480CE Aftercooler DIY

[Nicholas]

I had new aftercoolers installed about 2.5 years ago, so its time for them to come off for their first service. They were ordered from here, so they should have been greased up properly, etc., and not to bad to service (fingers crossed), so I’m planning on doing as much as possible myself.

In terms of soaking the cores – is it worth taking them to a radiator shop to have them soaked and pressure tested? Or can I just soak them in simple green, and skip the pressure testing since they are less than 3 years old?

Most of the use has been in the Chesapeake bay, which in my area is about 1/3 the salinity of the ocean, if that matters at all.

Topic

[Nicholas]

I only saw the spray cans – so I just alternated between spraying them down, rinsing them off, drying them out, and repeating. It was very time consuming. Soaking may have been a better bet.

The guy who runs one of the diesel shops here at my marina told me next time to just drop the cores off and he’d put them in his cleaning tank for me. I’ll probably take him up on that next time. I don’t feel like I got them as clean as I wanted to.

[Rob Schepis]

Way back when I worked at the dive shop we used ultrasonic when cleaning the regulators during servicing but that was easy for small parts. Carburetor and jewelry sized cleaners are easily affordable but it’s tough for a DIY to justify the $$ on one that would fit something the size of an aftercooler core, which on the B-series is about 346mm L with a dia of 127mm, the C-series is even longer. Unfortunately in most areas there are not a lot of choices that are easy to find as to ultrasonic cleaning drop off service…

[Tony Athens]

Brake Cleaners, years back ( at least in California) worked like Lacquer thinner or Gasoline on grease & muck on the air side of the aftercooler.. Today in California, as to what we can buy at “Home Depot” , they are “iffy” at best but still do an C+ OK job but they are convenient.. Soaking in “common eco-friendly degreasers” works really good, especially if warmed or hot

We use a variety of things.. The salt water side always requires an acid based liquid with 10:1 water & HCL being our favorite cleaner..

On the air side (fins, the hardest part to deal with) , you never want to use anything acid based— It all about “yuk & muck”, meaning all oil based crud. It’s comes down to solvents, grease dissolvers, etc., or the ultimate. “Ultrasonic”.. Nothing comes close, but it’s not always needed to do a 90%+++ plus job.

[Philip]

Can you comment on what you beleive to be the best most efficient way to use the brake cleaner in the air side?

Did you consider soaking in Brake Cleaner? You can get the stuff in gallons.

[J Dragon]

I agree with you that brake cleaner is best on the air side…

[Nicholas]

almost done – lessons for next time

After 8 gallons of simple green and 11 cans of brake cleaner, i’m about ready to re-install the cores. Here are some things I would think about for next time:

-Even though the cores had been installed “the seaboard way” when delivered, the silicone strips made them hard to remove. I still had to hammer out the cores with blocks, and then pry them out the rest of the way. Hopefully with the strips removed now this will go much smoother next time

-I’m not sure how productive the overnight soaks in simple green were. I didn’t have much in the way of calcium or barnacle deposits – only soot on the air side that really needed cleaning. The simple green soaks didn’t have much affect on the soot.

-The best way to get the soot off seemed to be brake cleaner, pause, more brake cleaner, pause, spray with simple green (not necessarily soak in simple green bath), pause, hose off, repeat. I think i could have used my brake cleaner much more efficiently than what i was doing at the beginning, which was basically just spraying until i emptied the can, then grabbing another can and continuing to spray.

-The heavy greasing of the “seaboard way,” in conjunction with occasional freshwater flushes (whenever I knew it was going to sit for a while) and the somewhat lower salinity of the middle Chesapeake bay are a good combination. 2 1/2 years didn’t seem to have been an issue – so i think i’m safe to proceed on 3 year cycles moving forward.

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John

[Rob Schepis]

Correct, not the stainless.

[Nicholas]

Rob Schepis wrote:

Yes, for sure NO ONE cares about your boat as much as you do. Well maybe us! Use one of the bolts for dia and length and get new flange head bolts.

right that’s the plan. from my reading though, it seems like zinc coated flange bolts will actually cause less corrosion issues with the dissimilar metals (aluminum in particular) than stainless steel.

does that sound right? just use zinc bolts, not stainless in this application?

[Rob Schepis]

Nicholas Cummings wrote:

(One of many examples of why I now go out of my way to do everything I can on my own)

Yes, for sure NO ONE cares about your boat as much as you do. Well maybe us! Use one of the bolts for dia and length and get new flange head bolts.

[Nicholas]

Apparently, when I had the coolers replaced, the tech who installed them must have lost a couple of the bolts that fasten the cooler to the lower bracket because one bolt was new stainless and the other was missing all together. So I need to do something about those at a minimum. (One of many examples of why I now go out of my way to do everything I can on my own)

The other mounting bolts have varying amounts of corrosion, but can probably be saved, albeit with whatever coating was on them originally certainly no longer present.

The cap bolts are fine – they are less than 3 years old.

[Rob Schepis]

Nicholas Cummings wrote:

Got it. Will grease the spots and leave it at that.

Any recommendation on replacement fasteners?

What fasteners … the cap bolts? or? All should be able to be cleaned, greased and reused.

[Nicholas]

Got it. Will grease the spots and leave it at that.

Any recommendation on replacement fasteners?

[Tony Athens]

The black coating is an “E Coat” of some sorts.. I’ll give it a 50-50 as to its durability.. All you need to do it use a light smear of grease where the bare spots are, or nothing at all.. .. The real issues are up at the ends where the brass, aluminum, and bronze all make up “mixed-metal-assembly” that operates in saltwater. That’s where Alco Metalube” comes in

[John]

It is a coating of some kind.

If you Google “cummins cta aftercooler coating” you will find guys talking about just that coating.

[Nicholas]

I don’t think it’s soot. I cleaned it all out already. It’s hard and smooth like paint.

[J Dragon]

I dont think that’s paint, it’s soot/carbon. Clean it all up before you grease and reassemble.

[Nicholas]

Per the article, it sounds like i should sand the bare spots and just cover them with grease, vs. painting. It would be easy enough to cover with a dab of black engine paint – is that not worth doing?

Also, the bolts fastening the housings to the engine are quite rusted. If the housing is aluminum, but the brackets and engine block are steel, what type of faster should i replace them with? Regular zinc plated steel to avoid the stainless/aluminum incompatibility?

[Nicholas]

Easy enough. I think that silicone peeling loose was what made the core a little harder to get out.

One more question – should I repaint these areas inside the case to guard against corrosion where the black paint has come off? If so, do I use black engine paint or something else?

[Tony Athens]

Throw the silicone strips out—Follow the rest of the cleaning and assembly procedures.. We usually throw them out before we ship..

[Nicholas]

Core #2 – silicone stuff?

Just got core #2 out. Much harder. There’s some silicone or something that runs down the corner of the air side that is peeling off. What do I do about that?

[Author]

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