Heat Exchanger Maintenance Question.

[georgeg305]

My Cat 30 with a M-25 engine came with 2" heat exchanger. It had a tendancy to want to overheat ( Florida ) so I upgraded to a 3" one. My 2" HE used a "pencil" zinc which I had to special order.
My 3" HE use a much fatter zinc. They were available at West Marine, however, the WM ones were slightly too long. I just have to saw off a half inch or so in order for them to fit.

[Exile]

Along with using Barnacle Buster or Ridlyme to descale the H/E & raw water cooling system, is it a good idea to do the same with Salt-Away? Any harm in using that stuff?

[er9]

Originally Posted by Orion Jim

You have it right. If this engine is new to you it would be worth removing and descaling the unit.

Much thanks....finally got to it yesterday and soaked it for a couple of hours in barnacle buster. Glad i removed it...was in pretty bad shape. +1 for barnacle buster...that stuff is awesome. going to keep a bottle of the concentrate around to flush the raw water side once the exchanger is back in.

[evm1024]

Interesing, I looked up the MSDS for both barniclebuster and rydlime and found that they are common acids.

Barnicle Buster is Phosphoric acid and Rydlime is Hydrocloric acid. Both are listed as less than 10% concentration.

In contrast Klean-Strip Phosphoric acid is listed as 35% to 45% so you would need to dilute it about 4 to 1 to get the same concentration as in Barnicle Buster.

And Kleen strip costs $18 a gallon at home depot. So when diluted it comes out to $4.5 per gallon....

I also use Kleanstrip Phosphoric acid in place of Te-ka part B. Te-Ka part A is Sodium hydroxide and way cheap, Part B is phosphoric acid at 20% to 30% concentration. So you could dilute Klean-strip down up by about 50% (2 parts kleanstrip to 1 part water) to end up with with a cost of about $12 / gallon.

HCl (hydrochloric acid aka Muratic) runs about $10 a gallon at 20% strength. Dilute 2:1 and the cost is $5 a gallon....

Of course Use at your own risk. (remember to add acid to water, goggles, gloves, etc)

[er9]

Originally Posted by evm1024

Interesing, I looked up the MSDS for both barniclebuster and rydlime and found that they are common acids.

Barnicle Buster is Phosphoric acid and Rydlime is Hydrocloric acid. Both are listed as less than 10% concentration.

In contrast Klean-Strip Phosphoric acid is listed as 35% to 45% so you would need to dilute it about 4 to 1 to get the same concentration as in Barnicle Buster.

And Kleen strip costs $18 a gallon at home depot. So when diluted it comes out to $4.5 per gallon....

I also use Kleanstrip Phosphoric acid in place of Te-ka part B. Te-Ka part A is Sodium hydroxide and way cheap, Part B is phosphoric acid at 20% to 30% concentration. So you could dilute Klean-strip down up by about 50% (2 parts kleanstrip to 1 part water) to end up with with a cost of about $12 / gallon.

HCl (hydrochloric acid aka Muratic) runs about $10 a gallon at 20% strength. Dilute 2:1 and the cost is $5 a gallon....

Of course Use at your own risk. (remember to add acid to water, goggles, gloves, etc)

jesus $18/gallon? wow ok I need to look into this a bit more. west marine wants $80/gal for B.Buster concentrate. thanks for the heads up.