Ear on Chicago; Diesel Engine/Allis-Chalmers

This is the sound of the diesel cylinder head department of the Alice Chalmers company in Harvey. This is where diesel engines are manufactured and this is the story of that huge mechanism you so often in the construction of heavy industry throughout the Midwest, the diesel engine. This is Hugh Hill speaking and our story begins at the platform where raw castings are being delivered. That's the sound of an Alice Chalmers lift truck. We're standing now in the diesel cylinder head department and the lift truck you heard just a moment ago was carrying raw castings which were delivered here just a moment ago by truck to the entrance to this department. These raw castings are taken inside of the department and machine. Now we're going to talk here to Joe Smerdell. Joe what is your specific title? A Methods Engineer. Methods Engineer. Now Joe

we have the castings here on our lift truck and you're going to move them in where they're machine. This is the opening part of the manufacture of a diesel engine is that right? That is correct. Now what goes on inside of that department? The first operation is to mill the top, bottom, sides and end on one milling machine that does all these operations at one time. Will we go in and take a look at it, Joe? We sure can. All right let's go. There goes the truck again taking another load of castings and let's follow that right on in. We have come over down to the line here at the Alice Chalmers plant located out in Harvey Illinois and the cylinder heads have been brought over here and stacked in a pile. One of the cylinder heads has been placed on a rolling machine here. It's put on rollers first, left it over here by a hydraulic jack, put on the rollers and it rolled into place. Now Joe what kind of a machine is this? This is a milling

machine. You can hear it cutting right now. Let's listen. What's the cutting instrument? A carbide milling cutter. You can listen to that being cut, it's still being cut. As the cylinder head is being moved through this huge machine, the top edge of it is being sheared off. The cylinder head was painted a bright orange when it arrived at this point and when it sheared off, the gray of the steel shows through, the gray metal. As I said, the cylinder heads are brought over here and put on these rollers, then rolled into position in this huge cutting machine, the top edge of the cylinder head is sheared off and it moves on down the

assembly line. Now how where does it go from down here Joe? It removes the stack on the intake and exhaust manifold side and also the bottom side of the cylinder head. How many cutting operations are there? Four operations are combined in one, one on each side and bottom. Okay, now let's go over here a little way because I want to find out how you use those drills to cut holes in this cylinder head. That hurrying sound is the sound of drills being drilled into the cylinder head and Joe and I have moved along to the point where this operation is conducted. Now, when you start with the diesel engine, of course you have to start with the

cylinder head as we have done. We've actually sheared off the parts of the cylinder head as Joe said, all four parts including the bottom, moved it over here to this huge drilling machine where holes are being drilled in the top and in the sides. There are actually three different drilling operations here, is that right Joe? Yeah, this is a multiple drill press, what a revolving table in the drills that top holes in three stages plus the holes for the exhaust and air self studs that are located on the sides. The drills apparently have just finished their operation on this cylinder head, is that right? They're going to the second stage, that was the first stage. As soon as the drills finish drilling those holes, they pulled up automatically. The cylinder head was rotated automatically, clockwise and over here where the drills which are located on the side of the operation are put in place and the

holes are now being drilled into the side of that cylinder head. All right, now that's finished. The drills again are pulled away. Let's see if this moves automatically here. Now there's some drilling still to go on top, some drilling on top being done, and after that is finished it'll go over there for the final drilling operation. Third stage of drilling, so we have actually three stages here, right? That's right, that is correct. Okay, Joe, I think that's about as much time as we have to spin here, where the cylinder head is being machined. That shaking sound is a sound of a jolting machine. The cylinder head which has been cut at the four sides and brought over here, and after

it's drilled, brought over here to this jolting machine has been placed in position and locked in, and this machine is shaking it up and down and backward and forward. What's the purpose of this jolting operation, Joe? This is to make sure that all dirt and chips are shaken out of this cylinder head before we wash it. A little while ago, Joe and I were talking about the filings that came out of the shearing operation, and I saw the drilling operation, and they refer to them as chips. The chips are being joled out of the machine here. From here the cylinder is brought over here and placed on the roller, it's just done now. The roller is then moved into a washing operation. The cylinder head is submerged in water, is there why, what is that solution? It's water and soap. The soap is so we do not get a rusty condition on our casting. So the cylinder head is rotated up and down inside of the soapy water. That is correct. And then what?

