Volvo 2003 salt in fresh water side?

wragges

wragges

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www.minstercomputers.com
Hi All,

I am gaining water (salt water that is) in to the fresh water header tank on our VP 2003 engine. It is a steady gain of around 200ml every 5 minutes.

Other than the obvious cause (contamination inside the heat exchanger), can anyone think of any other way to get salt water in to the fresh side?

Thanks,
 
Looking at a diagram of the fresh water cooling system (which I can email you if you haven't got one - send a PM) then the heat exchanger is the only place where the two sides are potentially in contact. The pipe through the heat exchanger must have corroded or be leaking so that the salt water under pressure straight from the water pump is forced into the fresh water side.

So out with the heat exchanger it is. Not good news but I can't see any alternative.
 
Yes it is probably the heat exchanger. If you remove the heat exchanger you will see that on the inside it is made up of a number of small bore pipes. It is possible to test these individually and block of the one that has failed. Quite a bit cheaper than a new one. I did this years ago on a 2003 and never had any further trouble.
 
Hi Sailor_Shrek, and others, It is hardly loose jubilee clips on the rubber end caps of the heat exchanger? I had to tighten these periodically when the engine was new, not so often now, probably because the rubber boots have got temperature hardened.
But I'm sure you have already checked this out.Cannot see how a blown head gasket would admit seawater.A symptom of head gasket leak would be "growing water" in the header tank, Is anticorrosion fluid or antifreeze salty as well as seawater?

Don't know the answer to this self-posed question, as it's use as an additive in my cocktails is forbidden by SWMBO!

Hope you get lucky anyway!

Paulclan /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Hello

I had the same problem. It was indeed one of the jubilee clips on the heat exchanger which was lose. I lost good coolant when the engine was not turning and accumulated salt water in the heat exchanger when motoring. A busted pipe in the heat exchanger would have the same effect.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I had the same problem. It was indeed one of the jubilee clips on the heat exchanger which was lose.

[/ QUOTE ]There are no jubilee clips on the 2003 heat exchanger - unless mine's an unusual version!
 
I agree, what jubilee clip? Ive been suffering the same problem, I know the cooling system on the 2003 pretty well now!

Are you sure it is salt water? After dismantling my heat exchanger I would be very surprised if salt water could cross into the fresh side. Look at it this way, the heat exchanger is pretty robust, solid copper piping, there are no internal weak points like gaskets etc. Also the fresh water side is under pressure, how could the salt water side create enough pressure to overcome this?

Have I found the answer? No. But I have eliminated the salt water side. What I believe the problem is a leaking calorifier, that is under pressure from the water pump, plus as it heats the water expands, Ok there is a preasure release valve, but is that set to high? Or is your expansion tank cap to weak? If there is a very small hole in the copper coil in the calorifier, that will be enough to let water back fill into the engines fresh water system.

Well that's my analysis of it after spending most of the winter months trying to find the cause, I wish there was a clear cut answer. If anyone finds one I'm the first who want to know!
 
I have a Volvo Penta md2211 from 95 and mistakingly assumed that the 2003 version also used the jubilee clips.
Please ignore my post /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
Are you sure it is salt water?

[/ QUOTE ]

That's crucial to solving the problem. If it is not salt water but fresh water from the water tank that is topping of the coolant then the calorifier is a candidate. If it is salt water then the heater exchanger is a candidate.

Watching with interest.

As an aside (excuse me). I have always had a lot of salt water in my bilges. I have installed a dripless stern gland this winter as I know the old greaser was dripping badly. I have a sneaking feeling that the raw water inlet into the heat exchanger maybe leaking. I can't see how the pipes are fixed to the heat exchanger - could they leak?
 
