TBarCYa
Senior Chief Petty Officer
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2005
- Messages
- 781
I figured out that the 318 in my 1971 Concorde is fresh water cooled and the cooling system works very well. We ran her at 22knots for about 5 hours on Sunday and the temperature stayed on the lower side of normal all day. I couldn't be happier.
What I found on Monday when I removed the cap from the tank is that the coolant is very dark. Almost as tho it's mixing with raw water. There is still coolant in the system as I can see the green fluid mixed in with the dark fluid, there's no water in the oil and she seems to run very well. Also, there's no sign that I'm losing coolant from anywhere including the overflow tank. Oh, and when I did the hygrometer test it passes to -20 in some spots but only +5 in others.. When the coolant in the hygrometer is dark, the reading is on the +5 side. It's a 50/50 mix of coolant and water.
So my question is... Does this sound like a bad heat exchanger or possibly something more complicated?
A weird thing that did happen during the trips is that the underside of the hatches has some black dust that I can't seem to identify or find the source. It's on the underside of the hatches and the flame arestor is covered with it on the outside. I don't know if it's related, but since it's as weird as the dark coolant, figured it may be relevant.
What I found on Monday when I removed the cap from the tank is that the coolant is very dark. Almost as tho it's mixing with raw water. There is still coolant in the system as I can see the green fluid mixed in with the dark fluid, there's no water in the oil and she seems to run very well. Also, there's no sign that I'm losing coolant from anywhere including the overflow tank. Oh, and when I did the hygrometer test it passes to -20 in some spots but only +5 in others.. When the coolant in the hygrometer is dark, the reading is on the +5 side. It's a 50/50 mix of coolant and water.
So my question is... Does this sound like a bad heat exchanger or possibly something more complicated?
A weird thing that did happen during the trips is that the underside of the hatches has some black dust that I can't seem to identify or find the source. It's on the underside of the hatches and the flame arestor is covered with it on the outside. I don't know if it's related, but since it's as weird as the dark coolant, figured it may be relevant.
