cleaning engine pan?

[wsmcycle]

While steaming along, the engine pan fills with water and oil. When it gets deep enough the flywheel and sprockets start slinging it into the boat. NASTY mess. Does someone have a good means of disposing of the crap in the pan? Do you have a bilge pump mounted in the pan? I see these beautiful boats and compare them to my hillbilly yacht. How do you mix elegance and steam engine muck? There must be something I need to learn about this.
Help

[fredrosse]

Two workable solutions:

1. Buy marine "Oil Sorb" pads, made to go into the bilges of motorboats. These are cheap (about 75 cents for an 18 inch square pad), and have an affinity to catch oil, even when wet with water. When they get ugly, put the used pad into a zip-lock bag, and dispose of them at the marina, etc. I have done this with my steamer for a couple of years, and it keeps everything relatively presentable. My boiler is propane fired, although I may switch to kerosene.

2. Do the same thing with large paper kitchen towels or something similar. Paper towels will load up more quickly, but they are cheap. If you have a wood or coal burning boiler, when they get fouled up with oil/water, just throw into your firebox and all is disposed of. You could also use cotton cloth pads, but expensive unless you have a cheap source. Do not burn synthetic fabrics in your firebox.

Note that the "Oil Sorb" pads should not be put into the firebox, as they are made of plastic material, and it would be environmentally unsound to dispose of them by burning in your boiler.

I am Assuming your water is condensate from the steam plant, not ordinary boat bilge water, there should not be too much water, maybe a pint per day's steaming. If you are getting much more than this, look into correcting packings around the engine. Virtually the only dirty water I make is with the cylinder drains on startup. After warmup, my engine generates only about an ounce of water in the pan per day. But I do get significant oil drips with plenty of manually oiled bearings.

[wsmcycle]

I have learned something now. That sounds like a good solution to the oil Fred. Pretty neat that the "oil Sorb" will pick up oil and not water. Would that be a good item to put in the hot well?
A PINT PER DAY! you do run a tight ship! There is quite a bit of steam condensation building up in the pan also.

[DetroiTug]

"How do you mix elegance and steam engine muck? "

If it's used much, lots of cleaning and polishing.

The tug has a large drain pan under the engine and it will fill up in about two days if I don't empty it each night. I use an old brass hand bilge pump (they are all over Ebay), and pump it out into a bucket. Then I use a paper towel to skim the oil off the top and throw them in the firebox. Then dump the water over the side. Not too nasty of a job and it is the best method found. I try to refrain from anything electric if possible. But 12 vdc sure makes life easier for some necessities aboard - like filling the boiler - not going to pump 35 gallons with a handpump. And the spotlight needs it. For a bilge pump i use an ejector. Works really well for that. The steam chest drains are routed out the hull, the cylinder drains are not used.

In between big runs the floorboards are removed and the whole engine is sprayed with Gunk engine cleaner and rinsed off as are the bilges. Everything goes out the drain. The Gunk breaks the oil down in to something more environmentally friendly ( I think). I could never get it that clean with simply wiping it down, and it would take a very long time. When finished it all looks like new again. One can is good for about 3 cleanings, so about 2 bucks per instance.

I polish brass when I have time, to me it looks good either polished or not. One of the advantages of a Tug. Another advantage, the steel hull is painted with flat back industrial paint, if it gets a scratch, just touch it up (slap a nice big stroke over it) and it's gone.

-Ron

[fredrosse]

The walking beam engine, with the valve chest and power piston rod packings visible right in front of me helps to keep after the packings, easy to see what is going on. Having a crosshead that is fully adjustable for precise alignment to the piston rod also helps. On my beam engine, the piston and valve stem rods are hard chromed and ground rods from pneumatic cylinders, much better packing reliability results. I have replaced valve stem packings a couple of times in 5 years running, and have only tightened the piston rod packing gland once in five years.

Inverted vertical marine engines, with the valve and piston rod packings usually on the bottom of the cylinder assembly, are far more prone to un-noticed leakage. Most steamboats use vertical inverted engines. I guess the Pearl Engines have an advantage here just like the walking beam engine.

[fredrosse]

The "Oil Sorb" material also picks up water in addition to oil, but getting wet with water does not stop its action to catch oil.

[DetroiTug]

Yes, those packing glands on the bottom of the cylinder are hard to maintain and especially when they are up inside of a recess inside the cylinder standard. It's a bad design. Could have added a few inches to the engine height and brought the gland nuts down for easier service. The only way I can tighten them is by sticking screw driver in and engaging one of the grooves in the gland nut. Not easy to do with valve linkage and piping in the way. Changing the piston rod packing is no fun either. My next marine engine will be a cast back column of some sort about 30" tall. Not to take anything away from it, it's a very strong and easy to get along with engine otherwise. Just wish it was taller, it looks a little too small for the engine space.

-Ron

[steamdon-jr]

I usually just pump it out with a hand pump and squirt directly into roaring fire

[DetroiTug]

I wind up with about a gallon or better of water, would probably put the fire out. That's one problem running very saturated low pressure steam.

-Ron

[wsmcycle]

I usually just pump it out with a hand pump and squirt directly into roaring fire

Sounds kind of funky But effective I like it. I had a hand pump but every time I pumped it the hose would jump in an un intended direction. You need four hands.

Thanks