2009 Week 37 in review

Business as Usual

This week, we are back in the shop cleaning, reading the Local Agency Guidelines Manual for the Lightship #83 project, and working on the website some more.

We’re working hard to get pages about all the known remaining Washington Iron Works and Atlas-Imperial diesel engines up on the web. Don’t worry diesel fans – we’ll get to the Fairbanks-Morse and Enterprise sections next.

I didn’t make it to the Tugboat Races in Olympia this year, but I heard the Maris Pearl did very well – it looked like first to me, but we’ll have to review the photo. The Donald R was there in style – we love that Washington.

New tugboat book released

I also got news that Jessica DuLong (owner of the Gowanus Bay) has finished her book and it’s being released this week. She’s been writing it for years and I went out and ordered a copy of it from Elliott Bay Books as soon as I heard. It should be here in a few days – I’ll report back after I read it.

Heavy-duties for sale

To all you Tugboat Dreamers: don’t forget that the J S Polhemus, Oswell Foss and Quail are still for sale.

Keep up with what’s for sale and what’s been sold at OTM Inc’s For Sale Listings.

Heavy-duty sounds through the ages

Engine collector Jim Walsh sent us a nice quote about heavy-duties: “I don’t really work on the engine, I just start it up and listen to it like a phonograph.” We at OTM Inc agree: the heavy-duties sure do sound nice – though we may not be getting the authentic symphony.

Dan told me that Dave Updike, his boss in the 1970s and the Godfather of heavy-duties, said the diesels don’t sound like they did way back when. Modern diesel fuel has a higher cetane than the old stuff, and you can’t even get number two diesel anymore. According to Dave, the thicker fuel makes a deeper thump and a lower “chuf chuf chuf” from the stack.

If Dave said it then it must be true, but we think that the heavy-duties sound just great regardless of the fuel.

2008 Week 17 in review

We started Week 17 with a whirlwind tour of Northwest Washington heavy-duty diesels. San Juan Island has at least one engine from each of the major manufacturers that I work on: Washington Iron Works, Atlas-Imperial, Enterprise, and Fairbanks-Morse — and that’s not even counting the boats in nearby Bellingham and Anacortes.

Cannery Tender David B

First up was the David B, one of OTM Inc’s regular clients. Following the party, we hung out with owners Jeffrey and Christine to recuperate in the sun:

We also took some pictures of the engine, a 1929 Washington-Estep:

We used to think that the David B’s engine was the oldest remaining Washington, but since then we’ve “discovered” two older engines (the Kodiak Maritime Museum’s and the Waimea Sugar Mill Camp Museum’s). That doesn’t make it any less awesome, though, since it’s still the oldest Washington installed in a vessel.

We would have stayed longer with Christine and Jeffery on the David B, but we had a ferry to catch to San Juan Island.

Tugboat Quail

Before hopping on the ferry, we stopped by the tugboat Quail in Anacortes, just to see how she looks these days (she’s been for sale for a long time) and take a few pictures. We hadn’t called ahead for an appointment, so we had to look through the portholes to see the engine.

While I was taking pictures, an older gentleman strolled up and also started taking pictures – several from the same spots I shot from. I said “It’s a good looking boat huh?”

He looked up at me from the view finder. “Until it sinks,” he said, and went back to taking pictures.

I hope a prospective owner who wants to cruise often finds out what a great boat the Quail is.

Valve problems on the Catalyst

After a long ferry ride, we arrived in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. Bill from the Catalyst has been having problems with his air compressor and asked me to come up and take a look before they start their summer season.

The Catalyst’s main engine-driven air compressor hasn’t been pumping air. While the boat (like any other air-controlled boat) carries an auxiliary compressor, it’s much nicer to use the engine-driven compressor while underway, as it’s quieter and uses energy already produced.

