Good Morning Chief! As a man living in a small landlocked town in Virginia, USA and having a love for all things mechanical I thoroughly enjoy your videos. It's my opinion that the men working for you are lucky to have a mentor such as yourself. May God continue to watch over and Bless You, your Family, and of course your Crew.
He really has a huge responsibility, since they figure time down in big dollars per second. And the number of critical machinery to keep one of those big boys operational can be overwhelming. I felt like a lost puppy when I started on ships even after being an industrial tech supervisor for 20 years at a Port facility and did avionics, yachts and locomotives.
Wow. Must be a tense experience, for the cadet, turning on the oil purifier for the first time after it has been cleaned and reassembled. "Gee, I sure hope I'm not about destroy this $50,000 machine!" Excellent video and great work! You must be excellent to work under Chief !
Interesting to see the differences between the Mitsubishi (I believe you said) and the Alfa-Laval, in our powerhouse, but that was ~30 years ago. Best wishes from the far North.
"Now that the device has been fully assembled, it is time to hold up [random small part that needs the thing to be taken apart completely to be installed] and ask the cadet 'and what about this one?'"
In many factories there are expensive machines, so training is done with experienced staff, worse is when managers call hired contractors ( mostly foreigners ) who know nothing about neither work nor safety.
Great to see correct tools used, methodical working , along with team work. As a retired engineer of forty years it's great to see skills passed onto the young engineers. And a mentor like yourself, can't get any better
As another retired engineer did your ship(s) have a fixed purifier cleaning station close to the purifier room? All my ships had a steel tub at waist height exclusively for cleaning purifiers.
@@runsolo7418 That's what I was thinking. As an automotive mechanic, having a solvent tank to clean parts is way easier than using a cut up plastic jug.
I'm about to finish undergrad with a cell biology degree; I TA for a wet lab course where one of the most often used tools is the centrifuge. We have it on a yearly service contract (higher service frequency if the kids try to spin samples with unequal masses), this video makes me seriously appreciate the work and knowledge seafarers have, especially in situations that depend on your knowledge to keep the entire team moving.
In a microbiology research lab myself. Had to get good at fixing machines (shakers and PCR machines come most readily to mind, although we also have centrifuges of course). Unfortunately, nobody else seems to want to get trained on that . . . .
@@Lucius_Chiaraviglio Yeah I've been co opted as the lab's handyman for whenever things need fixing (putting new flint on strikers to refilling toner), but never tried messing with the centrifuge since there are just so many parts that can quickly become out of place!
Chief this reminds me of my days on the farm working the cream separator as a youngster and coming from a oil pipeline job this is very well done. I sure this youngster will go from strength to strength. Regards
I have to laugh at your comment. I’m from Sacramento, CA. Every other year we visited our families in the mid west. Farmers, horsed people, dairy farmers and crop farmers. I was 15 the last time I visited. I was 17 when I joined the Navy. In the kitchen of my uncle’s home was a de Laval separator. They placed milk on the breakfast table in #10 metal cans. It’s 1973 and I am in MM A School at the Great Lakes Training center. I saw it and said, “What does a milk separator have to so with main propulsion support systems”? Brings back memories. It’s 2024 and the scars on my hands are still visible.
Good day, Chief!! Fascinating content on one of many parts that keep a ship in top shape. Good on the Senior Engineering staff for not only teaching, but allowing this Cadet to prove his training and knowledge. To quote another channel I frequent, when he started to reassemble, all of those parts were "nice and shiny!!" Finally, good luck to this Cadet in his promotion to Fourth Engineer. May your travels encounter favorable winds and smooth sailing. And, when you encounter the rough seas of Life, may your training be a solid beacon to guide you through to safe harbour.
Chief. Great job on teaching your team. The way they go about the job, shows that they have a solid foundation on which they perform their work. And that is something you learn. No-one is born that way. Congratulations to you and your team. I wish you all fair seas.
