HI,
We are a power plant in Greece operating 2 Wartsila 32 12V engines using HFO 380 as the primary fuel. Ever since we turned to HFO 380 (from MDO) we are facing a very serious injection pump fuel rack stickiness problem. This problem happens randomly at a wide rang of loads but happens more frequently in low loads (approx. 10%) or when starting-stoping the engine.
As a solution the manufacturer has suggested to wash the lower part of the fuel injection pumps with diesel oil using an air pump, on a 500 operating hour basis.
While the results from the cleaning procedure are positive i.e. the pumps behave normally, this is only for a small amount of operation hours. There are many cases where cleaned and freshly repaired injection pumps get sticky just after a 48h period of operation.From experience i can state with certainty that this problem has never been traced in the previous Vaasa Wartsila engines nor to many types of other engines (MAN, Mitsubishi and more) using the exact same fuel.Therefore i would kindly like to ask all fellow colleagues who operate the same engines the following:1. Are you facing similar problems?
2. What explanation do you give regarding the cause of this stickiness?
3. Is it the quality of the fuel or the deisgn of the pumps or both?
4. Has anybody found a more permanent and flexible solution of this issue rather than cleaning (almost everyday) the injection pumps?
Please help.
I did not find the right solution from the internet.
References:-
http://www.dieselduck.info/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2650
Thanks
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