Yup, it’s all been cruising along a little too well. I knew this was coming but didn’t know what form it would take. Now I know. 336-AT overall is in very good condition for a used Kahlenberg. There are a few issues and missing parts but it is largely an excellent specimen. The engine is 70 years old and could no doubt tell wonderful tales if it could. It has withstood decades of hard work on the Great Lakes and always brought its owner home.
And I broke it.
But I didn’t know it at the time. Turns out it only took me a few hours. Just a few short hours in my custody. Manufactured approximately 618,000 hours ago. And two hours as the new caretaker. Some great preserver of history I am.
While cleaning the muck off the engine around base of the governor shaft, between the flywheel and #1 cylinder, I found a crack. This crack ran the length of the first bearing cap. And it was a fresh crack, clean and no oily muck. Damn (and other such words). A little closer inspection and the cast iron ring around the front of the crankshaft is snapped in two pieces. Damn (more bad words). More inspection. The top half of the spiral gearcase for the governor shaft is cracked in two. This isn’t a ‘damn’. This is a sit down and cry kind of thing.
I figured out pretty quick what likely happened. In an earlier post there was mention of an incident while getting the engine up on wheels. Yeah. An incident. At one point, while jacking up the engine, it rolled back off the front jacks. The ground was uneven and the jacks were not perfectly vertical. A head-slapper in hindsight. It did not seem like a big deal at the time. More of a minor setback. But the unfortunate part was as the engine fell back the flywheel landed on an I-beam that had been supporting the front timbers for years. The flywheel took the brunt of the landing. The engine only rolled/fell about two inches. But apparently the hard landing didn’t go well. This flexed the crankshaft, which is 3 3/4 inches in diameter, and snapped the first three pieces of iron there to retain it.
As far as I can tell, this is the extent of the damage. The bearing is fine. The flywheel is fine. The crankshaft appears to be fine. The upper crankcase of the #1 cylinder, which would have been next in line to crack, appears to be fine. It will take a while to get everything dissembled enough to verify that this is in fact the limit of damage. Cast iron is not easy to repair but it can be done. If the crankshaft has a problem, I just created a nice static museum display.
I realize the process of tearing down and rebuilding a complicated 70 year old piece of equipment will likely lead to a few other things getting broke along the way. But this wasn’t an encouraging start.
Best Friend Kurt talked me off the ledge. The crankshaft is a concern but likely it is okay. We both know skilled people who can do the tricky welding of cast iron. So hopefully Setback #00001 is just that. A setback.