Has anyone taken any of the training classes offered by Louisianna Machinery? Are they worth going to? Hands-On, thorough and such? I have very little 35 series experience and am considering going to a few of their classes.
[QUOTE=ForkandBlade;83130]Has anyone taken any of the training classes offered by Louisianna Machinery? Are they worth going to? Hands-On, thorough and such? I have very little 35 series experience and am considering going to a few of their classes.[/QUOTE]
But I gather that you have plenty of EMD experience. . .
I’ve never taken a formal class but there is nothing magical or mystical about Cats. If you have no time with Cats, it would be advantageous to learn the various monitoring systems. Some have displays with various levels of diagnostics. There are also the flasing code displays. Some companies furnish Cat laptops for full diagnostics and give you the ability to set safety and alarm parameters. Also injector trim adjustments for EPA compliance.
Don’t turn down any class that the company will pay for.
The 35’s are not complicated. If the boat has a complete set of manuals onboard you’ll be fine.
[QUOTE=cmakin;83134]But I gather that you have plenty of EMD experience. . .[/QUOTE]
Si Senor! Most of my 10 years of being an engineer was on boats with EMD’s. I’ve been to there school in La Grange for factory training as well.
[QUOTE=cmakin;83134]But I gather that you have plenty of EMD experience. . .[/QUOTE]
Can’t imagine what gave you that crazy idea? LOL
[QUOTE=ForkandBlade;83130]Has anyone taken any of the training classes offered by Louisianna Machinery? Are they worth going to? Hands-On, thorough and such? I have very little 35 series experience and am considering going to a few of their classes.[/QUOTE]
The Louisiana machinery class’s are usually pretty good, it will depend on which one you take, they have one that is only about a day and a half, then another that is the whole week. The short one don’t give you much.
If the company is paying for it I would take everything I could get, That being said I don’t think I would spend my own money for it. You will learn more by just being on the boat, and fumbling your way through them for a while, and picking the technicans brain if you ever have to get one to come out.
If you have service and parts manuals onboard start looking through them to get familiar with everything. As injunear said if you get lucky and have a laptop, with the program and adapter cable that will be a big help. The display screen on the side of the engine will tell you a good bit after you learn how to use it. Hopefully they give you a code book to know what the different codes mean.
Learn where all the sensors are, keep up with the maint, and the 3500’s are pretty good engines.
There are a bunch of little tricks, like you can’t just change an injector, you have to get the 4 digit number off the top of it,and use the laptop to put that into the ECM or it wil set off a code. You can just change one but it will only run at reduced power on that one cylinder untill you put it into the computer. Most of the sensors will give you a code when they go out, once you figure out where they are it is pretty easy to change them then reset the ECM, and your good to go. Unless you have a barometric pressure sensor go out, that will usually shut the engine down, because all the rest of the sensors calibrate them selfs off it. But that gives a code of its own, so once again easy fix. They are actually pretty easy and reliable once you figure them out.
You will enjoy the peace and quite after spending any time on noisy EMD’s
[QUOTE=injunear;83143]
Don’t turn down any class that the company will pay for.[/QUOTE]
+1 on This. I have taken a lot of classes that were offered to me for free and it is usually worth it. I work on big slow speeds and I took an MAN class that for the most part was just refresher stuff, but there were a few points that made it worth while. Even if its just fellow engineers sharing experiences it can be beneficial.
[QUOTE=ChiefRob;83208]The Louisiana machinery class’s are usually pretty good, it will depend on which one you take, they have one that is only about a day and a half, then another that is the whole week. The short one don’t give you much.
If the company is paying for it I would take everything I could get, That being said I don’t think I would spend my own money for it. You will learn more by just being on the boat, and fumbling your way through them for a while, and picking the technicans brain if you ever have to get one to come out.
If you have service and parts manuals onboard start looking through them to get familiar with everything. As injunear said if you get lucky and have a laptop, with the program and adapter cable that will be a big help. The display screen on the side of the engine will tell you a good bit after you learn how to use it. Hopefully they give you a code book to know what the different codes mean.
Learn where all the sensors are, keep up with the maint, and the 3500’s are pretty good engines.
