Cleaning/de-scaling heat exchanger

[rfrye1]

Someone once mentioned pulling the "core" out of my cooling heat exchanger, having it "dipped" at a radiator shop to remove scale/salt buildup on my H376.

Has anyone does this? Difficulty index (easy/hard)? I have never done it in 8 years of salt water use.

Your thoughts.
Thanks. Bob

 

[kloudie1]

Bob, don't do that unless you are having overheating problems..
But if you have to, It is pretty easy to do. first, get the necessary gaskets before ya pull it apart. Drain the coolant .. Remove both ends of the heat exchanger housing and pull the "bundle" (the set of heat exchanger tubes with the end plates ) don't try to take the bundle apart. Take the whole bundle to the radiator shop and ask them to de scale it.

 

[Alan]

Check out this stuff. Barnacle Buster is an excellent product for cleaning and de-scaling all kinds of cooling exchangers including engines, A/C and refrigeration units. It is used to clean the heat exchangers at nuclear power plants.

http://trac-online.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=62&vmcchk=1&Itemid=62

 

[Neil McDonald]

Easy job!

After removing the end plates of the hear exchanger, a small block of wood will give you something to gently tap on with a hammer in order to slide the core out of its housing. When the core comes back from the radiator shop, inspect the inside of the tubes by holding it up to a light and looking through. If you don't like what you see, a gun shop will sell you a brush kit to mount in an electric drill and run through each tube to clean it out. Once you have gone through this process, you will know that your heat exchanger is good for many more years.

 

[Ivan]

Alan:

From their web site, the "Barnacle Buster" is a chemical designed to remove organic material from the pipes, and is probably not strong enough to really remove the lime and other inorganic scale buildupthat would be expected in a heat exchanger. For that you need an acid, like the solution used by radiator shops (which have to remove lime scale, not barnacles).