Aftercooler and heat exchanger maintenance

[William Walter]

pulled my heat exchangers and aftercooler today .bought the smx kit .is it essential to pull the cores out of aftercoolers.

Topic

[William Walter]

I’ll put it on my Christmas list

[Rob Schepis]

Bill, sounds like you need to pick up a cordless extension cord  🙂

[William Walter]

Wish I could plug in.marina won’t let overnight plug in .they don’t mind during day if you’re there.i did cover engines with moving blankets to maybe keep some moisture off them.

[Rob Schepis]

I see no issue leaving them dry.  Do you have any low heat or dehumidification running in the engine room?

[William Walter]

Winterizing

rob before I decided to do the aftercoolers and heat exchanger I had run detox thru system and then drained mufflers.i noticed not much anti freeze coming out of exhaust .most came out of shafts witch I forgot about never having pss couplings.i plan to replace antifreeze in fresh water side then call it quits.heat exchanger and aftercooler will be dry .do u see any problem with that. Bill

[Rob Schepis]

William Walter wrote:

thanks Rob I definitely owe you a couple at phils…..

I’ll gladly accept but usually payment in the form of beers requires a bloody knuckle or two, or at a minimum dirty hands…you’re all back together already, nice!

So you need to refill with coolant still.  Fill them real slow and squeeze any coolant hoses, that’s about all you can do to minimize air on refill.  Then on first seatrial run with the caps loose to burp the system and keep an eye on the levels first couple trips.

Curious, are you going to run -50 nontox through them now once you get the coolant refilled?  I think I would try and run on fresh water and then run the nontox through for the rest of the winterlayup.  I did my thermostat and coolant replacement mid-winter last winter and let them run at idle with the impellers out.  I had my exhaust apart too awaiting my new risers from Seaboard so I had to rig up “custom dry exhaust”.  It was dead of winter and they fired right up – a good testament to the Wolverine pan heaters (and good compression too)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oajepg37s5xwp4p/Startup_Port.mp4?dl=0

 

 

[William Walter]

Zincs

thanks Rob I definitely owe you a couple at phils .aftercoolers heat exchanger s and coolers put back in. Just waiting for new antifreeze .

[Rob Schepis]

Zinc Replacement Interval

Bill, this is gonna vary, there is no one size fits all answer.  In my tenure of running marine diesels my plan has always been to do a mid-season pencil zinc change-out.  It’s a good excuse for a thorough bilge crawl to check everything over good – hoses, clamps, connectors, etc and spray down with CRC, WD40 or whatever your preference may be..  BTW, the lower aftercooler zinc will always go quicker than the upper one.

[William Walter]

Zinc damage

you may be right.bottom zinc was gone.upper had some life.I have replaced zincs once a year on my old boat.in our environment and using boat only eight months does that work for aftercoolers and heat exchanger.

[Rob Schepis]

Beat Up Tubes

Bill, the beat up tubes look like the result of impact from the pencil zinc coming loose and being pushed around by the flow of raw water.  Was this the bottom of the aftercooler (where the water comes in)?

[William Walter]

Tubes beat up

just looked at the pictures of the aftercoolers that were just posted.look pretty good to me with no damage to tubes.on my aftercoolers I noticed lots of bent tubes at ends .was this perhaps from previous clean ups.the boat was in Florida where the barnicals seem much worse then up north.

[Rob Schepis]

I hear ya Bill.  I had all intentions of pulling my pumps and aftercoolers this weekend but I figured I should focus on things more “festive” at the moment..

BTW, when I mentioned doing the same the next day, I should have been clearer as I forgot to mention flipping the aftercooler over first and then doing the same with the penetrating oil.

 

 

 

[William Walter]

Rob put the tree up and didn’t get the spirit so I thought I’d tackle this.thanks for the advice.

[Rob Schepis]

'Tis the season

Shouldn’t you be wrapping presents, hanging lights & baking cookies?

Kudos for jumping right in there.

Yes the cores have to be removed, cleaned, inspected and hopefully reassembled with plenty of grease to combat the corrosion that results in the pitting of the aluminum.

Are the cores badly stuck?  Stand the aftercoolers up on a flat surface with an absorbent under it and pour a few ounces of penetrant inside and around the top and let it sit overnight, do the same the next day…

Hopefully you’ll get them apart in time in case Santa’s workshop needs to make new ones!

 

 

[William Walter]

More pics

saw the pictures on website but if you have never done something you wonder if you did it right .dont want to miss something while I have them off.

[Author]

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