Then it's brought over to the testing machine to test if there is any flaws in the casting itself. Don't you have a blowing operation, Joe? That is correct. I forgot to tell you. So right next to it is we have a narrow hose and we blow out all the water and any chips that still remain in the cast. Okay now that the cylinder head is moved over here, dropped in another solution. What's the solution here? None rust the solution. A non rust solution. Right. Okay, the cylinder head is being rotated in there now, and I suppose it knocks out a few more chips, right? It does. Where's the blowing operation, you blow them out, right next? Okay, here comes the cylinder head. The water flows out of the hose, the water and the solution. Now we're going to have to back up there to there. Man, that

really makes a noise. That air hose is blowing out what was finally left of the chips inside that cylinder head. Now it's brought over here to a machine where it is, what is it weighed here? No, it's tested for any flaws in the casting such as sand hose. Okay, now that just about cleanses up as far as this machining operation is concerned in here. Got the cylinder head machined and cleaned, ready to go into the assembly line. Is that where we go next? That's where we'll go now. Okay, let's go. John, I have come to the assembly line now. The last stop that we made is where the cylinder head was finally cleaned. And now it is brought over here and assembled with what is known as the kit. Now what's contained in the kit, Joe? Well, the cylinder block, the cylinder head, crankshaft, pistons, valves, that all comes into kit. We're starting off with the crankshaft assembly into the cylinder block. Now, right here to our left, there's a young man working at a crane. The crane is

lifting some sort of an instrument and dropping it into this block. What is that that he's dropping in there? That's the crankshaft. Now this crankshaft has already been manufactured somewhere else, is that right? That is correct. We purchased the cranks, all crankshafts that we used. All right, he's got the crankshaft just about located in the block. And what's happens next? Now he will put in on the bearing caps and tighten the, put on the nuts and tighten them. There they go in place, you can hear them. The bearing caps are almost all in place, it's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven of them. We're going to have to tighten those down with the nut, is that right? Yeah, we have nut runners that we tighten these for a certain torque. Now this engine block is actually on a

production line which moves, although it isn't moving at the present time, they have a huge link chain right underneath it, which would pull the engine block along. What's he putting on there now? Putting on the lock washers and then the nuts will follow. Joe, in order to complete this assembly line, while we talk just briefly, let's move down here a little way. Here's another engine block which has some further operation already performed on it. What is this? The sleeves have been put in the cylinder block and the studs for the cover for devels. And the next one looks like another operation has been completed here. Now what happened to this one? We moved down about 10 feet to the right to another block. A gasket has been put on and covers the valve covers. Now Joe, we can't go all the way down the rest of the line. How far down there is the engine finally completed? Well, it's about one -third of the way down. We're about one -third of the way down now and we've moved about 25 feet along the line. Now what goes

on here? Now the pistons and connecting rods are attached to the crankshaft. All right, we're about halfway down the line and I think it'd be better if you and I move down quite a bit away so we'll have to pause for just a minute and move down all about maybe a hundred feet or so down the line so we can talk some more about this assembly line. Joe and I have moved on down the assembly line. Now when we started the program we had one cylinder head which is about six inches high, 18 inches long and what is it Joe about eight or nine inches across? About nine inches across. Now actually we have about a hundred pounds in that cylinder head, right? Maybe a little more. The 1120. All right. Now the cylinder head was what we started with. That was the beginning of the manufacturer of a diesel engine. We have finally arrived at almost the end of the assembly line and we have this

tremendous engine standing in front of us here with all kinds of parts already attached. Some of which you heard us describe just a moment ago, where did we leave off? We were putting the piston and connecting rod onto the crankshaft. All right. Now it's a much later operation now and in this stage we have well quite a number of pieces of equipment on here. Joe, why don't you just enumerate a few of them? Well we got a cast iron crankcase. We have fuel injection system. We have the cylinder heads that are overhead valves in them and of course we have the cover on top to seal it off from all dirt and oil. Joe just to our left here, it looks like a larger engine down there, perhaps it isn't, but it looks like there are more parts to it even though it hasn't reached the finish line. For example, an orange tank looking a fair there that up at the top, what is that? That's supercharger. Some of our engines I equipped with superchargers to increase the horsepower.

How many horsepower will this engine here put out? About 275 horsepower. They all about the same size along here? No, we have from 13 horsepower up to 510 horsepower. Now Joe, we haven't quite finished the assembly line halfway. There's a couple of more stages here. What happens on down the line? Well the assembly is about completed now so we're ready to go into the test shed. Is that what happens next? You take the engine in and test it? We run it for a certain length of time in this case about two hours. And where is that test shed located? A joining building that houses the test shed. Right down there where we can hear those engines operating from here. You can hear those engines running right from here. All right, let's go on down in there. It's about maybe 50 to 100 yards away. Throw a large door. Let's move on down and take a look at where they test these huge diesel engines.

