change to fresh water cooling

[Guest]

We have two volvo 2001 engines sea water cooling
is it possible to change to fresh water to give me water heating from calorifier
Is there a kit available to convert????.
We have a gas water heater but thought it better to heat via engine, does anyone have any better ideas or suggestions?
thanks in advance for help.

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[snowleopard]

you can run a calorifier off a raw-water cooled engine. the trick is to take the water straight from the cylinder block, not from the exhaust injection elbow where it is mixed with cold. raw water cooled engines run at 60-70 deg C whereas fresh water cooled run at 80-90. this isn't a problem as you don't want your hot water to be more than 60.

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[jleaworthy]

To heat a calorifier with raw water you need to remove the short pipe between the thermostat housing and the exhaust elbow. You then need to replace it with a bend from the thermostat to the flow pipe leading into the calorimeter. The return from the calorimeter is then led via another bend into the exhaust elbow. There is a Volvo Penta kit to do this for the 2002 but not, I think, for the 2001. I'm afraid you'll have to rely upon your own ingenuity. Good luck.

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[drawp]

There are kits available to convert sea water cooled engines to fresh water cooled. A couple of years ago I toyed with the idea. When I asked a good marine engineer about it, his advice was "Don't". There is bound to be some corrosion already in the water ports through the engine block. This corrosion would flake off then plug up the channels through the heat exchanger. He reckoned it would cause more trouble than it would be worth. There is good advice in this thread on how to get domestic hot water from a raw water cooled system so you really don't need a conversion kit..

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[snowleopard]

an have you any idea of the cost of a fresh water conversion!!!

well into 4 figures.

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[DerrickHigton]

I fitted a Martec fresh water cooling kit to a seventeen year old Volvo MD7 six years ago, after suffering severe internal corosion. It has been entirely satisfactory, the only problem being a split header tank after four seasons. The cost was about £400.

My kit was supplied by Aquafax through their branch at Hamble. I do not know if they still supply them, but similar kits are available elswhere; from ASAP supplies for example.

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[theia]

fitted a 'martec'cooing kit supplied by asap supplies to a yanmar 2gm20 2 years ago. cost then was about £400ish. if they dont do a kit for the engines that you have then i would imagine that they can supply the neccesary parts. try www.asap-supplies .com.

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[Russell]

I converted our 2003 years ago, using the genuine Volvo kit because it was on special offer at £200 or so. I don't know if you can still get the kit but I imagine it would be a small fortune now. Before the conversion I'd cut the pipe between the thermostat housing and the exhaust elbow and soldered on 2 90° bends, and fed the calorifier from there. Thats OK as long as the calorifier is up to taking salt water, best 2 check 1st ! It worked OK like that though, the water got plenty hot enough.

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