removing water heater

[jsbartley]

I have a Beneteau Oceanis 400, 1996, with an old and leaky hot water tank. I live and cruise in the tropics and have no need for a water heater. Also trying to simplify the boat and reduce points of failure. The current Raritan has two sets of hoses connected to it. One set is the in/out of the fresh water, and the other is the in/out from the heat exchanger circuit. Can anyone tell me if I can just plug the heat exchanger hoses (or plug the openings on the heat exchanger and remove the water heater? Or does the heat exchanger need the water heater circuit as a source of cooling? Thanks kindly for your advice!

[sailormed]

Just plug the exit/entry of the WH hoses on the engine. This will not affect your engine cooling. The WH possibility is an option on the engine.

[jsbartley]

Thanks, Sailormed. It's what I thought, but didn't want to blow my engine over a bad assumption!

[tkeithlu]

It would be surprising if your engine routed all the coolant through the water heater, but I would keep an eye on the temperature gauge the first time out....

[davil]

Originally Posted by jsbartley

I have a Beneteau Oceanis 400, 1996, with an old and leaky hot water tank. I live and cruise in the tropics and have no need for a water heater. Also trying to simplify the boat and reduce points of failure. The current Raritan has two sets of hoses connected to it. One set is the in/out of the fresh water, and the other is the in/out from the heat exchanger circuit. Can anyone tell me if I can just plug the heat exchanger hoses (or plug the openings on the heat exchanger and remove the water heater? Or does the heat exchanger need the water heater circuit as a source of cooling? Thanks kindly for your advice!

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as mentioned by Sailormed, also follow each hose between engine and water heather,I removed mine soon after bought my Cape Dory and remember was some kind of heat exchanger?? Mounted close to the WH, that also removed,I don't remember exactly what it was, may be just a peculiar installation of Cape Dory?
Gained room for 1 extra battery and tools !!!

[jsbartley]

Appreciate input. I've heard that the heat exchanger needs to recirculate its coolant thru the water heater outflow and inflow, which would imply creating a closed loop from HE outlow to HE inflow. On the fresh water side, Im tempted to also join the inflow to WH, with its outflow, in order to have water flowing through both hot and cold water circuits, even though it will all be cold water. Any thoughts or suggestions on these approaches are welcome! Thanks again for your input.