Old Tacoma Marine Inc Discussion Board

Kiene Diesel Firing Pressure Test Device.

oceansailor — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 03:17:19 GMT

When I first bought my ship the "NOKOMIS" I realized that some special tools would be required to maintain the Fairbanks Morse 31A-6 1/4X9 6-Cyl Diesel
Engine. The Ship, being a foreclosure, had been stripped of radio's, Compasse's, Clocks, Bridge and Engine Room Telegraphs, Inclinometers,
Barometers and most anything that could be sold or traded, Ironically, the yard asked why I began to lock it because no-one would take anything here.
The first thing that I searched for were the special tools for the Engine and
was able to account for most , being that they were discolored from age and
patina, however, all of the diagnostic tools were missing.
I have managed to replace most of these from my personal tool sets, with the exception of the Compression and Firing Pressure Indicator. These
readings of Compression and Firing Pressure, taken at full speed and Full
Load are an important Diagnostic aid used to determine the Health and Efficiency of the Diesel Engine, (the compression pressure is taken at full speed and full load , except the fuel injection pump is disconnected from the control rack and secured in the no/fuel position, when taking the compression reading only).
At any rate , with the absence of such a important device, I decided to inquire as to the purchasing cost to obtain one.
What I found out was that the MSRP of the KIENE Firing Pressure Test Device exceeded $1000.00 , way to much for my budget, so I put my acquisition on hold and sent out feelers to the RailRoad Diesel Shops that I had once managed, but was not successful, I also called friends, but with no
success. Months passed, then recently there appeared an advertisement in Boats and Harbors, from Groban, a Chicago Company that specializes in
Surplus Military Equipment.
In short I managed to obtain the elusive KIENE Test Device, brand new, never used, but calibrated, for $99.00, plus a pittance for shipping.
If you have a large Diesel Engine , this device is extremely useful to
determine the condition of your Engine, and is now available at my kind
of pricing.(USN-Surplus).
Standard Disclaimer- I am not affiliated with Groban or the USN, and will
not receive any compensation ECT., ECT.
Most Important -Read Instructions and obey SAFETY PRECAUTIONS when operating these devices, including SAFETY GLASSES and Protective Clothing
and Heat Resistant Gloves !!!!
john

Forum: Listings

Looking for an old Atlas for an old Boat

oldtacomamarine — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:15:23 GMT

Cary from Vallejo emailed us these stories:

Quote:

My name is Cary. I have recently acquired a Fishboat built by Seattle Boat Works in 1928. She's in pretty good original shape and I'm interested in an engine of this period to put back in it. It currently has a Detroit with no head. I'm a diesel mechanic that works on new marine stuff ie. CAT, Cummins etc. I've been a marine guy all my life. This boat will never fish again so I'd like to try and make it as original as possible. Any hope for finding a west coast engine that may have been used originally in these boats?

I asked for a little more information about the boat and its work, and he responded:

Quote:

The boat came here in the forties and was well known along Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. I found it in Half Moon Bay about 20 miles south of there. I work in a boatyard here and we do restorations of wood boats and old engines and generators though nothing quite as old as this. We recently completed work on a 1939 42' Nunes Bro's. They built in SF mostly commercial so doing a sport runabout this age and size from them was unusual. We also reframed and planked a whaleboat for the local rowing club. My expertise is mechanical though and worked tugs for a number of years mostly older WW2 diesel electric boats with all the knife switches, etc.I'd like to maybe find a smaller Atlas the same vintage as the boat to add some authenticity to it. This boat will never commercial fish again some day trips or over night fishing trips with the family.

I'll e-mail some pictures when I can download them.

Thanks for telling us, Cary -- and we hope to see those pictures soon.

Forum: Maintenance and Repair

Why did the John Cobb's crank break?

oldtacomamarine — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:49:41 GMT

We posted a blog entry describing how the NOAA boat John N Cobb prematurely ended its research season with a broken crankshaft here.

We don't know yet what caused the break, but we want to hear your informed speculation. Comment to this thread with possible reasons that the crankshaft broke.

