Had a cutterhead seal blow out on me in the middle of a job near Baton Rouge last week

We were about 4 hours into a channel deepening run on the Mississippi and I started noticing hydraulic fluid pooling around the ladder. Thought it was a loose fitting at first so I tightened a few things up. Didn't stop leaking so I shut the pump down and pulled the ladder up. Found the seal on the cutterhead drive had completely let go, rubber was shredded and the housing had a hairline crack too. Had to call the shop and wait 6 hours for a replacement unit to get trucked out to us. Lost the whole day on that repair and the client was not happy about the delay. Has anyone else had issues with those seals going bad on older dredges under heavy load?

2 comments

2 Comments

mason_barnes26d ago

You're blaming the seal but that crack in the housing tells the REAL story right there. A seal doesn't just shred itself unless something ELSE forced it out of position first. I'd bet money that crack was already forming from stress or a previous hard hit and the seal was just the first thing to go when the housing flexed under load. If you'd caught that hairline during a prejob inspection you wouldn't have lost the day.

karenhenderson25d ago

Honestly, could a hairline crack really show up that clean on a prejob? Ngl, most guys are just checking fluid levels and belts, not pulling out magnifying glasses. Tbh, hindsight is always 20/20 but that crack might have been invisible until the load hit.