Last week we pulled two heat exchangers from an older large yacht with a pair of 12 cylinder Cat engines. They were located under deck plates in front of the engines, and each wieghts about 500lbs. Using a small chain hoist I got them up above the deck plates (some lumber was involved as well!) and with help we got them to the back of the engine room. There is a ladder and a hatch above that opens up into a small area with a door. A large pipe above gave us a place to hook a small electric hoist and lift each up to the next deck.
Now the way one gets in the engine room is normally by walking through the boat, down a semi circular stairway into the crew quarters, then down a short compainionway (hallway to landlubbers) and through a door. Not the best means of getting the equipment OUT however.
At that point, we had to get them on a hand dolly and wheel them through the main salon (called the living room if it was your house) to another area, down three steps, and out a door, where we got a hook from the small crane used to lift the waverunners and "tender" as it's called off the deck and lower them into the water. In this case we used the crane to lower them on to the dock and wheeled them on the dolly to the truck at the end of the dock.
However, the two wheel moving dolly did not work so well, and the cheif engineer asked us to make a dolly just for them.
Here it is- 2" x 3/16" angle and 2" x 3/16" flat bar, with four swiveling casters with semi soft wheels.
It still needs some wood blocks around the edges. The coolers and dolly are getting painted in white polyurethane before getting reinstalled.
The coolers themselves were removed to be cleaned, the engines had been running hot. Dissasembly found they were clogged with what I must describe as muck on the jacket water side. The sea water side had some shells clogging the tubes inside and sea grass in the end caps.
When I can dig 'em up, I have some pics of a job we did removing engines from a boat that required taking them down to the bare block and extracting them through a doorway about 1/4" wider than the engines on a ramp and skateboard system.
Meanwhile, here is a youtube video on a job I did in St. Thomas, USVI two summers back. The link is hard to see with these back ground colors but it is there!
Click for video!
Interesting Blog, it is unberleaverble how something so big is made by humans where would you start. Getting a career on the oil rigs was the best thing I ever did.You have a real nack for writing, it kept me entertained the whole time
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