Forum: Fairbanks-Morse

Enterprise-powered NYC Fireboats

oldtacomamarine — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:41:23 GMT

We received an email this week from Robert in the NYFD about the department's two fireboats powered by Enterprise DMM 363's:

Quote:

I am a NYC Fireman assigned to our Marine Division and we have 2 Fireboats powered by Enterprise Diesels: Fireboat John D. McKean 125′ Main Engines are 8 cylinder G models direct reversing, also has pump engines that are 6 cylinder G engines boat was built 1951. 2nd: Fireboat Alfred E. Smith 105′ built 1961 Powered by DMM 363s with CPPs Rated @ 510hp @ 900rpm Woodward PGPL Govenors also pump engines are DMM 363s same rating with Woodward SG Govenors Main Engines on the Smith currently under going Major Overhauls due to persistent head gasket failures, counter bores had to be renewed.

That's great to hear, Robert. I hope that you guys consider us a resource for any overhaul questions you might have.

Forum: Enterprise

Atlas-Imperial Crane Barge in the Netherlands

oldtacomamarine — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:34:58 GMT

We received this email last week from a man in the Netherlands:

Quote:

Hello,

I am not the owner of a Atlas Imperial engine, but I am the owner of an inland barge in the Netherlands. Today we had a big crane barge alongside and I was talking to the owner how old it was and more like that.

He told me there was a Atlas Imperial engine inside. The crane was build in 1944 and was made, to put tanks a shore in Normadie during the second world war. The engine is what they say about 240hp. The engine is working well and is being used more times a week. The owner is a yunkyard in Hendrik Ido Ambacht near Rotterdam. For more information you can contact me.

I hope i could have given you some good information.

That's great to hear. We'll definitely ask you for more information as we track down the Atlas-powered crane barges.

Forum: Atlas-Imperial

Story about the ARTHUR FOSS in the 1970s

oldtacomamarine — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:20:27 GMT

Old Tacoma Marine Inc received this story from Dirk Nansen last week. We think it's great that people are coming to us to tell their stories of heavy-duty diesels and the boats they power, and hope that more of you reading will send them in.

Here's Dirk's story:

Quote:

Just discovered your website and saw your notes on activities on the Arthur Foss. I thought you might be interested in my story about the Arthur. Back when Foss first donated the boat to "Save Our Ships", I was working with Paul Bellesen on his minority youth training program North by Northwest Adventurer's Inc. We had a 93' tug, the Langston Hughes, which was powered by a Cooper Bessemer JS-6 and we were tied up at Pier 57 in Seattle just a short distance from where the Arthur and the old Relief light ship were. This was about 1970 or 72 and I was about 20 years old in the second or third year of engineering school at the UW.

NxNWA was a interesting program that took mostly city kids, aged 7-14, and tried to teach them discipline and responsibility by training them to run the old tug. We frequently went on overnight cruises to the San Juans or south to Olympia (Hartstene Park was a favorite destination for the oysters we could harvest there). The kids actually maintained and operated the engine and the boat. Usually there would be only two or three adults on board and the kids really did most of the work on both the engine and running the boat.

Anyway, when Foss dropped off the Arthur, the little old ladies on the SOS board of directors (and Ivar Haglund) were content to just let it sit at the dock and rot away like the Wawona and the Relief. It had apparently been in storage for several years but I was impressed by the good condition of the boat and thought they should make it operational.

I made a pitch to the SOS board of directors that if it just sat at the dock it would deteriorate to where they could not maintain it. But if we got it running, people would appear to help maintain it and keep it in good condition (plus it would be fun). And for some reason they bought it and basically turned the boat over to us (myself and several of our best trained 12 year old engineers). We dug into the boat that same day and despite not having any manuals or advice, by afternoon had air pressure up and actually started up the main. At that time we had to hand crank a Lister gen set to charge the battery to start the GM 3-71 that would provide enough power for the compressor and get the lights on. Took all day and there were some interesting moments in the process but I will skip over those for now. We ran the boat several times that summer including one trip to Port Townsend for the just restarted tug boat races.

An interesting side note on that trip was that we put all of the adults in the NxNWA program on the Arthur as we were very nervous about not screwing it up. That left just some of the kids to run the Langston Hughes which followed along as backup. Both boats were in Lake Union at that point so we had to navigate out the locks. The oldest person on the 93 foot Langston was the skipper, Randy Inouye, age 14. The engineers were Paul Bellesen Jr. and George Jordan, both age 13. Paul Bellesen Jr. is now a captain for the state ferry's on the Bainbridge run and Randy is an accountant for King County. The other note on that story was that when we got to Port Townsend, the city officials on the city dock didn't want us to tie up there with all the blacks on board. NxNWA had about 50% minorities in the kids and Paul Bellesen was black though several of us were white.

