Possible leaking aftercooler

[Philip]

So I might have an aftercooler that is starting to leak. I am removing them and will have them pressure tested BEFORE I disassemble and service them to see if they are leaking. See attached picture and area highlighted in Red outline. Of course I will get them back in service after a full and proper service including post assembly pressure testing to confirm we are 100%.

The question I have is IF they have been leaking and some amount of salt water mist was getting into the engines:

1). What damage might have been caused?

2). Will the salt mist have caused some valve damage? 

3). Is there a way to flush the salt off the valves etc. to reduce future corrosion i.e. Do I mist some h2o through the turbo intake to wash things?    

 

This was all highlighted by a trend in oil samples that showed increasing AL along with some increase in CU, FE and NA so I suspect that is the salt corroding the aluminum housing which you can see in the picture as well. So I have not figured out yet if I need to repost the entire inside of the housing with epoxy etc to correct that. Any info or advice on that?   thanks   phil

Topic

[Rob Schepis]

If you suspected an issue with the amount of salt mist you could look inside the air intake plenum of the intake manifold and also remove any port plugs in the IM and inspect the base of the plugs for any rusting as an indicator.  After that it’s pulling the head to address the valves.  Just to confirm, this is “for the sake of discussion” as you asked, not a recommendation in your case. Not aware of any cleaning methods, just use the boat at load and operating temperature. The aftercoolers receive an e-coat as part of the manufacturing, in the simplest of terms it’s a “wet” version of powdercoating but of course there is more to it than that.  Tony reports that it is not all that effective and just coat/fill any suspect areas with grease and service often.

[Philip]

Rob, thanks for the input. 

The oil has not shown any signs of water either visually or via Oil Sample results so I’m guessing we caught this at the beginning of leaking…

However having never seen the varying degrees of leaking, and for the sake of discussion and learning, I’m curious how the signs progress and the progressive repairs go other than just fixing the AC. Do you ever have to do some sort of wash to clean intake/valves etc along with an oil change? Etc etc..

 

Also any recommendations on how to treat the inner surface of the AC housing if there is some corrosion on the walls not associated with sealing surfaces? I notice the factory has some sort of black coating.

 

phil

[Rob Schepis]

Other than the lab report you have no “real” indication of a problem, right?  (like a milky stick)

I’d just get the aftercoolers serviced per the protocol here, do an oil/filter change and move on..

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