345 (40145) Update 23.6.13

As some of you may have seen from the main website that 345 is currently suffering some technical problems following the load bank tests carried out on Thursday and Friday of last week. 

The problems encountered were:

• Overheating of coolant.
• Low horsepower output from the engine. (Only 1400 HP - Instead of 1785 HP to rail head)

The overheating needs further investigation however cooling systems on these locomotives have always been very marginal due to small capacity of the coolant header tanks they were well know in BR days for flash boiling header tanks after prolonged periods of heavy work and it was hot day when loco was being tested. 

Following further tests on Friday evening by Shaun it appears that 4 cylinder lines may have problems with compression being low as evident when the de-compression screws where opened with engine running showed 4 cylinders with poor compression.

Further tests and checks will be made over next few days to determine whether these cylinders will have to be stripped down and assessed to cause of the low compression. 

These will include internal cylinder bore inspection by use of bore scope with the fuel injector removed.

Peak compression tests on each cylinder to determine which cylinders are effected. 

I will post further updates as new information becomes known.

Cheers

Lee Kenny