VW Heat exchanger

[JonC]

Everyone who has read it is probably bored to death of me now and my heat exchanger. Well unlucky I’m going to ramble on again over it. 
 

For anyone that isn’t familiar with heat exchangers on diesel inboards they are basically the same principle as a car radiator but using cold sea water, known as raw water rather than air to cool the sealed cooling clean water that flows around the engine. There’s loads of bits in there that move around    apparently. Up until a year or so ago I was totally unaware that it needed doing, and after another member on here had the courage to watch his fitter do it I thought I’d have a stab at it. I’m not going to lie to you,I’m shit at mechanical stuff, I usually cause more problems than I fix. 
This is the top of the heat exchanger housing, it has loads of pipes and stuff on it, they need to go. It’s also full of coolant, I dumped it into the bilge and used an oil extractor to get it out, far easier than trying to collect it as it drains out. 
These clips are total idiots, I didn’t have a proper tool for them and wasted ages using pliers on them. 
Best £12.18 I’ve ever spent, except for that kebab I had that time. 
Once all the pipes were 

Next I had to remove a load of bolts that held it in place, and the turbo had to come off as that was in the way . 

 

The heat exchanger housing was underneath the air cooler box so that also had to come out, there wasn’t much wrong with that but a quick clean up wouldn’t hurt.

once the she lot was off I took it home to work on in the shed. 
I removed the end caps first, and they immediately showed what I had feared, they were badly blocked with calcium deposits. This is the end of the tube stack, it’s clear to see that at least 25% of it was blocked up with shit.

To clean this I stood THE BRASS bits in a tub of Rydlime for a few hours, then rodded each tube with a length of brass stud, about 0.5mm smaller than the tubes.

Once cleaned up it was just a simple matter of bolting it all back together again, that obviously went really smoothly and involved no swearing at all. 
There are two large O rings at each end of the tube stack that need replacing, they cost a couple  quid each. These are known to fail especially on nanni engines causing all sorts of problems. 

 

 

 

 

[Andy135]

Good effort Jon. That looks like a proper ballache of a job. Kudos for giving it a shot yourself.

Will you be sharing the rest of your holiday snaps with us then?

[JonC]

It’s gonna take me a while to work this out. 

[Saintly Fish]

6 hours ago, JonC said:

after another member on here had the courage to watch his fitter do it

Your such a knob !

without my guidance and advice, Jon would still be clueless and out of pocket. 
he didn’t even know what the cleanser was called or how to use it. 
Well done for giving it a go though Jon. It is an important job to do. 
 

[jonnyswamp]

Saved yourself a few quid there scaf, I got to do the same next spring

Better to do as much work as you can on your own boat, you get to know you way around it which can only be a good thing should things go tits up when your afloat

Your obviously super mechanically minded, you do up and undo nuts for a living mun

[JonC]

5 minutes ago, jonnyswamp said:

Saved yourself a few quid there scaf, I got to do the same next spring

Better to do as much work as you can on your own boat, you get to know you way around it which can only be a good thing should things go tits up when your afloat

Your obviously super mechanically minded, you do up and undo nuts for a living mun

I try to do what I can myself but draw the line at moving or noisy parts. There is a guy Called Stuart Monk who specialises in these boats near me who does stuff for me when I can’t do it. 

[jonnyswamp]

Have spoken to him over the phone, very helpful guy