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80 Oil Purifiers Needed (Continued from Page 65) purifiers which, of course, keep a large quantity of impurities from reaching the engines at all. In this connection we are re- minded of a certain diesel driven ferryboat which some time ago was laid up by reason of the fact that the only fuel oil on hand was so badly contaminated with water and dirt that it could not be burned. The ferry company had refused to equip this vessel with a centrifugal ma- chine on the ground that there was no room for it in the engine room. It was found, however, that its dis- rupted service could be restored more quickly by the immediate installation of an oil purifier than by awaiting receipt of a new shipment of fuel oil. A small machine was _ put aboard and the boat was soon in op- eration again. This machine was found inadequate for regular service, however, and another purifier was added. With this increased capacity it became possible occasionally to purify the lubricating oil. Even with this more or less spasmodic system of purifying lubricating oil, the en- MARINE REV IE W gineer found that whereas it had previously been necessary to remove 0.012-inch shims from 24 connecting rods every two weeks, his engines ran for five months with no bearing adjustments whatever and at the end of that period it was impossible to remove more than 0.001-inch from seven bearings and 0.003-inch from the other 17. In other words, there had been less than one-fourth as much wear- during five months of operation with purified oil as was formerly experienced in two weeks with unpurified oil. As showing what experience will do, it might be added that still an- other purifier has been installed on this ferryboat, making three machines for a vessel which, it was thought to begin with, did not have room for even one. So far we have not heard of any manufacturers of centrifugal oil puri- fiers selling their product as a sub- stitute for new diesel engines al- though judging from the following they might at times well do so. One of the motor driven tankers of a large oil company is equipped with two 2400 indicated horsepower diesel engines which are about 15 years old. CENTRIFUGAL OIL PURIFIER FOR LUBRICATING OIL ON THE M. S. GULFCREST FITTED WITH TWO 1600 BRAKE HORSEPOWER NEW YORK WERKSPOOR EN- GINES—SAID TO BE THE LARGEST MOTORSHIP BUILT IN AN AMERICAN SHIPYARD November, 1926 The design of the engines is such as to leave the crankease wide open to fouling from carbon and to make matters worse there are numerous leaks in the cooling system which ad- mit salt water to the oil. Such water is, of course, bad in any en- gine but in this case the quantity admitted is so large that salt crys- tals form in the lubricating system. A centrifugal oil purifier of small capacity was put on this vessel some years ago with the result that the behavior of the engines was very much improved by the removal of 35 to 50 pounds of sludge and a large quantity of water every day. Look- ing back at the engine’s performance before the oil purifier was installed, the chief engineer of the vessel de- cided that he would never again put to sea without a similar machine. Imagine his feelings, when in the course of overhauling the engine room machinery after a long cruise, a heavy engine part was dropped on the oil purifier putting it out of com- mission. The date of sailing was but a couple of days off and when he was told that it would be impossible to repair the purifier within the al- loted time, he immediately went to headquarters and put up the battle of his life for a brand new purifier of larger capacity. He not only got the machine but had it installed and in operation before his ship left New York harbor. On his return the origi- nal purifier had been repaired and was installed to work on compressor oil, making two purifiers for the ship. Remove Large Quantities of Sludge The Lamport and Holt M. S. LINNELL, operating on the South American run to Buenos Aires is equipped with two 1800 _ indicated horsepower six-cylinder Burmeister- Wain diesel engines. The _ lubricat- ing system contains about 2700 gal- lons of oil and a centrifugal oil puri- fier is installed to keep the oil clean. The sump tanks are next to the skin of the ship and the oil therefore as- sumes approximately the temperature of sea water. No provision is made for heating the oil before purifica- tion and owing to its low tempera- ture when in northern water the purifier is operated only when the 100 degree mark is reached. This usually occurs three or four days out of New York when the ship gets into the warm waters of the Gulf stream. This operating method together with the fact that the engineer has (Continued on Page 86)