Heat Exchangers

mcastellitto

Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2007
RO Number
26589
Messages
47
I will be cleaning my heat exchangers on my merc 454'4 this week. Has any one had experience with this and/or can offer any helpful tips on how to best get them cleaned.

Is it ok to use muriatic acid?
 
I cleaned mine over the winter. Since I couldn't find much information about how to properly do it, I just "winged" it. I was worried about muriatic acid being too aggressive so I used a product similar to "CLR" from Home Depot. My heat exchangers only open at 1 end, so I poured the stuff in and used a stiff wire to carefully "rod out" the tubes. Lots of bubbling told me it was working. I poured it into a bucket and then back in 2 or 3 times and was able to re-use about 50% of the stuff for the other heat exchanger. I flushed/rinsed them thoroughly and put in new gaskets. Make sure you don't tighen down too much- the gaskets work best snug, not tight. Before re-installing them they both got sanded down and a fresh coat of paint. I guess I did a decent job because they worked like new when I fired the engines in the spring.
Hope this helps.
 
Phosophrous (sp?) from the Home Depot paint department seemed to do a good job. This is used to etch and or clean concrete. Our generator was overheating so I tried this on our generator heat exchanger. It fit in a five gallon pail. I started with full strength by pouring it through a few times. Then I put the rest in and let it soak for an hour or so.
Rinsed it out, and let it dry. A little sanding and a coat of high temp paint and the genny is quite happy now.
 
Thanks for the info, I will look at Home Depot and also consider maybe using a 50/50 mixture of muriatic acid.
 
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