When I was in the Navy, we used "De Lave," oil purifiers. They were similar to yours. I suppose there's not a lot of difference in the concept, so designs will be similar. We had that stack of filtration baskets, like in yours. And we had to remove the baskets and clean them individually as well. We didn't use them for fuel oil, because the ship's engines, generators, and about everything, ran on JP5 jet fuel. They were used to purify the engine's lube oil. You got a good crew there, they did a great job on that purifier. It looked brand new after they got all the crap out of it! Now, I did notice the digital readout, of the purifier status. "That's a cheat in the Navy!" On the De Lave purifiers, there was a little button, that popped in and out as the purifier ran up to speed. We had to count the number times the little button popped in and out. It had to pop out a specific number of times to mark the point where the purifier could be used. Like 60 times in one minute. Something like that.
Also ex-Navy, I had a similar "context-shift" struggle with FO purifiers. Never envied the MMs who had to manually clean sludge from 2-3 dozen bowls. Also always remember the time I came into the engine room one evening in port on a duty day. There was a hazy smoke throughout the ER. FN Jones was on watch, sitting on a rail at main control. I asked him what was going on. He said, "Just chillin', sir." He was unaware that he was cooking the oil in the purifier. I forget further details. But it's one of those classic Navy experiences about meeting all types. FN Jones was one of the friendliest guys around, certainly beloved by family & friends. Less popular with his LPO, chief, and DivO.
Likewise! We had one each for our main engines reduction gear and disassembled, cleaned it nightly. As our was smaller we only needed the lock ring and shaft puller. The overhead hoist would have nice lol!
Never thought I'd see another... Spent many hours stripping cleaning De Laval fuel and engine oil purifiers .... That brought back some taxing memory's lol...... Thanks Chief :-)
That can be nerve racking. I remember how it was exactly. So many times, there were no manuals on board, so we relied on pictures during disassembly and lots of phone calls to ask for specs. More videos like this please Chief!
Patience, care and delicacy.... with big hammers! Fascinating film Chief, thanks for sharing. Incidentally, many years ago in a previous life I worked in UK agriculture and both Alfa Laval and Westphalia were known to us as milking machine makers!
This was surprisingly fascinating! I'm a chef that's never been on a ship and I live 2,000 miles from the ocean but it's still neat to see how things work.
I used to hate changing the main bowl seals on purifiers. A nightmare to remove and fit without damaging them. Great video brought back memories good and bad.
With the Alfa-Lavals (FOPX) you had to take care that the three nylon valve plugs under the bowl bottom were of the same height, (especially when the purchasing dept. had not ordered them at Alfa Laval) The first time I came across these non original ones I noticed that they did not have that green dot on them. Took a caliper and started to look for a matching set. Happy days, especially when the HFO day tank was not a “real” day tank and when a failure occurred in the middle of the night, you were more or less obliged to start immediately with the non-scheduled overhaul of the bowl.
It’s been a long time since I had to do this job. Cleaning discs was not one of my favorite things to do on the ship. The care of these is so important and occasionally one would have an engineer on the ship that did not do the right maintenance and troubles would follow! This was an excellent video Chief! It was very thorough and would make a great training video for the cadets back at the school. Your recording was very clear and it was easy to see everything. Your crew worked well together. You can see that they have been trained well by a great Chief. I would have loved to have worked for a Chief like you back in the day. Thanks for the memories. Ram
Building capacity of those underneath you is the best thing a senior officer can do. Knowledge, experience, confidence, and responsibility. Mistakes always have a role too, but good leadership can limit them and make that a positive thing. Nice work Chief.
Wow! It's incredible how much gadgetry goes into one of these great ships. And it's incredible how much knowledge goes into designing, making, operating and maintaining them. And that fuel purifier is only one of hundreds... or thousands... of things that have to be worked on by the engineers? Respect to Chief Makoi and his boys.
Chief, another amazing and informative video. Thanks for sharing and documenting. Viewers, I’ve got a couple observations. First, I lost count of the dedicated tools needed to disassemble and reassemble this, but there seemed to be quite a few dedicated spammers, wrenches etc. Second, and what hit home the strongest, was in the beginning Chief mentions 18,000 RPM. If you’re unaware, this is fast, really fast. Not quite in the neighborhood of needing air bearings, but it’s pushing the envelope and all these rotating parts must have incredible balance and precision tolerances. This is truly incredible. I’m still perplexed that’s it’s more economical to purify the ship sludge oil on-board rather than at the refinery. I suppose contaminants are introduced in the supply chain up until the engine, so of course filtration will always be needed. Chief, keep making these great videos. Thanks
I was wondering about the economy of a fuel oil purifier, too. I guess there's little commercial use for the stuff in this oil's section of the cracking tower, so it's dirt cheap to buy, and the onboard purifier pays for itself & its upkeep. I'd like to hear the Chief's take on this.