I inspected the air compressor and found the problem in the outlet valve. I took the head off and lapped the valve a lot, but couldn’t get the pattern I wanted. There was a spot near the outlet pipe that was not contacting at all. I started to think that corrosion or something like that cut into the seat. It took me a while of messing with the valve before I noticed that one of the flutes that guides the valve and blows air by was rubbing on a little bump in the bore that it rides in. I ground down the bump and touched up the flutes. I got good contact on the seat with just a little more lapping. I pressure-tested the compressor but then had to leave before turning on the engine and really testing it, but Bill later called and said the compressor has never pumped so much air for him.

Valve problems on the Oswell Foss

Our next stop was the retired tugboat Oswell Foss, also moored in Friday Harbor. The Oswell is powered by a “G” Enterprise engine, like the Briana Marin and the J. S. Polhemus:

Captain Jim and his wife Sue use the boat to cruise around Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands. Lately, its main start valve has been leaking, so they asked me to come by and take a look.

I thought the valve probably just needed some adjusting, but I needed to lap it a bit, too. The pilot valve will need to be replaced soon, but fortunately the owner has lots of new spares – an important commodity if you’re going to keep an old engine going.

The fishboat Vivian

Next up was the Vivian, also in Friday Harbor, a seine boat that’s been for sale for a while. Last week we got great news while tracking down the current owner to get a tour: the boat just sold to Max from Portland. This is great news for the heavy-duty diesel engine world, since Max intends to cruise in the boat (more on that subject later).

The Vivian is powered by an Atlas Imperial 4HM1125 with a 10 ½ inch bore:

The advertisement we saw circulated called it a “P 155” engine. I asked Dan what “P 155” meant, since I’ve never seen that kind of number associated with an Atlas before. Dan said “Any fool knows what a P 155” is. Ha ha, Dan. I waited and eventually he told me that whoever wrote the ad must have taken the information from the manufacturer’s plate. The “H” in the abbreviation for “horsepower” must have been worn off or obscured, making the plate read “P 155” rather than “HP 155.” At least this confirmed that the engine is a 4HM1125, since that model does indeed produce 155 horsepower. Dan also said that its serial number of 12479 dates its manufacture to around 1943.

As a fishboat, the Vivian is a very bare bones vessel. As with most workboats, there isn’t much else aboard other than the equipment needed to do its job: a hull that doesn’t leak (much), an engine that runs, and the rig for fishing. There’s very little else on board, but that’s part of her charm:

New owner Max plans on to haul her out for inspection and maintenance, then bring her home to Portland for more work in preparation for a South Seas expedition. We hope to hear more from you, Max, and maybe some pictures of a great old Atlas cruising the Pacific.

Roche Harbor Generators

After finishing up with the Oswell Foss, we headed up to Roche Harbor on the northern end of San Juan Island. The Roche Harbor Resort used to be a company town for the Tacoma & Roche Harbor Lime Company, which produced lime for cement and other applications. Parts of the lime production used to be powered by stationary Y-model Fairbanks-Morse diesel generators. These are still on the site, though they’re showing the age and the weather:

The generators, a two-cylinder and a three-cylinder, haven’t been worked on in years. I’ve contacted the resort’s manager in the past to ask about restoration or programming plans, but he’s been non-committal. I think it might be time to bring that up again, though.

For now, they’re an interesting feature in the middle of a fancy fancy resort and spa:

The Roche Harbor Fairbanks-Morses were the last stop on our heavy-duty tour of Northwest Washington. After that, it was back to work.

An Update on the Maris Pearl

Back in Seattle, I replaced the Maris Pearl‘s block heater element and the oil cooler’s sight gauge. I also drained the oil cooler to tighten the oil line, and picked up the fuel pumps and injectors that I had machined. The project is starting to wrap up — we’re set to leave for Alaska on May 14th. I’ve got lots to do before then, so I’ll wrap this blog entry up and get back to work.

2008 Week Ten in Review

Maris Pearl Update

This week, Old Tacoma Marine Inc finally installed the Maris Pearl’s jacket-water cooler. It wasn’t quite as smooth a process as I’d liked; after I put it in the first time, I had to pull it out and turn it around. Some of the pipe runs that I welded will need to be modified later, but it is in place and holding the jacket-water just fine.

