The still holding exchanger is not ugly - it is decoupaged into art! So glad you now have a backup! I learned a lot regarding the use of epoxy with fabrics. Thank you.
So we just replaced it today. It failed just today and filled our bilge with rusty water again. When we heard the bilge pump going off we knew we knew exactly what it was. But hey, it lasted nearly a month! I think that the elbow pin hole repair failed not the fabric wrapped epoxy section. (the woven plastic fabric we used was from a bag of rice) There was green around the elbow by the pin hole. During the repair it was difficult to get the epoxy all the way in the elbow. I think we're going to fix it again and keep it as a spare. It might even have been another pinhole that elbow has sections that are thin as paper. But now that we have a new one in with a zinc and grounded I'm sure it will last a good long while. As a note, you don't need to have the heat exchanger near the engine. You can run hoses anywhere and put it in a more accessible place so we are going to investigate that in the future. A note about the hydraulic line: Not only did I use epoxy coated cloth, but under the cloth I put a layer of wire cross wrapped around the failing hose first. It took quite a bit of wire to wrap the hose about 3-4 inches on each side of the blow out. I was pretty upset when it failed later, but then, I saw it failed in a different area not the repair. Epoxy is tough stuff.
The still holding exchanger is not ugly - it is decoupaged into art! So glad you now have a backup! I learned a lot regarding the use of epoxy with fabrics. Thank you.
So we just replaced it today. It failed just today and filled our bilge with rusty water again. When we heard the bilge pump going off we knew we knew exactly what it was. But hey, it lasted nearly a month! I think that the elbow pin hole repair failed not the fabric wrapped epoxy section. (the woven plastic fabric we used was from a bag of rice) There was green around the elbow by the pin hole. During the repair it was difficult to get the epoxy all the way in the elbow. I think we're going to fix it again and keep it as a spare. It might even have been another pinhole that elbow has sections that are thin as paper. But now that we have a new one in with a zinc and grounded I'm sure it will last a good long while. As a note, you don't need to have the heat exchanger near the engine. You can run hoses anywhere and put it in a more accessible place so we are going to investigate that in the future. A note about the hydraulic line: Not only did I use epoxy coated cloth, but under the cloth I put a layer of wire cross wrapped around the failing hose first. It took quite a bit of wire to wrap the hose about 3-4 inches on each side of the blow out. I was pretty upset when it failed later, but then, I saw it failed in a different area not the repair. Epoxy is tough stuff.