over heating

[joseph m. hahnl]

i took the minx out sat. was running great. temp stayed below 100 degrees
then the expansion bottle fell off. and it starting pissing out the radiator"heat exchanger" expansion port . i put it back on and filled her back up with anti freeze.
she was still running hot @ 150. i opened her up to get the coolant flowwing dropped a little in temp. then all of a sudden "bang" i thought i blew the motor she came of plane was running on only a few cylinders. i shut her down. open the hatch. and steam just pored out. the lower manifold hose burst. i had her towed back to the landing. today i cut off the split reconnected it filled her up with coolant and water. started her up and let her idle. the motor was okay. the wires must have grounded from all the steam and being wet" good thing"
but she started over heating. seams as if the coolant isn't circulating thru the motor. i,m not sure if the thermostat may be obstructed or the water pump orifices in the block may be obstructed. when i fill the heat exchanger it fills very slow ." i"m kind disliking closed cooling about now" i'm sure once i get the bugs out it will be fine. , i am going to take the thermostat out and see if she stays cool.

joe

[MOP]

When you take the Tstat out put in in a pan of water on the stove, it should open while the water is still clear which is just a few moments before the water gets that cloudy look when you heat it. If you had a thermometer in the water you would see it will be very close to 180 just before the cloudiness. Even if it does work OK I always chuck a new one in just to be sure, which I always check prior to installation, they rarely are bad but checking first is cheap insurance.

When everything is cold take off the outlet hose from the sea water start it and see if you have good flow, at idle it should pump about ½ a bucket in about 1 minute. Over heats are tricky most are water delivery or exit problems, you need to start at the source and work through to the risers. F/W cooling adds to the mix, if you run a cooler you should have a strainer in line, you would be surprised just what gets past the pump and stuck in the tubes of the exchanger. Last time out with the Beast I was surprised to find about an inch of weed in my strainer running in the open bay, if it had gotten to my cooler I would have over heated.

Phil