Clutch Failure

You’ll know that we specialise in engines, mostly in offshore, marine and generator applications.

That’s our bread and butter.

But sometimes we get asked to put our engineering skills to use on some connected equipment.

And that’s what happened the other day.

I’m not sure how much experience you’ve had with clutches, but we were asked to help a client out as theirs wasn’t able to engage an engine and they were facing the prospect of huge downtime costs.

I thought it would be interesting to share this project, as it’s not something we come across often and figured you probably don’t either.

The first stage was the dismantle and this was the internal damage which had been preventing the correct operation:

The clutch shoes had been severely damaged, with the original friction linings completely gone, and the exposed bare metal heavily scored. The resulting metal on metal effect then badly gouged the drum.

Such was the damage, that the shoes had to be re-coated, then ground before the new lining fitted and cured for 2 hours at 200°C.

The drum also had to be metal sprayed before being machined back to original specification.

Once the machining work had been completed, the assembly was rebuilt using new consumables.

The setting of the spring adjusters was critical and for this application was adjusted to 5.2mm from the top of the spring housing to enable the clutch to engage at speeds of 550 RPM and lift off at speed of 348 RPM.

The completed clutch was returned back to the client at the weekend and installed, bringing the engine back online, in time.

If you’re experiencing problems with any of the assemblies connected to your engines, we’ll do our best to help, and if not, we should know a specialist who can.

After completion, we received this feedback from the client, and thought we’d share it with you:

For a trustworthy engine specialist with an excellent track record for your job, email us info@bartechmarine.com or call +44 (0)1206 673101.