Can I seal a heat exchanger? It has a hole in the bottom edge!

Piers said:
Morning all. Play d'eau had a leaky H/Ex close to its cover plate, but impossible to find exactly where. Abbey Heat was recommended by a Cummins specialist, and their work has been quite superb. they found 3 tiny leaks and successfully welded them so you can't even see them. Brilliant. Saved a small fortune.
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Piers, I was about to suggest he takes it to a local metal worker/machine shop and have it welded. That’s what I would do, and in my experience, great work and cheap as chips, compared to replacemen.
 
Lucas Gan said:
Thanks.
Yes, replacement is the ultimate solution. Just trying to see if anyway to repair to make it cheaper.
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I was under the impression it was the clamping ring if you can see the sealing ring in your description. That would be a ~30 quid part locally and not worth fannying about
 
Bottom of housing corrodes because you have 2 dissimilar metals separated by an o ring , 3 if you count the steel ring , the alloy corrodes allowing coolant past the seal , now if it’s salt water it’s the bottom of the tube stack , it’s bottom is soldered to the tube stack , I’ve repaired many , if you are a welder , I am you can solder it no problem.
 
volvopaul said:
Bottom of housing corrodes because you have 2 dissimilar metals separated by an o ring , 3 if you count the steel ring , the alloy corrodes allowing coolant past the seal , now if it’s salt water it’s the bottom of the tube stack , it’s bottom is soldered to the tube stack , I’ve repaired many , if you are a welder , I am you can solder it no problem.
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The sort of advice the original poster needed and better i presume then using a putty of some sort.
 
I has extensive corrosion on my aluminium heat exchanger and had it welded up and filed back to shape.

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Geart!

Thanks everyone. A lot of good input.

Thank you Paul. Yes I see they are two different metal. The broken part is the housing looks like made of alloy. I can do welding. Now the first thing I have to figure out how remove the exchanger. Hopefully not too difficult.
 
Scala said:
@Lucas Gan did you actually get this boat surveyed before you bought it? If so, what did the surveyor say? You seem to be having a lot of problems that should have been found in the survey.

Tanks
Servicing
Heat exchanger leaks

Seems a worrying trend. Did your surveyor pick any of these up?
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I know the boat and the surveyor, he's great if your selling but not if your buying.
 
It is okay. Just some small repairs. I thought playing the repair also is one of the fun thing of owning a boat. Learned so many things by dealing with the problems.
 
Bad news! I can't remove the heat exchanger housing only because of two top screws rusted so badly and won't move. Looks like remove the whole exchanger is still okay as other screw no problem. So maybe my option is replace the whole thing, or using putty to fix it.
 
Lucas Gan said:
Bad news! I can't remove the heat exchanger housing only because of two top screws rusted so badly and won't move. Looks like remove the whole exchanger is still okay as other screw no problem. So maybe my option is replace the whole thing, or using putty to fix it.
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Maybe soak them in/with hydraulic oil or some other penetrating oil for a day or 2. If that doesn’t work, drill them out, then tap and die if necessary. Something will do it (y)
 
I found a interesting thing is that there is another same heat exchanger use as the aftercooler to cool the induction air. That one is dry and in perfect shade. So I think I could polish and weld this broken one to use as the induction air aftercooler, and use that perfect one to replace this one.
 
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Lucas Gan said:
I found a interesting thing is that there is another same heat exchanger use as the aftercooler to cool the induction air. That one in perfect shade. So I think I could polish and weld this broken one to use as the induction air aftercooler, and use that perfect one to replace this one.
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That will = bang !
Rationale is this .....
The “ induction air after cooler “ your terminology as you infer cools the air , but an INTERNAL leak here likely by the looks of it .... means water getting sucked into the cylinders.....hence the bang !
Google CAT intercooler failure.

As it stands now the knackered one when it leaks justs mixes seawater with coolant ,
Fluid / fluid is not terminal .
fluid to induction gas is terminal.

Its knackered by the pic and been bodged before .Time for new .
 
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