How many turbos have you rebuilt in your time?Even if your answer is “none”, then the chances are that as an engineer you understand the need to follow the right processes with the right parts. Because if you don’t, you could well end up in a situation like the vessel owner we are working with.They had their two Holset turbochargers overhauled by a renowned company, but after the overhaul, they were not getting the boost.Not...

We all know that regular and timely servicing is crucial, especially in an industry like ours, where safety and reliability are paramount. Two of our engineers, Fraser and Kelvin, are currently on a site with an issue that is a stark reminder of why. They’d been asked to attend to conduct routine maintenance on some emergency generators that had been used continuously for power over a prolonged period. As well as conducting the servicing,...

Last month one of our team, Rob, was having one of his regular meetings on a client’s site when they mentioned they were keeping a spare engine in their stores. When you’re reliant on engines as part of your safety system, having a spare one is very sensible, but in this particular instance, there was a big problem. If they had needed to use that engine to get back online quickly, it wouldn’t have worked. After an initial...

After changing the cylinder liners last week (if you missed it click here), you might have thought that it was problem solved. But it wasn’t.  We then had some problems when testing the engine. All started well, with an initial 60 minute run at 50% load, followed by a successful 30 minutes at 100% load.  But then, unexpectedly, the engine shutdown. We went over the engine parameters and all were well within the...

As I write, our engineer, Fraser, is out on a customer’s site carrying out a repair on a Waukesha engine.But it could have been so much worse than just a repair.Thanks to the crew’s diligence with the pre-start checks, they were able to spot the signs of an internal failure before major engine damage and flag the issues to us before the engine was run into the ground.With 99% of pre-start checks not showing any signs of problems, it...

Recently we were sent a turbocharger. The operators had reported a knocking noise, and they wanted us to have a look. As it turned out, the turbo had recently been overhauled by another company, and after the overhaul, it had only run for 20 hours before this knocking noise was heard. The video above shows a quick snapshot of what we found. As you’ll see, a large number of the components have been discoloured and damaged due to excessive...