I was also amazed at how many specialized tools this disassembly needed, and just for this one component of the ship. They must have thousands of tools for all the parts of the ship, storing them all must be a feat in itself.
@@MrPesht trust me, that ship has space to spare. If The Chief doesn't have a dedicated tool room, he's got as many bulkhead-mounted lockers as he needs for tools & spares.
When I first started working for the United States Post Office as a mechanic, we had some trucks that had an oil spinner filter system, quite similar to this. Obviously a lot smaller, but still effective. Only the oil pressure from the engine supplied the spinning motion, via small jets in the spinning drum assembly. It worked very well at separating the heavy solids from the oil. I could tell a difference when the spinner was cleaned out versus dirty. The sound had certain harmonics when the spinner slowed down after the engine was turned off. In these cases, these were used on 1984-1997 Chevrolet 6.2 and 6.5 liter v8 diesel engines used in medium sized trucks. There also was a conventional engine oil filter in the system. The vehicles were similar in size to the brown colored delivery trucks used by another carrier.
I remember removing old plumbing that was used for transferring that #6 bunker oil to the boilers at the municipal power plant where I work at. Messy stuff!! Great videos of your time on board the ship!
Truly an excellent video, showing the step by step process and sharing the significance of assigning this complex maintenance job to a cadet! Thanks for sharing!
So back in about 91 or 92 I was using one of those to separate oil and water. We had a factory rep come by for a service and teaching session. He spent most of his time on ships helping with rebuilds etc. Then I started working for Kraft foods. They used a full stainless steel version to strip cream from milk. And also used to strip whey from cheese culture to make cream cheese and and other processed cheese food. Really cool machine. We rebuilt all 14 once a year at Kraft. Crack checks and all new bearings.
Chief I have never overhauled the fuel oil purifier or the lube oil purifier on the Coast Guard ships I sailed on but viewing your video takes me back about 40 years.
Really nice your company allows you to document these otherwise hidden procedures. I don't work anywhere near a shipping vessel but it is fascinating to see this kind of work. Cheers! Thanks for the content :D
You are absolutely right chief. When you do the job yourself there is tremendous boost in confidence. On my first ship as a cadet I was made incharge of purifier maintenance after 2-3 months onboard. That gave me confidence that I can be a good marine engineer. After 20 years at sea and now switching to offshore jackup barges I still remember those days.
That is a lot of pieces and parts and pullers. Great job. I am sure the manuals are very concise for re-assembly. Amazing how much work goes into a fuel filter. !!! Thanks for sharing.
A ship is a single monolithic object, it is amazing that huge thing, depends on 2inch or smaller parts inside the "coolest oil filter ever". Always amazing Chief. I really enjoy finding out how much I do not know
The Chief makes some of the most soothing and educational vidoes on youtube. Especially that guitar in the background. Sometimes it feels like a Discovery Channel documentary. Definately my favourite.
What an interesting insight into what I'm sure is many machines used on board. Good training & dedication from the crew certainly pays off. That's for taking the time to post.
God bless you I am learning from a lot more than I can learn from people I am working with. Now I am preparing for my 3rd . I am a qmed . God bless u you are indeed great chief Engineer.
Haha, that brought back memories... When I was a " motorman" in the late 80's, on merchant marine vessels of the Dutch company " Spliethoff", I did this job so many many times, in the end, I could do this with my eyes close... I absolutely hated it though...same as grinding valves for our 4-stroke Hanshin main engine. I was so glad to be promoted to 2nd engineer, so the next motorman could take over, haha. But still....those were the days !
It was a pleasure to watch the maintance of this piece of equipment.. nothing was rushed, the correct tools & jigs were used and nothing was “forced”.. it was not a contest as to who could do it the quickest or use the biggest hammer !! They have been well trained / mentored.. Promotion Approved!
