Purified

Posted on Oct 31, 2013 | 0 comments


Paige Jehnke is a student at NMC’s Great Lakes Maritime Academy. She is completing a sea project for the fall semester of her junior year in the engine room of the M/V Taku, a ferry which travels the Alaska Marine Highway. Paige is blogging about her adventures and has graciously allowed us to share her updates.

My pores are saturated with #2 diesel and there are 200 pieces needing to be scraped clean of a caked on black sludge. Purifiers use centrifugal motion to rid the lube oil of contaminants, forcing it to the side of the bowl.

So what do we use to clean in an engine room? Diesel.

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We soak the parts in a vat of diesel and soon start to use scrapers and brushes. There were three of us cleaning parts, making the process go pretty quickly. After about 5 minutes, everyone was staring at me, making me nervous. I had gotten lube oil sludge and diesel all over my face, arms, and coveralls. Everyone else…spotless. I really don’t mind. It is better than getting the contents of the Marine Sanitation Device splashed all over me. I will let you guess what that is.

All in all, It was good to get an inside look of a lube oil purifier. I never thought cleaning could be so educational and I never thought clean could smell like diesel.

 

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