There’s “getting into your work” and then there is GETTING INTO YOUR WORK. This guy falls into the second category as a mechanic on a Coast Guard ice breaker ship because in this video he’s literally trying to climb out of a huge Caterpillar 3612 diesel engine that he was inside of doing an inspection or service. Weighing more than 60,000lbs when it is all dressed out and full of fluids, the Caterpillar 3612 produced 5,444hp at 1,000 RPM and this ship we’re sure has multiple examples of the yellow monster on board to push it through ice and rough seas. The engine displaces some 13,000ci and it has a bore that hovers around a foot and a stroke that’s about the same.
The wild thing about this video other than the fact that there is a guy inside this engine is how they get him out. He wriggles and waggles his way up to the hole he’s going to come out of and then a guy with what looks like a 3/8ths ratchet turns the engine via a crazy reduction drive to get the crank counter weights out of the way so he doesn’t have to live in the thing. It is not an easy process and the guy really has to work to get himself out of there. Just the mere concept of climbing out of an engine is awesome and weird at the same time.
We know that there are vastly more huge marine diesels than this one. Engines with literally ladders into their bed plates and bearings that look like hammocks but those are so huge you almost lose the scale. This thing? This thing is barely big enough for a guy to fit in and get out of. Want to hop in next?
Remember when Whinne the Pooh got stuck in rabbits hole?
I think there was a reenactment of that with Woody on an episode of Cheers.
After a lot of hard work the Chief Engineer confirmed that he had obliterated all traces of the dreaded LS virus…