You know it's gonna be a rough one when

…the rings come out like this:

Cue CCR’s Bad Moon Rising. In this thread: Harbingers of doom.

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I’m not much of an engineer but looking at the picture, is it possible that the wrong tools were used?
just a thought.

Don’t force it; use a bigger hammer.

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The liner probably doesn’t look that good either but if you get the tip of that electrical insulated screwdriver straighten out it’s a keeper. The tips of mine usually snap off after a couple of whacks.

your workbench is dirty

The story goes that someone put this engine together with a head gasket leak big enough to hydrolock it. It then sat for a couple of years full of sea water before I came around. To be honest, I didn’t need the broken rings to tell me that I was getting into trouble.

Actually, the bores aren’t as horrible as I feared, and may be saved with stress honing. Broken screwdrivers are one of the most precious commodities around the workshop, and I guard mine jealously. There is no end to the useful tools you can craft from a high quality screwdriver.

Once the rings have rusted well into the grooves, I’m not sure that there is a right tool for the job. My only concern at that stage is to save the pistons, and using a round drift that fits into the groove is at least somewhat effective at chipping out the rings. In the undying words of John Drury Clark:

For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes

However, there is no running away from a trade-in :-/

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As one of my first chiefs said, “Your career will involve taking very large things apart to replace very small things.”

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You know it’s gonna be a rough one when…She ran long enough with a bad bearing that the balls split.

(centrifugal purifier…thank goodness for vibration trips, but would have been preferred if the earlier vibration had been picked up previously on rounds…):

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Wow, that must have made a hellacious racket. I suppose it got covered up by other machinery noise. I can relate, because you know it’s gonna be a rough one when she runs so long with a bad thrust bearing that the rollers come out.

You’d have thought that I’d catch that in the making, but the boat had such spectacular propeller noise that I tended to drive with ear muffs. The first thing I knew about it was a loud bang that coincided with sudden loss of the ability to set neutral pitch (which was kinda interesting btw).

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When it first failed did you wonder what was wrong with it?

Because when something breaks after years of neglect when the engineers open it up they often say; “And then they wonder what is wrong with it”. It’s said with a tone that implies there is no bottom to deckie stupidity.

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Touché. Fort touché. :laughing:

I didn’t have a clue, only knew that I’d lost pitch authority. It took a while to figure out the pattern as well, that once I approached neutral from either direction, it would bang in 25% opposite pitch. I did know that the boat had suffered a high bilge level incident, but it never occurred to me to look inside the sealed bearing block, much less to figure out the consequences if the shaft suddenly lost axial location.

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I recall watching the deck gang and longshoreman pull out the accommodation ladder with a forklift. It was Dutch Harbor at low tide, it was the dreaded equivalent of the yard and stay gear so-called fiddle string situation.

I was just watching but sort of figured they must know what they were doing. Something let go in the gear box. And we did, we all wondered what was wrong with it.

So now when we overload something by a factor of 20 and it breaks I tell the engineers yes, in fact we were wondering what was wrong with it.

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Gotta give credit to the engineers that designed it. Even though obviously not maintained for a long time it still provided some service until it broke into pieces.

Appologies, that just becomes the default tone. I’ve heard it could be used in error, though I’ve never seen it myself :wink:

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You know it’s gonna be a rough one when it already made you do this :disappointed_relieved:

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Not much of an engineer either but by the looks of the condition of that deck I will assume it was way overdue for a re haul :crazy_face:

Those tools don’t look very experienced :slight_smile: Nice set !

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No refund on the 14mm spanned?

For spanned read spanner or wrench. WTF with auto spelling.

Nothing irks me more than a piece of equipment so designed that it can’t be disassembled without a homemade tool like that. And then the OEM will neither sell you that tool nor explain how it can be done without! (And then the Safety Man confiscates said “special tool”)

It really makes you appreciate it that much more when the design engineer goes the extra mile and considers the plight of the end user…uncommon as that may be.

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