Harvey engine factory

Yes I meant D2800, I tested on all 3 diesel lines as well as the V12's. The mid sized line tested was D6000, D7000, D3400,D3500 and the 11000 size. The 3rd was for the big boys. All engine came in from the assembly line on a overhead conveyor rail and we had an overhead cable crane on all 3 test lines to take the engine of and to the test dyno stand and then after test back on the line and from there the engines went to the final assembly adding assy. parts and then through the wash booth and then the paint booth. Then shipping put them on skids for shipment. The engine assembly line was dept.75 Test dept. was 77. Our employee numbers started with the 2 digit dept. number with 3 digits after. I put my lead wire seal on to many engines to count. When test was finished and all was a go, we put the wire seals on the injection pumps. The only engine I had come back was a gleaner combine D2900 engine and it was the injection pumps fault. The pump rack flipped open full past the governor and the combine ate up a fence row until it choked the engine to a stop. The engine was completely gone through and inspected and the Simms pump went to the pump room where they found the problem.    

do you know who scratched the initals in the valve covers?? have several here will look soon i think it was  RHS and the date is under them.

I don't know who RHS is and we could not deface the engines, Inspection would catch it. I would say it was done after the plant closed.

Ernie Gerald wrote: Test amounts On the small line was 5 a day, the medium line was 3 and the large line was 1. We also had a gas engine dept and I believe it was 15 a day. We also had 3 repairmen in the test Dept and they would replace a pump or whatever in the test stand, if they had to go inside the engine we marked it for repair and wrote the problem on the test sheet for that engine. After Allis Chalmers I became a service manager for I.H.C. and then had a few jobs after that. My last one was a regional Manager for a after market auto parts co. I ended up in California and was responsible for 6 states including Hawaii. I retired in 2004 and had 2 brother5s living in Washington with less people and better cost of living.

Of those 5 engines a day, how many needed more than tightening a fitting??

Yes Ernie , thanks for the pics and info , that would've been an awesome job ! Lets hear more stories !

Excellent info and pics! Thanks Erie for sharing!! I'll bet there's a lot of great stories over those years of employment there.

Mark, It depended on how well the assembly line did that day. Here are some things that were repaired in the test stand, Porous block pin hole they would drill and plug and grind off the excess, If we had a miss in the engine we would determine which injector was bad by loosening the fuel fee line, Bad vibration was usually and bad dampener, Fuel filter header leaks, its very hard to put a number on this. We washed the engine after we got it running and hot and blew it off with air and checked for water, fuel or oil leaks. We then set the high speed RPMs after that we removed the valve cover and retorqued the head and set the rocker arm gap then reassembled and rechecked for leaks. We ran the power curve at the console and wrote down the beam load settings and we used a slide rule for HP. If all was ok we then removed the engine and hung it on the overhead conveyor to go to Dept 76.    

I only remember the D2900's and D3500's having Simms pumps, most had Rosa Master or American Bosh pumps. Freightliner used a lot of D3500's.

The 3500 MK II engine with the Simms pump that I have in my 220 was on a standby water pump in a town. It had 82 hours and come with all the manuals but the manuals called it an 'On Highway engine'. Did the engines that went to Freightliner have Simms pumps? Sure does start good !! I added an intercooler but didn't touch the pump and it dynos 190 hp with little effort.

Edited by Calvin Schmidt - 13 Nov 2014 at 8:06pm

It must have been a thrill to test the V-12's.  I've heard two of them run and the sound is awsome.

Yes I was still there when his son worked there. Mel was a great person and boss. Do you remember the 7 foot tall black guy that worked there. He was a Bloom HS basketball player. I fired a black guy for coming in drunk and the tall guy helped me calm him down so the guards could usher him out. The tall guy picked him up face to face and that calmed him down instantly.

Ernie Gerald wrote: Yes I was still there when his son worked there. Mel was a great person and boss. Do you remember the 7 foot tall black guy that worked there. He was a Bloom HS basketball player. I fired a black guy for coming in drunk and the tall guy helped me calm him down so the guards could usher him out. The tall guy picked him up face to face and that calmed him down instantly.

DougG wrote: Anyone have any experience with the 844 Big Al? Why couldnt AC have made the improvements right after the huge failures and been successful in this project?

This was something they should never have messed with.  Allis was never going to be able to beat out Cummins, Cat, or Detroit Diesel in the on-highway truck market-----------especially with their meager engineering budget.  That budget (and the tooling budget) would have been better spent on improvements for the 301 and 426 engines.

Did you guys at Harvey have competitors engines in house to tear down and study or was it- we will do our own thing?

Ill admit the hum of a fine tuned 301 diesel is what i luv,, those little engines can take a ton of fuel and turbo boost! Im guessing the Rossa pump was really popular and cheaper than the inline Simms,, but u see some Simms out there but alot more Rossa,s and theyre fine too