Diesel Service Report, July 21st, 2020
John Salvini spent the whole day working on the Fairbanks Morse locomotive, cleaning and inspecting what he could gain access to. He did an amazing amount of work that Tuesday and sent the following report. This is all part of the effort to determine if the Diesel Engine is capable of being operated. We think it will be OK but won’t know for certain until after we have it running.
This is John’s report:
I finished inspecting the blower and buttoned it back up. After we get it running and it’s all a go, at least one side inspection cover gasket will need to be purchased or make one (cork based material). Removed 3 exhaust inspection covers on the engineer’s side and 2 on the Governor side. Engineer’s side was full of oil, up to the cover. Vacuumed out about 4 gallons of oil. Did some hand wiping of the exhaust manifold. Also noted that there was a small amount of water with the oil. I could not see any streaking down the liners. There seems to be more of the water evidence down toward the exhaust elbow end, of this section. The snubber elbow on this side is packed with large chunks of carbon.
I did not start on trying to rake that stuff out. In the picture you can see the brownish material, that’s the water. Maybe it came down the stack some how? I thought the stack was covered, when we pulled the roof hatch and it’s been inside??? But if you look down the stack on the Governor side, it looks like puddles of something, likely oil. I glanced at the pistons and liners, that I could easily see. They don’t look that bad, but don’t look that good. It does look like there is some glaze and some light scuffing, on one. Maybe I can start an inspection here soon.
This is the piston at gov 3 position, not a good picture, but something to form a basis. The gov side did not have an excessive amount of oil and the elbow and snubber, were relatively clean.
Started to wipe this side out, but ran out of physical gas….
I had started to disassemble the water drain piping, to replace that valve. Have all the big unions loose and one small one to go, but it started leaking water, so I hung up the pipe wrenches, for the time being. Next trip out I will try and remove and replace that valve. Have a good valve on hand.
That’s about it for today.
Battery charger indicating an error, when I arrived this morning….re booted and worked all day, something else to figure out.
Top picture is what the engineer’s side air discharge area looked like on inspection a little oil in the very bottom. The next picture is the air intake on that side after cleaning, if you didn’t get to see how it turned out.
That is it, low energy day. Plan to go back out on Monday or Wednesday this next week. Will continue cleaning up exhaust side and start making inspections of the lower pistons/liners.
Want to get the water drain situation corrected with that valve, so that will be first on my list next time.
Governor side #3 exhaust access with moderate carbon. The gasket for the plate appears to be of hi temp material on the face plate and not on the section itself. I have just lightly cleaned the face up and did not displace the gasket, might be made from something we don’t like, or at least contain some of it.
Anyhow, as you can see, hardly any oil on this side. Will have to look and see how much is common to both sides.
The inspection of the pistons and liners may tell us more or lead us to several conclusions.
– John
