2009 Week 40 in Review

Field Trip to Friday Harbor and Lopez Island

This week, I drove and ferried up to Friday Harbor to pull the valves and injectors from the Catalyst to bring back to The Shop for servicing. Bill and I pulled them all in about three hours, and the next morning I headed for home – with a few stops.

Ferrying between islands is free, so I stopped off at Lopez Island to visit Keith and Stewart, who are busy rebuilding steam engines. They have an impressive foundry setup, and are working on some neat projects for boss Alex in Louisiana.

They’ve got a Type-G used in a 33-foot Navy boat, a Type E-2 from 1901 with a new crankshaft, and a Type-N that replaced the E-2 in 1907. It makes 48hp at 320 rpm.

The most amazing project, though, was the Ward three-cylinder radial engine:

I really like the interesting, compact design, the neat shifting mechanism, and the floating bronze shims in the thrust bearing. West Virginia University has lots of Ward Stuff, including many boiler designs and the first water tube boiler design.

Arcturus didn’t make it

The Atlas yacht Arcturus made it only 15 miles before the fuel filters plugged and their trip to San Francisco Bay was canceled. Instead, the crew was treated to a ride back to Eureka via Coast Guard tow.

Discovery for sale

The most beautifully modernized yacht out there, the Discovery is for sale. While the owners love the boat, they have another one and since they can’t ride on both at the same time, one must go.

Newt stuck!

Our friends on the tug Newt spent a scary tide exchange on the bottom of the Duwamish River. Everything turned out okay, but it was very scary at the time. See, it’s easy to get caught by the tide — be careful!

Looking for a G Enterprise head

Our friend Sean is looking for a cylinder head for the G Enterprise on the tug Mighty. Drop me a line if you have one, and I’ll forward it along to Sean.

Another Washington!

We found out the Timber Heritage Association in Eureka, California has a Washington-Estep!! Stay tuned for some pictures, and we hope to visit soon.

Another two bite the dust

The guys at the Fabius River Drainage Pumphouse are breaking up their two great 32E14 Fairbanks-Morse engines that we saw back in May:

They got a government grant that was intended to reduce global warming, but instead of overhauling the old fuel-efficient heavy-duties, they’re pulling them out and replacing them with big gas-guzzling Caterpillars.

If you need spare Fairbanks parts, contact B & W Truck & Auto Specialists in West Quincy, Missouri. Their phone number is 1-800-338-9797; ask for AJ.

2008 Week Four In Review

Maris Pearl Work

The retired tugboat Maris Pearl and its Enterprise diesel engine is a long-time customer of OTM Inc. This week, I resealed the oil tube in the No 1 cylinder on the starboard side. Water is still dripping into the crank pit on No 1, and the easiest and most likely way to fix it is to reseal the oil tube. Let’s hope it works. Here’s the Maris Pearl’s engine with the starboard access panel removed from No 1 cylinder:

Later in the week, I met with Bob Shildwalker to see about replacing the control head in the Maris Pearl’s Enterprise. It currently has an Ingersoll-Rand control head, which uses a teeny little air control motor to shift the camshaft. Since it’s so small, there’s a small possibility that it could hang up and cause the tug to get stuck in forward or reverse. It probably won’t, but I want the engine to be as perfect as it can be. I heard that Bob has a spare control head manufactured by Westinghouse that uses a big air ram to shift the cam:

This makes it more reliable, as well as easy to use. I met with Bob to ask first if all the control head pieces are there and second if he would sell it.

The answer to both questions was no. Not only is the control head missing many pieces, but Bob said that he already sold the Red Cloud and everything on it to Rick Hamborg. This is unfortunate, since I think that with a little research I can make the missing parts and get the control head working again. Last year I installed the same device on a DMG-6 Enterprise and had a lot of fun learning about it while restoring it. I’ll try again soon. For now, though, it remains with the Red Cloud in Everett.

Cylinder head for Arcturus

Dan and I were cleaning out the storage locker and came across a 9″ x 12″ cylinder head, which would fit the yacht Arcturus‘s Atlas-Imperial. Since his engine is still sea-water cooled (and subject to the corrosion damage that can destroy an engine if not kept under control) we thought we’ll offer the head for sale to him first.

Cylinder heads for Catalyst

I’ve been meaning to hunt down the extra cylinder heads for the Washington in the Catalyst for a while now, as I know that the former owners had some made a few years back. This week, I spotted an advertisement in the Boats and Harbors rag for “Washington Engine Parts”. I immediately thought “Wait, there’s Washington parts out there that I don’t know about?” Since Washington Iron Works stopped manufacturing parts around 1980, they are hard to find and most of the collectors have already contacted Dan or I.

I called the foundry and machine shop at Texas Empire Motors Inc that placed the ad, which was for 8″ x 10″ cylinder heads. He said he has one old head, three new ones, and all the patterns needed for casting more. He was very anxious to sell the whole lot and sounded disappointed when I told him that there is only one potential customer in the world (as the Catalyst is the last remaining 8″ x 10″ Washington engine that we know of) and they may never need the spare heads. But, I wanted to see what he would let them go for, so I should see an offer in the mail soon.

Meanwhile, the Catalyst‘s current cylinder heads are looking great: