[Anonymous]

I recently noticed blue water coming from the brass nuts on the inlet and outlet on the calorifier. Both nuts had cracked (very seasonal for Christmas!). I replaced them today and filled up the header tank, however I need to bleed the system somehow. Is it just a matter of running the engine and topping up the header tank or is there a bleed position somewhere in the circuit?

Cheers,

David

[Anonymous]

I’m not aware of a “bleed valve” for this… and if you are going to run the engine make sure that the header tank lid is open to allow the eascape of any air as well as being able to top us the mixture (remember the coolant / anti freeze!) – otherwise it will pressurise the system and potentially just create / move the air block.

Another way of doing this without running the engine is to “pump” the top hose manually a few times and this should have the desired effect, again remember to open the header tank!

[Anonymous]

My advice would be to simply use the yacht under engine as normal and top up the header tank as required.

I suggest this because when I bought Bubble in the summer, one of the bits of maintenance I did was to drain the antifreeze (the plug was a pig to remove!), flush the cooling system several times then refill with the genuine (green) VP antifreeze, diluted with deionised water (not tap water). All went well but I had that depressing feeling that the level in the header tank was falling over time.

As I recall, it definitely fell a bit initially without running the engine then after each trip, when engine was used, it went down more. I panicked because the level was not very high before I changed everything. I spent a long time reading all the postings I could find and worried about a blown head-gasket, leaking heat-exchanger etc. I even sourced and purchased a new sealing ring for the funny pressure cap through which the pipe to the header tank runs.

I never fitted the new sealing ring because after a week or two the level seemed to settle. I have not added any more coolant for several months, in spite of regular use (including today!).

So I suspect the issue is simply air in the clarifier’s heating matrix which takes a while to be blown through.

I hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Many thanks for these helpful replies.

David

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