Joe and I have come into the testing room. Joe, I think we'll stand right here and you can tell us about what they do in here. Well, I think I'll introduce Charlie, let him tell us about our engines. Well, Charlie, I know that you were working in here when we arrived. And Joe asked you to come over and tell us a little bit about it. So I think we better start from the beginning here. The last point that Joe and I talked about was the assembly line where the engine was finished. And it was going to bring it in here to test it. Now what's the first thing you do? The first thing is it coming off the assembly line. The testers pick up the engine from the floor off the hook at the end of the line here. They're going to place it into a test stand. From there it is run for two and a half to three hours, changing speeds and power periodically as it is run in. After which the head is torque

tablet set, engine wash down, clean after half an hour or so. I, the inspector, then takes over and looks the engine over for any possible leaks. Any defects at all that can be found, then we proceed to check the horsepower. At these engines here for Alice Gilbert is good at springfield. They are checked at a four points speed, 18, 17, 14 and 12 RPM for correct horsepower. No load speed is checked. Shut down to low idle and checked. If at that point that the I as an inspector can't find any defects, the engine will be then sealed, the governor I mean, and okay to ship. Is that the point where you get it painted? Then from that point it's taken out of the stand, carried to the next department, following the test, which is 57.

The shippen blur is called the engine then is going over by several different men that is tightened up all gap through the round of the engine. Pushed around, forced there again. Different parts of exposure of oil with the non -restrave oil in the engine is painted then from there into the warehouse, which is still the same department. Charlie, from what you told us when an engine leaves this shop here, it's in good operating condition. There is very few, if any, that get away from us, we catch almost everything. It's hardly ever. We won't say we're running into prison because that's going a little too far. Well, it sounds the way that you're so thorough in here that you almost are a hundred percent. We try to be, where do you get your fuel that comes through some of these pipes we say around here?

There's a big storage tank, I believe over about the big diesel valley, it's pumped from there over to a tank right outside in which you can see through the window. Yeah, then that thing, it's come down through gravity to the engine and fed from there. Charlie, thanks a minute for telling us about how you test the engine in here. I want you to say it from what I could see here. It's a very thorough and complete job. We try to be, thanks a minute. Joe, we're going to have to move on now. We want to find out how you distribute these engines to the points where they go. Well, we can go over to the lift truck division and show you how it's put into a lift truck. That's the sound of a diesel engine. Now, Joe and I passed through the shipping department where we saw the bright orange engines, which were finished and painted, being ready to be shipped out to different points. We actually passed through

the distribution center because Joe and I wanted to talk about the use of the diesel engine. One of the uses is actually to put in the lift truck that we started our program with. The lift truck is operated with a diesel engine. One of the Alice Chalmers engines and one of the Alice Chalmers lift trucks. Joe and I have come to the assembly line where the lift truck has moved the long on the chain and the engine is placed in position. Now, the engine that you heard just a moment ago was one of the engines that was placed into a lift truck and was being tested. Right here in front of us, the lift trucks are moving along. One, two, three, four, five. I can see right in front of me and a whole number of them down the line a little way. Overhead is this overhead crane which moves the engine back and forth and drops it down in the precise position where it should be located. We're looking at the assembly line where engines are put in lift trucks, Joe, but these all engines are used for many other purposes. Can you name a few? Well, we use them in farm tractors, crawl tractors, oil field power units, electric power plants, and we

also use them for marine work in boats, marine diesels. You know, we did the story of road building in the Cook County area and I had a chance to ride aboard one of those great big road scrapers which digs up about 18 or 20 yards of dirt, moves it to another point where it drops it, and then another tractor comes along and spreads the dirt out. Now, in both instances, the equipment was using diesel engines. These were really huge pieces of equipment if I ever saw them. I think you've probably seen them in road building operations throughout the Harvey area. They have those great big wheels and they have these big knifes sort of things in the back of them, you dig down into the dirt, scrape it up into the back container, and then move it along. Now, that's diesel engine, isn't it? Definitely is. That's where you get a lot of power. How high will your power go in a diesel? Well, we have our large ones that use for marine work that will run over 500 horsepower.

How many horsepower is put out by a diesel engine which folds a locomotive? Well, I would be guessing, but I believe they are some that run 2 ,000 horsepower. Well, Joe, we certainly want to thank you for allowing us to come out to the Alice Chalmers plant in Harvey and to see how the famous diesel engine is put together. Certainly, the diesel engine is one of the most important things in modern industry today. Not only in Alice Chalmers and in farm equipment, but in the tremendous activity around the Midwest and throughout the country in road building. Without the diesel engine, I suppose America wouldn't be so far advanced as it is. Would you say, Joe? That is correct. So this has been the story of the diesel engine. Primarily, it's manufacture and to some degree, it's use. It is further a story of Chicago because Chicago is the number one diesel engine manufacturing center in the country. So that's the story of the diesel engine. And this is Hugh Hill speaking.