So we decided to go back to Seattle. It was a good trip anyway. We got that a lot back then.

Another little story relating to your discussion of how the steering worked arises from the first time we actually took the Arthur off the dock (preparing for the PT trip). This was also in Lake Union (north end near the old gas works). I was in the engine room and had warmed up the main and thought we had everything ready for the big moment. They cast off the lines and rang down slow astern. The kids started the main and we backed slowly out into the lake (very low pitch prop on the old girl it turned out). Within moments there was a signal for all stop and a very excited young man running down to say the steering wasn't working. Paul, on the wheel, had been turning the wheel but nothing was happening. At that time, as I recall, the steering went through the air powered steering engine behind the engine room on the main deck level.

It was apparently originally steam powered. The wheel motion went by a shaft back to the steering engine which powered the rudder. This seems a bit different from your description of how it is set up now and I don't know if it was different then or that my memory is faulty. I don't recall any manual steering without the air system on. But in any case, I hurriedly traced down the air lines and found a valve turned off which supplied pressure to the steering engine. Then I found a sheared connector pin in the steering shaft (Paul was a pretty strong guy and, by then, pretty excited) and finally got the steering going, as we were drifting peacefully across Lake Union. Every thing worked fine after that.

No one seems to remember that it was us that convinced the museum to get the boat operating again and that we actually did so.

And I believe that what we did is the main reason the Arthur is in as good a condition as it is (and thanks to all the expert volunteers such as yourself who actually did appear - as I predicted - to work on the boat). And we owe that a lot to both Paul Bellesen (who passed away just last month) and his remarkable group of young kids who were totally dedicated to old tugs and direct reversing, air start, engine room control engines. If nothing else, NxNWA produced a group of local kids (now in their 50's) who had experience and great affection for those throbbing old engines.

I still think of my time on the Arthur and that old Washington. I recall the engine as 18"x24" bore and stroke, 700 HP at 200 rpm and that the spare piston, lashed to the base of the port side ladder, was cast iron and weighed 300 pounds. And that the injector units could be changed, in theory, while the engine was running. Just figuring out how to start the thing and control it was an interesting puzzle.

By the way, the old Langston Hughes is now the Excalibur based in Port Orchard but, sadly, the Cooper was removed several years ago and replaced with a Cat V8. Whoever did the swap called me and offered to sell me the Cooper (for $5,000 around 1980 as I recall) but I couldn't justify buying it back then. No room in my garage.

One other question. Do you know anything about the current status of the tug Chief owned by Christian Lint and do you have contact info for him?. I see your map showing it is located at the ship yard on the north side of Lake Union. I have lost contact with Chris and the boat.

I worked on it from time to time including a project towing a steel YTB to Seattle from Seward, AK that turned into an epic adventure.

Dirk

Forum: History

Fairbanks-Morse like the Nokomis's (6) 31A6 1/4

oldtacomamarine — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:36:28 GMT

John in Maryland is wondering if there are Fairbanks-Morse engines out there similar to his ice-breaker Nokomis's (6) 31A6 1/4. We responded in the blog that the John N. Cobb's (8) 31A10 is similar. Does anyone reading know of any other similar engines out there?

Forum: Fairbanks-Morse

Help find more Enterprise Engines

oldtacomamarine — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:30:24 GMT

We just completed the Enterprise section of the website and filled out all the engines that we know of. Check it out!

This is really exciting (especially since we mapped them all out on google maps, too), but we know that we must be missing a bunch. See how many there are in Seattle's ship canal alone? There must be dozens more Enterprise boats and power plants out there beyond Seattle that you, dear readers, can help us put up on the website.

As you scour your town for Enterprises, send us information, pictures, stories, and other neat things to help us improve this list.

Forum: Enterprise

Atlas-Imperial Two-Cycle

oldtacomamarine — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:01:19 GMT

We just scanned and posted the original operation manual for Atlas-Imperial's two-cycle diesel engine and think that it's an awful lot like the Fairbanks-Morse two-cycles.

