rydlym

[05bill]

can one simply closs raw water supply, add 3-4 gallons of rydlym and let sit in engine for 1-1.5 hours and flush out ? it isn't as good as circulating but is if effective ?

05bill

 

[Nighthawk]

can one simply closs raw water supply, add 3-4 gallons of rydlym and let sit in engine for 1-1.5 hours and flush out ? it isn't as good as circulating but is if effective ?

05bill

much more effective to circulate it, considering the cost of Rydlyme it makes sense to invest in a little circulation rig. Several years ago I made one (similar to those bucket oil changers) except I drilled a hole in the bucket near the bottom and installed a pvc ball valve. A few hose fittings and some hose and you have a nice rig that really works. Ideally you jump into the SW side of your engine at the first cooler inlet and have the return from the outlet of the last cooler. You also need to pull all your zincs as they will get eaten by the acid. Also the supply line to a shaft seal if so equipped needs to be blanked/plugged as you will dump Rydlyme out the seal there. Remember, you don't flush through the raw water pump, jump in right after the pump.

To answer your question though, yes if you just drained the SW side and then filled with Rydlyme you would accomplish some cleaning.....just not the ideal way to do it. What happens is say for example you have some shell pieces in one location, the Rydlyme there will eat the shells as much as the amount of acid sitting in that area can but will most likely be expended before the job is done. In 50% of your SW loop there may be no hard build-up so the acid sitting there is just being wasted. Flushing it in a loop is much better.

If you are going to just try a soak versus a circulation, I would suggest this. Just drain the fresh water cooler (one cooler) and fill it with Rydlyme and let it sit a couple of hours. That cooler will always give you the most bang for the buck compared to oil coolers, fuel coolers, gear coolers and air coolers. The challenge is filling the entire tube bundle 100%. Using zinc threaded connections would work depending on location on the cooler.

 

[BillD]

Below are a copule of 2009 posts by Tony Athens. The bottom post was a response to a question on a QSC.

For what it's worth,

Bill D


Tony Athens: Circulating a 10:1 mix of HCL thru the raw water side of your engine for a few hours to overnight can do a very good job--Remove all the zincs first--RYDLYME (Google it) does the same thing and has a good web site and supoport that will also do an 1st class job.. Same stuff with some perfume.. Tony

Tony Athens: Frank, I am not exactly sure what you did but NEXT time ,( and for others), NEVER use acid of any type on the air or fin side of the after cooler.. And when you do use HCL, mix 10:1 with water.. Use it only on the salt water side--cap one end, stand it up and fill up the tubes--takes about 20-30 minutes to do a real good job removing calcium, etc., from the ID of the tubes after a mechanical cleaning with a rod to remove the big pieces........ The fins are very delicate ( very thin) and pure copper does not do well in straight HCL, and even at 10:1 unless it was soaked for a short time which can be marginally OK to remove surface crud only.. Most reading you do with HCL and copper may say different, but I also do not think most writings on this subject does not take into account that we are talking .020"-.030" thick copper foil and solder and/ or roller forming to end caps of an unknown alloy or quality.. Keeping it (10:1 or using something like Rydlyme) in the Cu-Ni tubes only, does has no potential bad side effects. After that we always use soda ash with water for the 100% neutralization of the core/crevices, etc... Cleaning the air side should normally be done with a solvent or spray brake cleaner when really oily and followed up with a serious rinse with some type of water based cleaner with hot water, and/or Ultrasonic cleaning................ As to the silicone strips, an engineer´s wet dream at best.. If and when I catch my breath, I´ll add a bunch to my aftercooler maintenance article and bring it up to date... Tony

 

[05bill]

thank you, i do it every year. and i change my fresh water side every 3-4 yrs. i dont circulate the rydlym, but i hope that it is getting enough of the crap out of it.

thanks for the reply's.

05bill