Answer
Apr 26, 2023 - 03:18 AM
It would be difficult for anyone to tell how good a heat exchanger is. Telling you if one is bad is much easier (e.g. if it leaks or exhibits corrosion, erosion or electrolysis characteristics). After the part has been used, there is no easy way to see if you have electrolysis inside of the cooling tubes. You cannot logically weigh the part to determine the amount of metal loss. . You cannot visually determine the condition of the cooling tubes even when gun sighting the heat exchanger. The only thing you realistically can do is to use a cleaning solution to remove the scale and see if you’re happy with the visual condition after removing the end caps. This is a crap shoot.
This is why reviewing anodes on a regular basis is so important. If the anode is being eaten away by the surrounding water source and you catch it early you can keep your heat exchanger or oil cooler in good condition.
This is also why buying a used heat exchanger is seldom a great idea. Regardless of the good intentions of the seller, cleaning up a used heat exchanger and painting the outside will only make it look good on the outside. But the business end of a heat exchanger is on the inside. And we know of no good way of determining how good a heat exchanger is from any inspection that we’re aware of. You can only say that at the time of testing that it didn’t leak. Repaired heat exchangers seldom have a warranty. And this is likely why.
In the early days we would repair products but soon found out that’s a very bad idea. You cannot comfortably know if a heat exchanger will fail after a cooling bundle tube repair as an example. The tube right next to the one that corroded through saw nearly the exact same environmental conditions as the one you just repaired. It’s illogical to think it’s not on the verge of failure also. And we found that fixing a product that was old and plugging leaking cooling tubes was just putting our finger in the exploding dike so to speak. We always saw them again and again until the customer became frustrated and a new one was purchased. Also the cost of a repair is often as much as 30% the cost of a new replacement product. It just doesn’t make sense to us so we quit doing repairs. This is also why we don’t sell used products of any kind.
©2023 Mr. Cool Marine LLC
This is why reviewing anodes on a regular basis is so important. If the anode is being eaten away by the surrounding water source and you catch it early you can keep your heat exchanger or oil cooler in good condition.
This is also why buying a used heat exchanger is seldom a great idea. Regardless of the good intentions of the seller, cleaning up a used heat exchanger and painting the outside will only make it look good on the outside. But the business end of a heat exchanger is on the inside. And we know of no good way of determining how good a heat exchanger is from any inspection that we’re aware of. You can only say that at the time of testing that it didn’t leak. Repaired heat exchangers seldom have a warranty. And this is likely why.
In the early days we would repair products but soon found out that’s a very bad idea. You cannot comfortably know if a heat exchanger will fail after a cooling bundle tube repair as an example. The tube right next to the one that corroded through saw nearly the exact same environmental conditions as the one you just repaired. It’s illogical to think it’s not on the verge of failure also. And we found that fixing a product that was old and plugging leaking cooling tubes was just putting our finger in the exploding dike so to speak. We always saw them again and again until the customer became frustrated and a new one was purchased. Also the cost of a repair is often as much as 30% the cost of a new replacement product. It just doesn’t make sense to us so we quit doing repairs. This is also why we don’t sell used products of any kind.
©2023 Mr. Cool Marine LLC
