When you arrive at the engine room, use your senses of sight and smell to check whether anything is leaking and is there any indication of overheating? Before coming down, have a look at the funnel. When you join the ship, identify which uptake is for which generator, boiler, safety valve and incinerator. Also check the funnel drain, the mist box and strength of uptake structure especially at the base (this is best done at some anchorage after informing a senior ).
Familiarize yourselves about various parameters of Engine operation. For e.g. what should be the Generator cooling water pressure and temperature and at what value the alarm will start. During normal sea running, the feed pump starts and cuts off say, in 10 minutes. Do not rely on “Auto cut off” always as it may not function at times.
Keep a cloth in hand and clean the machine. Check whether it is not making unusual noise. Examine if any clamp is rubbing against a pipe or a bolt is getting loose. Generally, we forget about steering pipes, windlass and mooring winch pipes until some leak develops. Check for corrosion on pipe as it emerges from underdeck to exposed deck. Tray is located below the hydraulic machinery, keep the plug eased and greased. Don’t let water remain in this catchment because it will corrode the pipes. Make use of various protective tapes available these days including anti-splashing tapes on fuel oil pipe joints.
Generally there is a tendency to go down the E/R from Change room or elevator. We don’t go up. For example, we don’t go to funnel. Something may be getting overheated or some water might be entering the starter panel. Keep this area well lighted and cleaned. Incinerator exhaust fan is also located in this area and we must pay attention to this because it generally goes unnoticed.
You must know all filters and set up a programme for cleaning them regularly. If you keep filters clean, half of the problems are eliminated. This includes Flowmeter filters, rocker arm lub oil filter, Air filters for A/C. I wish that some young engineer reading this makes a list of filters diligently. These days coolers have better design but we should know how to backwash them. Also, clean the Sea Water pump filters regularly. While cleaning the sea water filters, check for corrosion and wastage on cover and the body. In some cases, cleaning cooler is not enough. We need to check small pipes ( one inch) which carry cooling medium to coolers. Many times they are blocked. At times, it is good to open some sea water pipe bends and examine for any blockage. Pay attention to the cleaning of big plate coolers to ascertain that you have sufficient time to test them and rectify any leakage.