Tuesday 9 August 2011

The Perkins marine diesel engine,we look inside one.

This is an unusual picture to see at the marina,its a six cylinder Perkins engine that had cylinder head bothers and was starting to smoke.I was told some object had found its way down the inlet tract,so they decided to do a full strip down here in Cape Town,then out came the block too!

What a nice design in engineering,each bearing is supported on both sides and check those small webs inside the crank case,all there to allow for a lighter casting that remains stiff,there is a lot of thought thats gone into this engine.

Click on the picture to see in a larger scale,note how nice and clean this engine is,which should indicate its been serviced well. I would expect the bearings to look fine when the end caps are removed. Note the red paint,what kind of paint is this that can stand a life in a diesel engine? I have seen it before,it will be there for a number of reasons,one the cast block is painted after its been made,this stops surface rust when the engine is later machined and washed clean prior to assembly but its also there to ensure the oil runs down the block surface to the sump faster,some race engines have this process applied for the same reason.

The inside of a Rolls Royce Merlin engine fitted the the Spitfire airplane for WW2 was hand polished inside,thats the block crank and con rods,all to enable more power and get the oil back to the sump.

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