Cleaning soot out of charge air cooler?

[Nick_H]

It seems that when my exhaust elbow failed last summer, soot was drawn through the air filter and in to the intercooler, where it has deposited on the inlet side and most likely explains the bit of black smoke i'm getting under load. Is there a clever way to clean them without sending them away?

 

[rlw]

No expert on how good they are but there are products you can spray into the air intake that are supposed to clean the intercooler. Not sure they would clean a heavily fouled on though. Worth considering.

 

[spannerman]

Once had the exact same problem on a Mercruiser engine, in the end we took the intercooler off and removed the core and washed it and the housing with engine cleaner and refitted, then we knew it was totally clean inside.

 

[BartW]

can't you open the intercoolers ?
we opened them a few years ago, they were clean,
but it seems easy to clean them with Industrial cleaner / degreaser

I ordered the new gaskets before the disasssembling

 

[Nick_H]

Thanks for the replies. i can't post pictures from here, but the airflow enters the intercooler from the top, turns 90 degs through the radiator, then 90 degs again to enter back out of the top. As a result it's difficult to get to the radiator to clean it, and you can't dissassemble the intercooler any further

 

[omega2]

Take it to a steam cleaners?

 

[Nick_H]

The local shipyard said they could clean them, so all sorted thanks