Aftercooler Sealing

[Dave Carlson]

To those of you here that service aftercoolers, if the aluminum housing is pitted is it proper to use some other sealer besides grease? I have QSC engines which requires $3700 per aftercooler to replace and would like to dodge that bullet. I did add some pictures although they are not the best.

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[worldcatlemon]

What I did on my aftercoolers for my 5.9qsb’s was I wire brushed the putting holes, filled the pits with 2 part marine epoxy filler, sanded the surface smooth, sprayed a light coat of epoxy primer and enamel paint and the sealing surface was restored.
There’s also a body filler called “Allmetal” that is an aluminum base that you could use but it’s harder to sand.
Good luck

1 user thanked author for this post.

JJM

[Dave Carlson]

Thanks for your replies. In answer to Rob what he sees is pitting not a groove. And in answer to Tony I flush after every trip. After seeing the other aftercooler, which was not greased and only four years old, I am sold on the flush.

[Stephen Oliver]

To reiterate what Tony said.. I pulled our port aftercooler after 18 months while I was changing port impeller (only way to access pump on port side, so stripped it down. It was remarkably clean and came apart easily.. so I’m happy I can do 2 years without flushing but looking to extend that I’m putting fresh water flushing in shortly but mainly to help with anodes as they seem to disappear at a scary rate.. then get stuck! I recon hx one I probably need to change every 4 months to keep up. Aftercooler ones seem ok for every year. cheap insurance though..

Just make sure you follow sbmars aftercooler maintenance to a tee and life will be good 😁

Steve

[Tony Athens]

Things look good to me too..

Lots of grease——–If in salt water and you do not flush, do it again in 2 seasons, max..If you diligently flush you can go 4 yrs.

[Rob Schepis]

Dave,
This area I circled – is that smooth? Looks like a good groove there but photo is really not good at all..

[Mark Tripi]

I would have to agree with Steve, based on the pictures. The sealing face for the o-ring looks very clean and all there. maybe use a fine 3m pad to clean it up and good to go. Was it leaking before?

[Stephen Oliver]

I Dont see any major pitting?

Its the sealing faces that are important it looks like these are the opposite of the 6bta aftercoolers and you have the chamfer on housing not the caps? The housings and the cores look pretty good.

If the pitting is internal and not on the sealing faces I wouldnt worry.. my 6BTA ones are very badly pitted internally (like huge amounts of metal gone in places) but the sealing faces are ok.. and they pass a 24 hour pressure test..

Lets put it this way If my 6BTA ones looked like yours I would consider them to be new 🙂

Steve

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