There are a bunch of little tricks, like you can’t just change an injector, you have to get the 4 digit number off the top of it,and use the laptop to put that into the ECM or it wil set off a code. You can just change one but it will only run at reduced power on that one cylinder untill you put it into the computer. Most of the sensors will give you a code when they go out, once you figure out where they are it is pretty easy to change them then reset the ECM, and your good to go. Unless you have a barometric pressure sensor go out, that will usually shut the engine down, because all the rest of the sensors calibrate them selfs off it. But that gives a code of its own, so once again easy fix. They are actually pretty easy and reliable once you figure them out.
You will enjoy the peace and quite after spending any time on noisy EMD’s[/QUOTE]
Personally, I like the noise. I have only run Cats as auxiliary engines. The only four stroke mains that I have operated are ALCOS. . . . .Quieter than an EMD, yeah. But they sound like they are coming apart. And they probably are. . . . Obviously it has been awhile for me. . . .
[QUOTE=cmakin;83245]Personally, I like the noise. I have only run Cats as auxiliary engines. The only four stroke mains that I have operated are ALCOS. . . . .Quieter than an EMD, yeah. But they sound like they are coming apart. And they probably are. . . . Obviously it has been awhile for me. . . .[/QUOTE]
I actually liked the ALCO’s to, I used to like the way they sound at idle, just a clatter, clatter, clatter. Kind of reminded me of a 398 just bigger.
I like EMD’s as well, just after 15 years of hearing them scream, I blame that on the majority of my hearing loss at middle age. That is one of the few complaints I have about them.
Were you with ABS when the ALCO in the Couragous broke a crank shaft on the starboard main. I remember her being in the yard for about 2 months over it. Pretty sure that was Texas city.
I can’t recall. Believe it or not, I have my old calendar books that list every vessel I visited from about 1989 to 1997. If you can remember the year, I can check. It doesn’t immediately come to mind, and I believe that I would remember something like that. About the worst shaft parting that I saw when I was with ABS was a slow speed diesel (can’t recall if B&W or Sulzer) intermediate shaft sheared, nearly completely at the flange filled attached to the flywheel. This particular plant ran a shaft driven lube oil pump, geared to the intermediate shaft. From what I understand, a similar installation suffered a similar incident. I believe that there was an issue with the harmonics developed in the shaft from the pump drive. It was an a fairly large tanker, and only about 10 years old. oops.
[QUOTE=cmakin;83268]I can’t recall. Believe it or not, I have my old calendar books that list every vessel I visited from about 1989 to 1997. If you can remember the year, I can check. It doesn’t immediately come to mind, and I believe that I would remember something like that. About the worst shaft parting that I saw when I was with ABS was a slow speed diesel (can’t recall if B&W or Sulzer) intermediate shaft sheared, nearly completely at the flange filled attached to the flywheel. This particular plant ran a shaft driven lube oil pump, geared to the intermediate shaft. From what I understand, a similar installation suffered a similar incident. I believe that there was an issue with the harmonics developed in the shaft from the pump drive. It was an a fairly large tanker, and only about 10 years old. oops.[/QUOTE]
Hmmn I can’t really remember which year it was either. I know old man Neil was still the chief on her at the time, I think he retired in 96 or 97, and that was about a year before he retired. It was probably one of the last big jobs Soper was in charge of before he moved to Houston, and took that office job. If I remember corrrectly it actually siezed a crank pin bushing, and instead of pushing the piston out the side of the block, it actually broke the crank on that cylinder. Most of the heavy work they ever did was at texas city, but it might have been algiers iron works, like you say that is a little fuzzy now.
If you remember grey haired old man Neil, he was kind of famous for his potato cannons. The office never could figure out why he kept having to use so much acetylene.
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I love hearing a train go by with EMD’s loaded down heavy. The sound of 'em purring is music to my ears after years of dealing with them. We’d run 'em hot and heavy when towing, and they loved it.
You could tell how things were going just by the sound - and now shoreside, if a train passing in the distance near my house in the night changes speed for a crossing - I wake up instantly ! Nothing technical, just fond memories.