Coincidence? Theft? "Inspiration?" What do you think?

Forum: History

The tugboat dream -- success or folly?

oldtacomamarine — Thur, 27 Mar 2008 04:31:51 GMT

We posted a blog entry about the difficulty of getting an old tug to live on, fix up, and cruise around on -- a plan that I call "the tugboat dream." I think it's really hard and maybe impossible to do without pouring a lot of time and money into the boat. You can read the full blog entry here.

Does anyone have a success story about living the tugboat dream?

Forum: Maintenance and Repair

What is Old is New Again

oceansailor — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 04:57:06 GMT

Many years ago engine manufacturers went from Cast Iron Engine Blocks to
fabricated steel blocks for large engines as an economy move. A lot of man
hours were saved by pressing and punching steel plate into shape, and then
jig welding the plate into the form of an engine block, which was final mach-
ined into tolerence and then aline-bored for the crankshaft, cams, liners ,
pumps ect. this form of manufacture also reduced the weight, aka more
horsepower less weight.
As an example lets take the EMC Winton Clone 567 EMD, a design that EMC
purchased from the Winton engine Co., this Engine in fact contained many
inovations usually thought of later as EMD innovations.EX . The unit Fuel Inj-
ector, Upper and lower water Jumpers (no seals aka large "O" Rings to Leak=
no trout stream in the airbox) combined blade and fork rod in a crankshaft
basket with a tooth locking mecanism ect. What EMD did was to defeat most
of these innovations by redesigning this engine without these improved desi-
gnes in order to simplify manufacture. As engine failures increased they impr-
essed us by re applying the original design features ex. 567 to 567A replaced
one water jumper, 567B to 567BC replaced both water jumpers (no more trou
t streams in the airbox and no more milk shakes in the crankcase).
The original 567 was a cast iron block, which was then changed to a fabricated block this was carried thru WW-2 from 567 to 567a, 567b, 567bc,
567c, the entire 645 family and the 710 family.
Now with the aftermath of the EMD, GE, and Boise Locomotive Mad Horsepow
er race , both Emd And GE failed to extract sufficient Horsepower from their
1940/ 1950 series design engines and they both went to Europe for a New
Design. this was realized with new 4-cycle design engines , however these
engines produced so much stress on a Fabricated Block that it was uneconomical to reenforce these Blocks sufficiently to resist the flexing cau
sed by the high stress of 6000 HP. The Answer lay in the New Technology of
The Cast Iron Block , Therefore What is Old is New Again as Old Technology
Again Proves Indespensable.
(note : 645 engine block flexing became serious enough with the addition of
turbocharging for road locomotives, and as a result of many failures due to
block flexing, the fabricated blocks were reenforced and came to be known as (Heavy Blocks) , this took place in the late 60's early 70's.)

Forum: History

Hello from the East Coast.

oceansailor — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:55:42 GMT

Hi my name is john, and I currently live in Maryland between Annapolis and B-
more. The reason that Im here is that I've made a career of operating and
maintaining large Diesel Engines since I was very young until I was retired,
and will now concentrate on restoring and operating my own small ship, the
NOKOMIS, a Canadian Coast Guard Icebreaker, BuoyTender, with a Fairbanks
-Morse Model 31A- 61/4 X 9 6cyl. Diesel Engine.
I have great respect for these older slo-speed Diesels as I am farmiliar with
their newer high-speed - and even much higher horsepower sucessors, with
less torque and much higher fuel consumption, coupled with a much shorter life span, leave me not impressed.
I have a few manuals and parts books that I will Share with everyone thru-
Old Tachoma Marine, I am looking forward to our sucess.
Best Regards;
john

Forum: Introductions

Welcome!

janeofall — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:57:37 GMT

Welcome to the Old Tacoma Marine Inc discussion board!

This board is dedicated to discussions about heavy-duty diesel engines--those low-speed, large-bore machines produced from about 1915 to 1955 by American manufacturers like Atlas-Imperial, Washington Iron Works, Enterprise and Fairbanks-Morse.

Old Tacoma Marine Inc. hopes that this discussion board will develop into a go-to resource for information, anecdotes, tips and other resources for maintaining these fascinating engines well into the future.

Forum: Welcome