Clark 4500HP 12 cylinder engine - piston/liner change out - with pics.

Just got back from working on a 4500HP Clark 2 cycle, 12 Cylinder Natural Gas Fired Engine/Compressor Unit. We had to change out a couple cylinder liners, Pistons, Rods ect.

I took a few pictures to share in case anyone else likes large industrial engines.




Here's one of the Units, My co-worker standing in front of the cylinder heads taking some pics. You can see the three compressors that the 12 cylinder engine drives. The reciprocating motion of the crankshaft is transformed via cross heads into linear motion to drive the compressors. These compressors compress natural gas.




Taken from the top of the cat walk from one of the units, looking at the Unit that's being worked on.




Cylinder heads. 6 Cylinders on each side. You can see the air intake manifolds for both banks.




Here's a shot of my ugly mug...




Here you can see the oil cooler along with some of the coolant/oil lines. This unit is massive!




Here Dean is standing in front of the mechanical oil pump, look at the size of the block on this bad boy




Here I'm standing in between two of the three double acting compressors that the engine drives. You can really see how big they are in this shot. On the ground you can see a cylinder head in the bottom left corner of the pic.




Here I'm standing next to a new chrome cylinder liner, we just finished prepping this liner for install.




Installing the new liner.




Looking into the block. You can see the intake and exhaust ports. A co-worker is cleaning inside the crank case, gives a good reference to the size of the crank.




Piston with the Master Rod attached.




Piston with the Link Rod attached. Only the master rod attaches to the crank shaft, the opposite link rod attaches directly to the master rod via a link pin.




Here the piston crown is separated from the skirt. The pistons are a 3 piece unit. Look at the size of the crank pin bearings!




New parts getting ready to be assembled. Master Rod with Hanger, Link Rod, Link Pin, Piston Pin ect.




Assembled piston on the piston stand.




Spare Turbo Chargers


Thought you might like a look.

Hodakaguy

That is increadible! I have worked around big air and ammonia compressors but nothing close to 4500 HP. How long does the standard rebuild take? Also great pics.

GSwannabe wrote:

That is increadible! I have worked around big air and ammonia compressors but nothing close to 4500 HP. How long does the standard rebuild take? Also great pics.

It can take weeks, just depends on what work needs to be performed. Everything is large and heavy

Hodakaguy

In one of your pics it looks like a old Southbend lathe in the corner covered up. Way cool!

Wow!

Very cool Tom.....

Thanks for sharing the pics.

You have a VERY interesting line of work T

Kind of makes that 700cc two stroke ATK Intimidator look like a babie's toy! It absolutely blows my mind to think of the mechanical forces happening in the machines you get to work on.

can we fit it in a subaru, (pasttrana watch the **** out) your job looks funner then mine !

Whats the torque on the rod bolts?

ol guy wrote:

Whats the torque on the rod bolts?

The two bolts that hold the link rod to the link pin is 600 FT LBS of torque. The main rod bolts are actually tightenecd to bolt stretch instead of torque. Bolt stretch is more accurate than torque since it takes the friction between the bolt and the nut out of the picture. Say the manual says to set the bolt stretch at .020"....you would install the bolts with the nuts loose (the bolt has a precision punch mark on the top and bottom) , then take a special built micrometer and measure the distance between the two punch marks (overall length of the bolt relaxed). Then you would tighten the bolt a ways and re-measure the punch marks, once the measurment is .020" longer than the original measurment then you're done and the bolt is properly torqued up. Of course doing it in the crank case can be fun at times

Hodakaguy