Dirty Westerbeke cooling system

[GSL]

During our last trip to Ibiza, with 16 nights on anchor, our 7.6kw Westerbeke Generator suffered overheating, it shut itself down before getting too hot.

I sorted some of the issues out, however discovered the coolant is very very clogged with rusty, gunky C..p, and I have no doubt this is causing the primary problems.

I will replace hoses, clean out the heat exchanger and replace thermostat, but need to know, what is the best product to put in the cooling system, run and drain, maybe two or three times, in order to clean the water passages in the engine.

Thanks

GL

 

[volvopaul]

I use rydelime on all my heat exchanger jobs, they do one specific for use on alloy castings too.

The rust is in the engine block which may have been caused many years back by someone filling the engine with med tap water and not enough antifreeze.

You could just keep filling the system and draining it after a few mins running or place a weaker mix of rydelime and water in the whole internal system then flush out.

Id then add a bought antifreeze water mix, say volvos own mixed coolant after flusing.

That is what is used when changing coolant after 2 years on a service on modern volvopenta engines.

 

[GSL]

Thanks for that VP

I bought the boat in Florida 3 years ago, and have only spent 1 year in the Med. It gave a lighter version of the same problem last year when travelling down through the French Canals, so I flushed with a Wynns radiator cleaning product, and refilled with Cat antifreeze / summer coolant.

This does not seem to have been enough, so I am hoping to find a better product than the Wynns radiator cleaner.

The gunk is bad enbouigh to have totally blocked the small bypass hole in the thermostat even, I drilled a slightly bigger hole, but need to get the gunk out of the total system.

Graham