to judge boat projects as a potential success or failure at the beginning? Someday, I will assemble an interdisciplinary panel of experts in a variety of related fields, including psychologists, psychiatrists, economists, curators, drum circle hippies, demographers, maritime attorneys, navel architects, ship captains, surveyors, and boat repair specialists. This team will develop just such a scale to judge boat projects on, so that we can stop wasting years of hope and work only to lose it all to scrappers or government agencies. No old boat project should be judged without such a panel – one that includes both boat people and realists.

Until then, Old Tacoma Marine Inc will offer unbiased mediation services to assist parties with resolving such disputes.

Old Tacoma Marine Inc goes to Mexico

See you next week!

2009 Week 13 in Review

More work on the Maris Pearl

This week, OTM Inc started work on the Maris Pearl’s bilge system. Not too much to report there.

Update on the Lightship #83

Northwest Seaport is getting ready to start the big deck replacement project on the Lightship #83, and they asked OTM Inc to research and compile a list of basic essential tools to stock the boat.

Last year’s Preliminary Engineering Assessment budgeted $3K for this step, which will buy a good selection of wrenches, screw-drivers, scrapers, and other essential hand tools to keep aboard for general work. Specialists and contractors working on the boat will bring their own tools along, but it’s important to have a full set to stay aboard.

Updates on the OTM Inc website

Check out the re-networked Old Tacoma Marine Inc website! We consolidated all of our social networking clients at the bottom of the main page, so now you can follow OTM all over the web.

Stay tuned for more exciting changes to the front page!

The Ready Sold!

The tug Ready is a 65 foot ST tug from 1945 powered by a 6HM2124 Atlas-Imperial diesel engine. It’s been sitting for a long time in Long Beach, California, unused (its former owner was aware of the liability involved in running it).

Last year, the boat was given to local wharfrat Steffen, who parted out or scrapped all the electronics and brass, then sold what was left on eBay. Proud new owners Carla’s and Tim are powering their way through the steep learning curve of old tugboat ownership as they prepare the boat for a trip up to San Francisco Bay.

Tim has read through the Atlas-Imperial manual on the OTM website (view it yourself here), and has been working with John, our trusted OTM representative, to make enough repairs to run the engine for a short time.

It is very exciting to add another engine to the list of the living. It sounds like I’ll be heading down there soon, so stay tuned!

2009 Week 12 in Review

This week, OTM stopped by the old ferry Skansonia to photograph its Fairbanks-Morse diesels. Maintenance guy John was happy to show us the engine room and let us poke around two great old mains:

Steven at the Evergreen Fleet has a nice history of the Skansonia that he’s posted here. Here’s a summary:

The Skansonia was built in 1929 by the Skansie Brother shipyard for the Washington Navigation Company. She and sister ship Defiance transported passengers and automobiles on the Tacoma to Gig Harbor route. In 1940, when the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened, the Skansonia took over a Tacoma to Vashon Island Route – until “Galloping Gertie” crashed into Puget Sound a few months later!

The Skansonia went back to work on the Tacoma to Gig Harbor Route until 1950, when the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened. The new Washington State Ferry system bought her in 1951 and put her on the Vashon Island to Point Defiance run until 1967, when the Hiyu took over the route. The ferry system used her as an overflow boat in the summer of 1969, then tied her up in Eagle Harbor. They sold her in 1971, and in the mid-1980s she was turned in to a banquet facility and moored at the north end of Lake Union for years.

John led us down into the engine room and just like on the Olympic (back in 2008 Week 48), I felt like I went back in time, with the last engineer’s coffee cup still sitting by the dangling remains of the telegraph. Except for being used for storage, the belowdecks space had been hardly touched since the boat was retired. Someone had removed most of the access panels from the two main Fairbanks-Morse diesels, but other than that they looked completely untouched:

We took a lot more pictures of the boat that are uploaded to the Flickr site here. They’re definitely worth browsing through.

Now normally, I am a hopeful engine restorer. I see running potential in any engine that is mostly complete, and the Skansonia’s engines are great examples of “mostly complete.” With a lot of work, they could run again, but I don’t advocate for it in this particular situation. The banquet-ferry business works and the boat won’t run again, so parting out the mains would be okay. The boat is beautiful and I have actually attended a few weddings there. It works really well as a venue, and the owners have showcased a lot of the boat’s history in the main galleries. Plus, the Skansonia has the one most important thing for anything in the world to survive: it provides a service that is valued enough to support itself. It’s a shame that this service doesn’t include running the engines, but having a business that supports it is a wonderful thing for the old gal.

Thanks for the tour, John!

The Arthur Foss turns again!

I finished putting Arthur Foss’s clutch together. After I reinstalled the linkages on the throw-out bearing, I spend some time adjusting the clutch to get the right snap. This is the final motion that the clutch makes as the linkages go over center with some tension and the crowder collar runs into the clutch housing. If it’s well-adjusted, the linkages retain the tension and keep the clutch “in.” I spent a few hours adjusting it, then turned the engine over on compressed air to test it.

Here’s a video of it:

After it looked really good, we tightened up the dock lines and ran the propeller for the first time in about eight years. It was great! I can’t wait until we get under way again, but there’s still some work that needs doing before then.

World premier of the Westward movie

Right after running the Arthur, I went around the corner the see the John Sabella documentary about the Westward. Hugh and Teresa brought the boat down and moored it at Lake Union Park for the event, and tons of people came – including three generations of owners.

They showed the movie itself on a big projection screen in the Armory. My favorite part was, of course, the part about Westward’s Atlas-Imperial. They have a great segment of engineer John oiling in high speed. Check it out:

The boat has had the best career any vessel could ask for and she’s not finished yet. The website has more information on the documentary, including how to order it for yourself.