Any tips on how to remove Heat Exchanger on Kohler 5KW ECD

[Ralph vaughn]

Thanks again for everyone's comment about extracting a stuck pencil zinc on my generator Heat Exchanger. After seeing pictures of zinc left in the HE to deteriorate I will be removing my HE and remove the pencil zinc. Does anyone have any tips. It looks like the attaching bolts are easily accessible but not sure about any of the hoses.

Any comments will be appreciated.

Thanks for everyone's help

Ralph

 

[Mark.60]

Just be careful removing the hoses, the hose barbs on the exchanger can be soft copper.

 

[Irie308]

How about circulating some barnacle buster or rydlime to eat up the leftover zinc? Would save you a ton of time and work.

 

[dtfeld]

If you going to pull it, hoses are always tough. You need a heat gun, a hose removal tool, and a good pair of gloves.

Heat the hoses all around until really hot (almost smoking) use the hose puller and gloved hand to pull them off.

If your in Salt water recirculating rydlym would kill 2 birds with 1 stone, especially if you don't know the units condition.

Heat and soap helps them go back together.

 

[Ralph vaughn]

If you going to pull it, hoses are always tough. You need a heat gun, a hose removal tool, and a good pair of gloves.

Heat the hoses all around until really hot (almost smoking) use the hose puller and gloved hand to pull them off.

If your in Salt water recirculating rydlym would kill 2 birds with 1 stone, especially if you don't know the units condition.

Heat and soap helps them go back together.

How about circulating some barnacle buster or rydlime to eat up the leftover zinc? Would save you a ton of time and work.

How about circulating some barnacle buster or rydlime to eat up the leftover zinc? Would save you a ton of time and work.

 

[Ralph vaughn]

how do I introduce barnacle buster to the Heat Exchanger. How long before it deteriorates the zinc rod? Do I need to flush it out of the system?

I have no clue how to do this.

 

[dtfeld]

how do I introduce barnacle buster to the Heat Exchanger. How long before it deteriorates the zinc rod? Do I need to flush it out of the system?

I have no clue how to do this.

Its a simple as pouring some in an letting it sit for a period of time. So you could pull the inlet and out let hoses, get as much water as possible out, and fill the unit up and let it sit for and hour or two (maybe more depending on the level of growth/scale. Once you think its cleaned up to your liking, connect the hoses and start the generator and let raw water finish up.

Read up here --> https://www.apexengineeringproducts.com/

I use rydlyme to clean up aftercooler anodes. The heads bolts are stainless steel, and I just throw the mostly used up anodes into a solo cup of Rydlyme and it eats the old material away. Takes several hours, but leaves clean threads ready to accept new anodes.

 

[Irie308]

I forget the setup on the kohler, but if you can loop the input and output hoses of the raw water side of the HE you can just circulate the mixture from a bucket. Screw back in the brass portion of the broken zinc to plug the hole. Probably a few hours of circulating should eat it up and clean up the rest of the HE as well.

 

[Ralph vaughn]

Thanks David. On my Koehler 5k the outlet line is wedged in back of the HE which means I will have to remove the HE unit to access the outlet hose.
What do you think about using an ez-out and a reverse drill bit to get out the pencil Zinc?

Thanks for you help

Ralph

 

[Ralph vaughn]

Thank again everyone for all of your helpful remarks.

Ralph

 

[Tacoma290]

I pulled my Heat Exchanger (HX) when I needed to replace the exhaust manifold. It takes time but is doable. Perhaps there is a smarter way, but here is how I did it.

All the hoses came off fine by using something like this (it is called a cotter pin puller but I use it for loosening the hoses from barb fittings):

Access to the 4 bolts that anchor the HX to the manifold was tight but accessible. I have a set of long and stubby gear wrenches that were used:

The real challenge was getting the clearance to get deal with the thermostat. The thermostat protrudes enough into the manifold enough that the HX cannot come off. It is constrained by the electrical box that is to the right of the HX.

The solution is to get more play from the electrical box next to the HX. Take off the lid. There are 2-3 zinc plated nuts within the electrical box that need to be pulled. And the bolts on the sides of the electrical box need to be pulled. Finally, there is also a stud that holds an electrical junction (left hand side, top of the box) that needs to be pulled. Once you have done that, you should be able to apply pressure to the electrical box to the right and pull the HX and thermostat.
Good luck!

 

[pyro]

This video might help visualize it.

Cut the bottom hose off and just replace it. It's impossible to re-use. So easy to just cut it off and replace with new standard radiator hose (I forget the size).

 

[Ralph vaughn]

Thanks Pyro and Tacoma290. Great information for my upcoming project

Ralph