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Expensive lesson learned

S

steve hale

Guest
"Ok, since some of us are lear

"Ok, since some of us are learning (me) and some of us are teaching, I thought I'd share my most recent lesson. Here was the problem....
I installed a new heat exchanger and upon the first trip out I heard a little tick by the thermostat housing. After further inspection, the tick was water pulsating in the hose feeding the starboard manifold. I noticed the hose feeding the port manifold was quite a bit hotter than starboard. I thought maybe an obstruction in the thermostat housing and took the hoses off and touched my fingers together inside and noticed no obstruction. I took the port hose feeding the manifold off of the manifold and noted the flow of antifreeze and then did the same for the starboard. The flow seemed the same. My thermostats both read 155 the whole time. Then I decided I'm just going crazy stressing about every noise on the boat, and I am chasing ghosts. I almost made it to the end of the channel before my real problem made itself apparent. Any guesses before I tell you?"
 
"Nope, Like an idiot, I left o

"Nope, Like an idiot, I left one of the 5 dust caps on the new heat exchanger and put the hose over it so it would not allow coolant to return to the heat exchanger from the port manifold. It cooked my manifold to a nice burnt black color and cracked it. If i diagnosed it at the exchanger instead of at the thermostat housing, I would have found it before going out. Oh, the joy of boating."
 
"Could have been MUCH worse!

"Could have been MUCH worse! You might have sprayed water into the open exhaust ports, destroying youre motor.

Jeff

PS: Yet another case where a 50 buck infared temp gun could have spotted this problem AT THE DOCK."
 
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