Trusted for our expertise with pumps. Tote Services allowed us the opportunity to overhaul the #2 Main Seawater Pump aboard the Fisher, a large cargo ship.
The customer’s objective was simple. They had a failure with an adjacent MSW pump months earlier and wanted Vanport to open the #2 MSW pump to check its health and give it a tune-up, we did just that.
We removed the pump runner from the casing in the lower engine room and rigged the pump runner (also known as the rotating element) off the ship and back to our shop. Like every pump we receive, we strip it down to individual components and perform a detailed inspection of all surfaces after cleaning. In this case we approached the project upfront with the expectation that we would be renewing bearings, case rings, shaft sleeves, and mechanical seals. Upon disassembly and inspection our expectations were validated. We checked the rest of the parts for abnormal & excessive wear, as well as dimensional conformance. We presented a comprehensive report to our customer of our findings which were later furnished to ABS.
We machined new shaft sleeves and case rings in-house. Monel for the shaft sleeves and bronze for the case rings. The bearings and mechanical seals of course we procured through reputable vendors. After all parts were ready we assembled the pump runner and had it sent out to be dynamically balanced, a customary practice of ours that optimizes the service life of bearings and seals.
With the runner ready for install we brought it back down to the ship and began servicing the casing in place. The casing we observed to be in good shape when we first opened it so our work required was minimal, just a good cleaning of the sealing surfaces and installation of new gasketing material. We installed the pump runner in the casing and performed an alignment of the runner-to-casing and runner-to-motor. After this we called out ABS for inspection of the pump prior to closing. Once the casing was closed we flooded the piping with water and bled the casing of air. The pump was then tested in the presence of Ship’s Force and ABS with satisfactory results.