Pack'in heat

This was our weekend to remove the two heat exchangers from the engines so they can be boiled out and pressure tested. We do keep our trusty Colt .380 Mustang nearby when we're working on the boat during the winter, but to get five old hoses off from each of the two heat exchangers, we needed a different type of gun.

This heat gun (courtesy of Frances' late father) is one of the best tools we own and we use it regularly, particularly when coaxing new hoses on or old hoses off.  Nothing works like heat and when used properly, this heat gun always does the job. We used it on its high setting to heat up the old hose connections on the heat exchangers and each hose came off with a minimum of effort, leaving all but one copper fitting undamaged.  This doesn't always happen when you try to pry the hoses off with screwdriver.

Removing these things is at best a sloppy job since the bottom section holds lots of raw water (pink antifreeze at this time of year) and the upper section or surge tank was at least half full of green engine antifreeze.  Once the hoses come off, it all goes in the bilge, flows to the rear of the boat and out the garboard drain. Yes, we caught the antifreeze in a bucket and disposed of it properly.

The engines look strange without the heat exchangers but now we'll have clearance behind the engines to do some cleanup and rewiring.

Here are what these things look like disconnected. We found that the zincs in each exchanger had been plugged with some kind of white caulk. In other words, there was no zinc on either side but there certainly will be when we reinstall them.

These Sen-Dure heat exchangers cost about $800 each when new, so we'll take good care of these old ones.  We did note that someone had tried to solder a new fitting on the bottom of the starboard tank. Whoever that was, they didn't do a very good job and the copper tubing disintegrated as we removed the hose.

We're hoping that Frank at the Radiator Hospital will be able to repair that fitting properly.  We'll find out tomorrow when we deliver these things to him. We're also delivering two other heat exchangers that come from our friend Rob's Luhrs. Might as well save some gas and time and do all four in one trip.

While we're reconditioning the cooling systems, we decided to add coolant recovery tanks to each heat exchanger. The "tanks" are really just plastic bottles that capture the coolant that overflows from the surge tanks when the engines are hot and then allow it to siphon  back into the surge tanks when the engines cool. That keeps the surge tanks full all the time. These two coolant recovery tanks were quite hard to find, strangely enough, but we did locate a pair from a Sen-Dure dealer in Alabama. $29.00 each seemed quite reasonable given that they'll keep that hot coolant from drooling into the bilge while we're underway.

Before we left the boatyard on Sunday afternoon, we had to check out the boats and the river. The Connecticut River freezes often during the winter and it's necessary to put lines around the pilings (called spiles in this neck of the woods) to keep them from floating away if the ice pulls them out. It was a nice calm afternoon to get started on that job.

This winter, the boatyard is storing more than 220 boats, the most  they have ever had before. Our best guess is that when money isn't as readily available as it was three or four years ago, there's value in storing at a place that allows you to work on your boat.  The boats aren't small ones either. This Choy Lee is 50 feet long.

Sailboaters have also found this good place to store.  This one is actually in the driveway.

Some boat owners like to create a nice dry workshop over their boat so they can work in relative comfort.

We've had a boat here for 24 years, and it still looks odd to see the docks empty. All of those docks will be coming out of the water too over the next two weeks.

With all the boats finally out of the water, it's time for the holiday decorations. Looks good to us.