Is Vinegar Good for Desalinating Purposes ?

Sea Rider

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Sep 20, 2008
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Scenario: It's a 2 stroke Yam 85 HP motor with 5 years use from out of the box, was having repeated overheating issues and sensor temp kicking in to lower the rpm when at speed. Has been flushed after returning to terra firme occasionally, not religiously on muffs for 5 minutes. Explained the owner that the temp sensor triggering prematurely was due to an excessive salt accumulation on the entire water passages, recommended to remove the thermostat's cover to have a look to check the internal salted condition. Was very reluctant to permit me do so, after some cold ones fully agreed. Definitely Alcohol works miracles.

The issue with removing bolts from a motor that's excessively salted is that can break any bolt's head on the powerhead. With patience managed to remove all 4 thermo housing bolts. The owner almost fell on his back when seeing what was hidden beside the thermo's cover. Pics speak for themselves....

As there's controversy whether the vinegar is effective to which degree to desalt a motor's internal water passages or any of its internal components, have soaked 4 hours ago the thermo's cover in pure vinegar, will check tomorrow morning what happened overnight.

Happy Boating
 

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Sea Rider

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The answer is a Resounding NO, did not even tickle. So had to scrape manually the thermo cover interior, spring and valve the best as possible for more than an hour. One issue is salted, other severely crusted.

The internal thermo housing and pressure valve housing were found extremely salted. Mr. Dremel did a fantastic job scrapping salt crusts with round metal brushes. If both were found that way, can't imagine what the powerhead interior will look like when all the water passages are exposed don't know if in a near or far away future.

Yamaha is scarse on spare parts, so had extreme care when cleaning not to a mint cond the thermo gasket, when it's available will change it at any time.

The fuel system tank to fuel filter has been cleaned and purged, 3 new spark plugs installed, new gear oil, all grounds of all the electrical and electronic components have been removed and polished for a neat electrical contact. The motor is now in a mint looking condition.

Saturday will make a wot test run at full hammer down, hope the temp sensor doesn't kick in prematurely or takes longer to do so in which case the motor needs urgently a complete internal corrective desalination to work and cool as when out of the box....

Happy Boating
 

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robert graham

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Run the motor in a 50 gallon drum of fresh water, keep drum full with garden hose...add a few ounces of muriatic acid to drum.....soon you will see salt/mineral deposits being removed in the form of a white/grey colored foam on surface of drum....water in drum will get hot due to exhaust, so keep adding fresh water with garden hose.....add a few more ounces of acid and observe foam on surface of water in drum. After 30 minutes or an hour of running then add baking soda to water in drum to neutralize acid. The motor internals will be much cleaner and free of salt than before. This may be repeated for more cleaning as required after visual inspection.....I have over 13 years in the water treatment/acid cleaning of HVAC equipment so I know this works. The whole thing is the strength of acid, temperature of water, circulation of acid solution and neutralization with soda or other base.
 

Sea Rider

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Thanks, what about the impeller running in muriatic acid/water mix probably will soften, be degraded ? OK to remove salt layers, what about hardened salt crusts as rocks. HVAC equipent works with salt or fresh water ? The motor owner will flip on his back for a second time when knowing the cleaning procedure involves muriatic acid. LOL!!

Preffer to expose all water passages by removing cylinder head, exhaust cover, thermo cover and lower crankcase gaskets and manually with the aid of Mr. Dremel clean all water passages to perfection. To understand, gaskets are not eternal, very few retorques the whole powerhead after first 10-15 hour use from out of the box.

If not done, there's a great possibility that salt water will make its way between any mating surface and gasket and will jam bolts on their respective threads and depending on the salted condition will break bolt's heads when removed. Personally like to smooth out all mating surfaces and install fresh gaskets which are cheap along being a fun project. The issue is that can take quite long..

Happy Boating
 

robert graham

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We're talking about 50 gallons of water and maybe 8 ounces of muriatic acid.....it will have no effect on rubber impeller, and as long as it's circulated with the motor running it will soften and remove the salt/ mineral deposits.....as mentioned, the heat from the exhaust will help make the mild acid solution more active on deposits......If you have a motor so plugged with salt/calcium/mineral deposits that it won't run without overheating then you can attempt to remove heads, etc. for cleaning( broken bolts/ not a very good overall plan)..... OR you may well want to consider this mild acid clean procedure.....OR consider converting the motor to a mooring anchor....
 

Faztbullet

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This is the best way (above) as I use it (muriatic acid) to clean the salt cell's in my other job pool and spa. Will not hurt plastic or rubber at diluted ratio. Only thing is passage cannot be stopped up as must have some flow thru it so mix can pass thru and state removing buildup.
 

Sea Rider

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The tall inline fuel filter was found with 1/3 capacity full of water, the gas station near the marina where the owner buys fresh fuel has lots of complaints about this issue. Previous spark plug set with less than 40 worked hours on them were found extremely fouled, the top one way more fouled than the lower one, pic speaks for itself.