Watching is the ultimate in relaxing content. It's interesting of course, plus because I'll never have to do the task myself, there's no pressure to learn it. I started watching your channel because it shows me things I'd never otherwise see .. OR even think about!
This reminds me of my days as an engineer on a bulk carrier back in the 80's. We had to clean the heavy-oil purifier evrey day of the week; took 1,5-2 hourse every time, every day.
Hi Chief.....I just stumbled on your channel recently and I'm hooked on it. I spent years in the fuel industry , where I delivered heavy fuel oil to cargo ships , factories and mills. It's nice to get a view of how things work on board , especially as we usually only got as far as deck to present fuel samples and get triplicate paper work signed when we were bunkering. Dragging that extra long by per hose damn near killed me back in the day. You have a brilliant presentation style. Makes watching the vids a pleasure.
There's no better way to train a person than hands on experience. The more you do it the easier it gets. The young Cadet looks to be well trained and on his way to a good career maintaining ships.
Chief, that was a LOT of editing. I can't imagine how hard you worked on that. Thank you. That was also a complex mechanism but I can imagine you do it so many times it becomes routine. I was surprised how no power tools were used at all in this but I can imagine torque issues and feeling how tight something is. However, you had just about every wheel puller in existence :) Finally, I can also imagine this thing looking that clean for about 10 minutes once in usage before it turns to what it used to look like. :) p.s. It's obvious you have an amazing crew that works for you. They really work so hard.
Great video as usual. It constantly impresses me how many moving parts and machinery is involved in the operation of a vessel. I am also amazed at the array of skill sets needed to repair and maintain every part of the ship. Knowledge must be passed down from one generation to another by studying manuals and books . However there is no substitute for hands on repetition, under the guidance of an experienced crew member or supervisor. I will never see any of this in person. I live on the land and my career days are behind me. I do have a brother that is a second mate on an articulating tug and barge. Usually Carrying gasoline and diesel fuel. Generally from the Gulf of Mexico to northeastern states and Canada. He enjoys his career and has been doing it a long time. I would love to be able to ride along on a trip sometime but that’s never gonna happen. Anyway thanks for the information. You’re a great instructor. I hope you continue to have safe travels.
Really interesting, and enlightening. Your cadet will benefit immensely from the knowledge and understanding you share with him. Thanks for sharing it with us too.
Thankyou sir for giving him the opportunity to overhaul the purifier. I hope theres a lot of CE like you that letting the cadet to gain knowledge and experience. - aspiring engine cadet
Thank you for posting videos Chief of your mentoring programs . It's everyone's duty preparing future generations to take over for our families futures .
Chief - Great video. Any chance you could do a video explaining what happens in the purifying process? If that is fuel oil, what purpose does the water serve? What happens when the fuel goes into the filtration unit? As an aircraft mechanic, I find this stuff fascinating! Hey thank you!
Water is used to move the piston removed at 11:23 up and down. The piston is closed during operation, and then when enough solids have built up at the outer wall, the piston is pushed down by an injection of water to eject the solids. It happens very fast, a fraction of a second.
Chief MAKOi Please do! I would find it fascinating to know how HFO is purified as well! Seeing the water supply part has me quite confused! Fuel and water are usually enemies! Lol
Chief Makoi, I absolutly love this style of video. The deep dive into the task is very interesting to watch. To me, a fuel purifier is a few pages in a text boox. To actually see a crew take one down was fantastic. If you can, I would like to see more task specific videos.
Chief you made it clear, with a few crossings and you and 2nd,3rd engineers teaching the cadets who want to excel upward mobility is available as the cadet being tested will promote on next crossing to 4th engineer. Bravo to you boss, and cadet.
The First Rule of Management, that a lot of managers seem to miss, is "Always train your replacement. If you cannot be replaced, you cannot be promoted."
This video showed me many tools I had never seen before. I could use that ring-shaped one with a "handle" to open jars! Well, maybe not. Thank you from Liz and Ginger in Australia.
It’s amazing the small parts that keep a large ship running. We burned No.6 oil in our boilers. The wear on the hardened tips of the oil guns always made me wonder how ships could use this in their engines.