Take the heat exchanger off and presure test it
be carefull to mark the end cap when you take them off
the waterflow is designed to give 4 passes and is determined by the baffles built in to the end caps
watch when you take any pipes off that you loosen both ends do not force them as they will not seal if bent
look at


http://www.marinepartseurope.com/en/volvo-penta-explodedview-7726000-90-11802.aspx
for parts
 
is your engine a 2003 or 2003T
I presumed it was non turbo
with a solid stack
if its a turbo engine then the element is removable and easier to repair
but either way presure testing the unit is best way to find any leaks
 
Bear in mind that I don't have direct experience of these coolers.
However at work as a marine engineer, generally we find that tube type heat exchanger cross contamination problems are due to leaking or perished tube stack o-rings, or corroded or eroded tubes.
If you are mechanically minded, it's not difficult to remove cooler end covers (after marking their position!) and you can often see if a tube is leaking as there may be coolant dripping from it. If this is the problem, and the cooler has enough spare capacity, then carefully plugging that tube's ends with tapered brass plugs provides an efficient repair. Otherwise it's a case of withdrawing the whole tube stack, this will often / normally only come out from one end, and renewing all gaskets and o-rings. When re-assembling use soap liquid to lubricate the o-rings, not anything oil-based.
Hope that you get it sorted out.
 
Hi All,

As the original poster of this question, I thought I should report on my findings so that we can all learn my experiences for next time.

I removed the heat exchanger from the engine and stripped it. In istelf a big problem as the stainless steel centre rod was locked solid and rusty and wouldn't budge. In removing the centre rod I managed to snap the threaded end off of it. Beware a new one was nearly £35 for a 11 inch threaded rod!

Anyway, I found that the pipestack was indeed well and truely crusted on both the fresh and salt water sides of the unit. I therefore used Rydlime to remove the crud (not as good as Fernox DS3 but it got there in the end). Rydlime did loosen the crud but did not disolve it. I therefore had to use a short rod to drive down each of the tubes in order to extracate the loose stuff.

I then proceeded to test water integrity. I found 6 of the 40 tubes allowed water to pass from the salt to fresh side.

The construction of these things means that you cannot disassemble them to repair individual leaky tubes.

So, initally I tried blocking a couple of tubes with metal filler but that did not give a great result. I then cleaned up both ends of each leaky tube and soldered-up both ends with a nice big blob of plumbers solder and flux. Be warned you have to get the whole thing very very hot with a high-output blow tourch in order to get the solder to free-flow on to the copper tubes.

Once each of the tubes was water tight, I fitted the new rod, new end seals and also the small o-rings for each of the 4 pipes.

Note: you must mark the orientation of the end plates before removing them as the allighment is important to the flow of water up/down the tubes (4 pass) via the baffles in the ends.

Upon refitting I also found that the final pipe linkage from the H/E unit to the exhaust elbow was 70% blocked with carbon. This would have increased the pressure on the salt water side in the H\E and thus helped to force water through the leaky tubes to an alternative escape route.

Refitting was a nightmare job, the pipes are all push-fit and you need to tighten some mounting bolt whilst pushing the whole unit forward (whist in the coffin shaped deck locker, and unable to move and inch...me being 6ft 1 and 21 stone!

The piddle valve is now a minor dribble and certainly not the little gusher like it used to be. There is more water at the exhaust as a result.

I was dubious about how effective the unit would now be having blocked 6 of the 40 pipe (approx 19% reduction in efficiency). After refitting I took the floating-expense account for a good long motor...no problems and all was well.

Salt water gaining problem now gone, so what to fix next? ...time to investigate the oscillating mast problem....
 
Thanks for that account.

Surprised that you found Rydlyme less effective than DS-3. I though it would be a bit more agressive.

two tips: I see you are on the Orwell. Dont fill your fresh water cooling circuit with water from Ipswich, at least not too often. It's the hardest tap water I have ever come across.

second tip; loose a few stones /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Glad to hear you got the problem sorted, these sort of problems are things nightmares are made of!

One thing though, your H/E sounds very different to the one on my VP 2003, is yours a turbo?
 
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