Westerbeke 40 heat exchanger drain

[phorvati]

I am a little late winterizing this year, and as I was finishing up with the engine I remembered to remove zincs and what I thought was drain plug on a heat exchanger. However antifreeze started coming out of the bottom petcock #20 in pic shown below. Does anyone know if this is supposed be for draining raw water or antifreeze sediment? Was there supposed to be two on the bottom one for raw water and one for antifreeze?

[fallingeggs]

I can't directly answer your question, but on my W33, I drained my heat exchanger by removing both of the end caps (67-69 on your picture). Glad I did because I found broken impeller pumps parts and, worse, an almost clogged quadrant full of zinc crud. Hat tip to Maine Sail for having me check back there.


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[125Miles]

#20 on the bottom – engine coolant drain, #20 on top to bleed air out of the engine cooling system. To drain raw water just pull zincs out. The newer model has zinc on the bottom that allows to drain raw water completely alone with sediment from used-up zinc.

[phorvati]

Originally Posted by 125Miles

#20 on the bottom – engine coolant drain, #20 on top to bleed air out of the engine cooling system. To drain raw water just pull zincs out. The newer model has zinc on the bottom that allows to drain raw water completely alone with sediment from used-up zinc.

My zinc faces the back so no raw water came out. If that is really true, I might have dodged one. We had some temps in the 20s in november, and my first thought when i opened #20 was that one or more of the tubes cracked cause i was expecting raw water to drain out.

[Valmika]

I just pulled my heat exchanger on my Westerbeke 42b to clean it. #20 is a coolant drain but if you have never pulled you HE out to clean you may want to do that. It is pretty easy to pull it out and clean it with muratic acid, paint and put back in. You should at least pull the end caps and clear out the junk from impellers and old zincs that tend to build up in there.

Photo is upside down

[phorvati]

I went back to check on things and discovered that next to the antifreeze petcock, there was another one closer to the end of heat exchanger. This one is for raw water and I opened it. Picture kind-of shows it but it was not very conclusive. That end of my heat exchanger doesn't have cap so i cant really take the endcap off. The engine was completely apart in 2011, and i had a chance to clean heat exchanger very well that time.

Thanks for your replies