This job is just about over, but it looks like the owner has plenty more for me to do on the Pearl before taking the boat up to Ketchikan in a few weeks.

Big Swan Drainage Problems

We got a call this week from the Big Swan Drainage & Levee District in Winchester, Illinois about their 400 horsepower Atlas-Imperial diesel. This engine is still coupled to a pump and used to move rain water from a ditch over the levee and into the river. This is one of my favorite engines because it’s still doing exactly what the district bought it to do more than fifty years ago, and they’re invested in keeping it running.

The Big Swan Drainage’s engineer called because he thinks that one of the cylinders isn’t firing, as it’s running cold, making hissing noises, and the exhaust valve cage is smoking a little. He asked me about what it would take to install a new cylinder. I said “Whoa, wait a minute!” Replacing an entire cylinder is the very last step for a problem like this – it’s a little like saying that because you have a cough and a fever you need a lung transplant. There are so many different little problems that could lead to an engine making weird noises, smoke, and giving low temperature readings that it’s best to work through symptom by symptom to fix problems and rule out causes.

The very first step is to double- and triple-check all the readings, using the built-in pyrometer and a hand-held infrared meter to determine the actual exhaust temperature. It can also be really useful to just put your hand on the exhaust manifold elbows, too. Using these different sources of information about the exhaust temperature is important to nail down exactly what the cylinder is doing.

I know of one guy who noticed a really cold temperature on the number six cylinder’s pyrometer during a routine check, so he boosted the amount of fuel going into the cylinder. It takes a while for any adjustments to make a significant change in engine temperature, so he went back up to the bridge until it was time for the next check. When he got to the engine room, number six cylinder was belching out smoke. He limped in to port and called a mechanic to come take a look at it as soon as he could. The mechanic found that the cylinder head was cracked – the increased fuel had increased the heat in the cylinder and expanded the casting enough to crack. While messing around with the cylinder head, figuring out how to fix it (it is not easy), the mechanic found the pyrometer wire laying slack behind the engine, unattached to the cylinder. The low temperature reading that led to the fuel adjustment was because the pyrometer wasn’t hooked up.

If the exhaust temperature on the Big Swan engine really is too low, then there’s still several more things to rule out before replacing a cylinder. I’ve found that it’s not very common for a cylinder to suddenly not get enough air or compression and fire incorrectly, but it’s very common for it to suddenly not get enough fuel. The next step is to check the fuel system, starting with the adjusting nut at the top of the fuel injector. This should be moved in very small increments, with the original position marked with a paint pen. If there’s still a problem, then I’d service or replace the injector. Once I was really sure that the cylinder was getting fuel and air, I might consider compression issues.

Since the Big Swan engineer also mentioned a leaky valve cage (which could be caused by a wrinkled copper gasket; easy to replace), I think that systematic testing like this will identify the problem before he gets to the “replace the cylinder” step. I hope it’s an easy fix; it’s a neat engine and I want it to keep running with minimum fuss for a long time.

Starting problems with the Oswell Foss

Later in the week, Captain Jim called us from the retired tugboat Oswell Foss about start valve problems on its G-series Enterprise diesel engine. I’m planning a trip to the San Juan Islands in a few weeks anyway, so I’ll look at the controls and air starts then. The symptoms he listed include air bleeding down fairly quickly if the handle is not in just the right spot, when earlier the handle had a little more forgiveness.

Field trip at the Northwest Marine Propulsion Museum

I finished off the week with coffee at the Northwest Marine Propulsion Museum next to Ewing Street Mooring. I thought Dan, Mike, and I would just talk shop, but it turned into an event. About eight members of the Puget Sounders chapter of the Antique Outboard Motor Club Inc showed up to take a look at old engines. Harold from the club told stories of working for Washington Iron Works for many years, which was quite a treat. We also ran the museum’s three-cylinder Atlas-Imperial diesel and talked shop for about an hour. It was a nice way to relax a little before heading back to the Pearl.