Sea strainer on outflow side of raw water pump

[Canuck Sailor]

Leaving your input strainer in place to that job and putting in one of the Jabsco plastic strainer suggested by osirissail, of the right size will not harm your engine or the strainer. The bits would be caught on the inside of the cylindrical screen and you might not see them unless you put in reverse flow which will not harm the strainer or flow. You will see the bits easier. Good Luck.

[spiv]

Originally Posted by enrigenna

the strainer in osirisail post is exactly what I installed, and works great.
Only thing is the mesh a little too fine, after a while some foul grow on it, it doesn't reduce the flow, but it is difficult to see the impeller bits inside.
I plan on replacing it for bigger one, at the end it is just to avoid big chunks of rubber to clog the exchanger, but still haven't found it, I'll try to make one ...

I also installed the same strainer on my 7kVA Onan genset for the same reason.
It has been there three years and I have the same problem with the fine mesh, mine is actually stuck to the plastic due to rust and I am not able to remove it from the base, so I was considering destroying it and replacing it with a coarser one as well.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Canuck Sailor

....and putting in one of the Jabsco plastic strainer suggested by osirissail, of the right size will not harm your engine or the strainer. The bits would be caught on the inside of the cylindrical screen and you might not see them unless you put in reverse flow which will not harm the strainer or flow. You will see the bits easier. Good Luck.

Very goo and correct.

And you'll also see the bits if you take the strainer bowl off completely and check it out in detail. That's the whole purpose.

Also easier if you replace the impellers (at least for your engine, since geneator ones are usually harder to get to) before they "die."

Good luck.

[cal20dennis]

KISS...another chance to lose cooling water to your engine? More hose connections, gaskets, hose clamps to fail?. Sounds like a bad idea to me, especially since the impellor pieces lodge at the seawater entrance to the heat exchanger. Just remove the seawater hose from the heat exchanger tube and retrieve the pieces of rubber....or remove both hoses from the seawater side of the heat exchanger and backflush with a garden hose. (You will be NOT running the engine anyway as the impellor disintegrated!)

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by cal20dennis

KISS...another chance to lose cooling water to your engine? More hose connections, gaskets, hose clamps to fail?. Sounds like a bad idea to me, especially since the impellor pieces lodge at the seawater entrance to the heat exchanger. Just remove the seawater hose from the heat exchanger tube and retrieve the pieces of rubber....or remove both hoses from the seawater side of the heat exchanger and backflush with a garden hose. (You will be NOT running the engine anyway as the impellor disintegrated!)

I agree and espouse the KISS principle as much as I can. If it isn't there you don't have to fix it.

But in this case and maybe in this particular genset/engine situation it may be a very good solution. Some heat exchangers are located/ mounted so that they are a bitch to get to and service. On one of my engines you have to disconnect all the hoses and remove the whole H.E. to get to the part where the little raw water impeller vanes would lodge. Also in my particular case there are copper pipes in between the H.E and the R.W. pump and the little broken off vanes get lodged in the bends of the pipe.

On other engines they mounted the H.E. so that it could be serviced - but not all engine makers have that much foresight.

In any case, if the output of the R.W. pump allows the placement of the strainer - then be sure to use a strainer that has a clear transparent bowl so you can see what is inside it.

Also, if the mesh of the strainer is too small you can do what I had to do with one of my Forespar inlet strainers - - make a new strainer basket by cutting out sections of the old strainer basket and then lining the inside with an appropriately sized mesh "screen" made from household plastic window/door screen material. Or be creative and find some kind of thin material with the appropriate sized mesh and cut and shape it to slide inside the original strainer. The original strainer becomes the "frame" to hold the new, better sized mesh liner.

[RaymondR]

Have a look at an irrigation supply house they sometimes astock some nice looking in line strainers that are easily removed for service.