MTU 8000

[Keith Morganstein]

IIRC, there are some marine/large engine techs on this board?

One of the MTU 20V8000 in Bay ferries fast cat failed. It cannot be fixed until it's in dry dock. It had to be a pretty bad failure because I would think its not a problem to change a cylinder pack in the vessel.

Does anyone know what failed? Or has failed with these engines?

[Jagdpanzer]

The MTU 8000 engine has cylinder power packs which can be readily changed within a few hours. So it must of have suffered major crankshaft and probably some block damage. High speed ferries of this type are equipped with 4 of these 12000 hp engines and can maintain good speed while running on just 3 engines.
Most likely caused by a piston seizure which lead to the connecting rod coming loose. You can imagine the rest.

[mag2555]

Even with the low max rpm of these big engines a small failure is a big deal!

The Old Fairbanks Morse opposed Piston motors with there upper Crankshaft that had to be pulled to do most any repair work was a nightmare as you might imagine, I don't mis those in the least!

EMD motors as a friend of mine found out had oil pressure to spare.

He had one of his workers swap out the main Bearings on a 20 cylinder 645 engine.
After the Loco was out on the road for over 3 hours the motor seized up.
Back in railroad yard after getting dragged in they drained the oil and as my friend was checking around in the crankcase he found a new lower main Bearing that had fallen out of the cap and the worker did not notice and just bolted things back up!
3 hours of running with no sign of oil pressure loss , I don't know if that's a good thing or bad, lol!

[Keith Morganstein]

I was checking into booking passage on it and read about the engine trouble.

Looking a at the specs, that eninge is pretty high output. 347 liters, 12200 HP, 9000 kW continuous at 1150 rpm. It's a cranking piece for sure. With 20 cylinders, unless the electronics are real good, I bet you don't realize one cyl is having issues until way too late.