Seems the thermo was working stuck open for quite a time and the motor working extremely cold which increments carbon deposits on spark plug tips due to a mediocre combustion. Current fuel/oil ratio is 50:1. What find strange is the abnormal amount of carbon built up on plug 1 compared to plug 3. This motor will surely benefit with an urgent long decarbon treatment with CRC Carbon Remover to purr as a kitten.

Went for a long wot run with 4 up on a near flat water course and hurrah, the rev limiter stayed home, the desalted thermo, poppet valve, cover area has contributed for this along increasing the peeing stream way more than before which is excellent.

The motor only achieved 50 Km/hour which is truly disappointing, my 18 HP does + 40 Km/hour with 2 up. The current 3 blade alum OEM Yam prop is way over propped. Have suggested the owner to buy a cheap 3 cylinder induction tach and tach the motor with 4 up and install 1-2 less pitch props to be determined.

Happy Boating
 

Sea Rider

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What's strange is the abnormal amount of carbon built up on plug 1 compared to plug 3. Current fuel/oil ratio is constant is 50:1.

Happy Boating​
 

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w2much

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I realize the post is about internal passages and believe what is posted pretty much. I will add this take it for what it is worth. When disassembling a salty motor I usually throw the screws or bolts into a can of vinegar while working on the motor. By the time reassembly comes I open the can and the bolts are pretty clean. Of course if grease covered the grease is not cleaned but the threads which were salted are. This could just be old habit, true or false. Water may just as well have dissolved the salt but out of habit I use vinegar. I have also run small engines and let them soak in a strong solution of vinegar and fresh water. I have witnessed much more debris coming from the telltale when doing so. Again I am not arguing the findings posted I have learned about a better solution from it, that being muriatic acid. I am no chemist, and not even a trained technician but does vinegar in fact break down salt ? Or am I just following old habit passed down from older than I. Is it the fresh water loosening the crud or is the vinegar helping ?
 

Sea Rider

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Vinegar contents is only 5% aceptic acid, the rest is water. The industrial one is much higher. Are you asking if vinegar breaks down salt ? Will only wash salt layers, if the water passages are highly salt crusted the answer is no. Vinegar is excellent to remove say cylinder head, exhaust covers, thermostat salted bolts. Can be sprayed too in exposed water passages as to dissolve and loosen some of the salt crusts, but for a neat finish will need to manually scrape the rest.

Happy Boating
 

dingbat

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Salts, in chemistry is a substance produced by the reaction of an acid with a base. A salt consists of the positive ion of a base and the negative ion of an acid.

Without going to into the chemistry, the six most abundant ions of seawater are chloride (Cl−), sodium (Na+), sulfate (SO24−), magnesium (Mg2+), calcium (Ca2+), and potassium (K+).

The deposits in your motor are comprised of the following:

Crystallisation fouling. This includes the deposition of calcium carbonate, calcium sulphate and other salts that have a solubility that diminishes with increasing temperature, leading to crystallisation of deposits on the heat exchanger surfaces.

Corrosion fouling. Some metals are oxidised to produce insulating layers of oxides on the .

Biological fouling. A whole range of biological growths form on heat exchanger tubes in seawater. The species attached range from micro-organisms (bacteria, algae) to macro- organisms (mussels, barnacles, etc.

The primary deposits your trying to remove are calcium carbonate, calcium sulphate and aluminum oxide.

White vinegar can’t hurt, but something like CLR or a commercial descaler would be much more aggressive removing the deposits.

Phosphoric Acid is good at removing theses deposits but needs to be used with caution when cleaning aluminum
 

Sea Rider

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Is there anyone that have gone through any process to remove all 6 ions found in seawater with a non mechanical scraping process and willing to tear all the motor's water passages and check how well, poorly or with no avail that procedure worked ? Seeing is Believing with a pic or video...

Check this out :

Draw your own cleaning conclusions..

Happy Boating
 

dingbat

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Nov 20, 2001
Messages
15,414
Is there anyone that have gone through any process to remove all 6 ions found in seawater with a non mechanical scraping process and willing to tear all the motor's water passages and check how well, poorly or with no avail that procedure worked ? Seeing is Believing with a pic or video...

Check this out :

Draw your own cleaning conclusions..

Happy Boating
We clean aluminum cooling jackets used in critical industrial applications all the time with great success. Much smaller, more complicated coolant passages than found on any outboard.

You're dissolving (neutralizing) the compounds via ionic exchange. Simply soaking isn't going to cut it. The solution needs to be circulated through the jacket(s) to facilitate the exchange and the pH of the solution monitored closely for degradation.

The exchange causes the pH of the cleaning media to increase over time. To the point that it stops working and needs to be replenished.

We use a cleaning solution I wouldn't recommend to Harry Homeowner but here is a cleaning solution specific to the problem.


 
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