Beta fresh water coolant butterfly drain tap

[Rosa]

This has broken off. The engine is a BD1005 28HP. The engineer says no water is coming out because the hole is blocked by corrosion/crud. He says the engine is still usable but I'm not convinced. I've also spoken to Beta and they concur.

Has anyone any experience of this happening?

I'm looking for advice and reassurance.

 

[andygc]

Beta concur with you or the engineer? They make the engine, so they ought to know the right answer.

 

[prv]

Certainly the drain taps on my raw-water-cooled Yanmar would block up with loose crud. For obvious reasons they're at the bottom of the water jacket where this stuff collects. I could poke a small wire or the end of a cable tie into the taps to dislodge the crud and let the water flow out. I believe this was more or less usual for that engine, though I'd expect a freshwater engine to be a bit cleaner. Certainly a minor blockage in the coolant drain doesn't mean the engine is unusable!

Pete

 

[Rosa]

This has broken off. The engine is a BD1005 28HP. The engineer says no water is coming out because the hole is blocked by corrosion/crud. He says the engine is still usable but I'm not convinced. I've also spoken to Beta and they concur.

Has anyone any experience of this happening?

I'm looking for advice and reassurance.

They concur with the engineer.

 

[Rosa]

Certainly the drain taps on my raw-water-cooled Yanmar would block up with loose crud. For obvious reasons they're at the bottom of the water jacket where this stuff collects. I could poke a small wire or the end of a cable tie into the taps to dislodge the crud and let the water flow out. I believe this was more or less usual for that engine, though I'd expect a freshwater engine to be a bit cleaner. Certainly a minor blockage in the coolant drain doesn't mean the engine is unusable!

Pete

I'm not so much concerned at "a minor blockage" as the possibility that the tap which drains the coolant has broken off. So what is stopping all the coolant from draining away? It used to be the closed tap but that's snapped off.

 

[LittleSister]

That the coolant drain is blocked is not a problem until you want to change the coolant, and even then may be able to drain most of it using a suction pump or the blockage can almost certainly be cleared with a bit of patience and ingenuity.

If you are saying that the blockage is the only thing stopping the coolant draining because the tap is gone, I'd be worried about the risk of the blockage clearing itself and damage resulting from the rapid overheating of the engine. (Perhaps the temperature alarm would be sufficient warning to avoid any damage? I don't know.)

How difficult will it be to replace the broken tap? (The drain tap is in the end of a (presumably replaceable) pipe on the Beta 14, but as far as I can see from the manual the tap in the Beta 28 is straight into the block.)

 

[VicS]

I'm not so much concerned at "a minor blockage" as the possibility that the tap which drains the coolant has broken off. So what is stopping all the coolant from draining away? It used to be the closed tap but that's snapped off.

The cooling system of an indirectly cooled engine should remain relatively clean a free of much "crud" build up if the coolant has been changed at the correct intervals and the correct antifreeze mixture used

The blockage which is stopping the water coming out may not therefore be very substantial. I'd not like to rely on it !

Consider a simple plug rather than replacing with a new drain cock.