Trawler “STORM VOGEL” Cylinder Head Stud Removal

Foretract Engineering received an urgent call out from a Belgian trawler, “Storm Vogel”, which had called into Haverford West for repairs to a badly leaking cylinder head seal on it’s main engine. The trawler company’s own engineers had removed the cylinder head and found that one of the head holding down studs had failed. The threaded broken piece was heavily corroded and seized into the engine block. Foretract Engineering mobilised the same day with electrodes to suit the size of the broken stud, with a view to collapsing the broken portion down the hole without damage to the threads in the block. On arrival it became clear that all the studs for the cylinder in question were in a much weakened state and required replacement, (while trying to remove, two more studs snapped). Four studs required metal disintegration to remove them, while new studs were brought in overnight from Belgium. Extra electrodes were then manufactured in the local machine shop by Foretract Engineering staff.
The entire job was completed in two days and “Storm Vogel” which was carrying out urgent research using GPS sensors on the fishing gear to improve fuel efficiency, was able to return to the fishing grounds in the western approaches.

Layout of Metal Disintegration cutting head on Storm Vogel’s main engine	Fully equipped vehicle, containing power supply and all stud removal equipment. In this case shore power was used and cutter cables run from the shore into the trawlers engine room.