Oil coolers fell apart

May want to grab the hoses of your oil cooler and give them a good yank.

Underway today the one on the assistance towboat fell apart. Discovered it after the engine temp shot up to 225 and the alarm was sounding. I had only been underway less than 5 minutes and most of it at no wake speed on the gasoline 454 engine.

Troubleshooting drove me nuts for about 10 minutes as nothing I checked seemed to be wrong...then when tracing the hose from the strainer to the oil cooler and forward (it's kinda under the port exhaust manifold so hard to see)...there hanging in mid air was the hose with just the end cap still in the hose but completely free from the cooler.

No corrosion or sign of leaks on the cap (cooler gets replaced later tonight)...like it was just pressed on with a little permatex sealant...pretty weird as the 2 replacement ones have visible solder in the crevice. That cooler was put in the boat in march of 2009 so the 5 year lifespan of those cheaper coolers proved true in this case.

Luckily got a tow from a passing friend the 500 yards back to the dock and within the hour and a piece of 1 inch PVC sawn of a junk piece of PVC laying around the boatyard to bypass the cooler and I was off on my way again....

psneeld said:

Luckily got a tow from a passing friend the 500 yards back to the dock.

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Only 500 yards should have minimized the slight embarrassment of the tow boat getting towed in.

Reminds me of a time I pulled a State Patrolman out of a snowy ditch with my 4x4 and he said, "don't tell anyone...."

Boydski said:

Only 500 yards should have minimized the slight embarrassment of the tow boat getting towed in.

Reminds me of a time I pulled a State Patrolman out of a snowy ditch with my 4x4 and he said, "don't tell anyone...."

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No embarrassment to me thankfully, like most long term assistance guys...few people around here don't know me and what I can do, plus most were offering a hand any way they could.

First time towed back to the marina in 12 years and had my friend not been there...in another 15 minutes I would have had her running with cannibalized parts from onboard....I usually like systems that share the same sized parts as you never know when one may come in handy.

Anyway..the chances of your public life not showing up on facebook these days is pretty slim...a fact of life these days...

Anyway, the point of the thread is that slightly short of throwing bowling balls at your engine, dowsing it with salt water and throwing lightning bolts at it...you never know what may stop you dead in your tracks one day...hopefully your day turns out as happy as mine did.

Felt good to see most giving me the thumbs up when I got underway so quickly on my own....they know what towboat to trust...

Good story.. I think the so called "heavy duty" coolers are worth the extra money as are cu-ni tubes. The HD coolers are good for 375 instead of 150psi and have MUCH better end caps on them. SeaKamp makes a great cooler and all theirs 3" and up are HD as standard. 2" HD are also available but not standard.

There are some crap coolers out there. Good advice above^^.

You should have told your buddy to tow you in from the stern. At least if somebody took a picture it looks like your doing the towing.

My buddy used to have a pair of 454s in his dive charter. They were crusaders and actually amazing good engines. But every time something unexpected acted up, he'd get this nasty sparkle in his eyes. I swear he would channel Robert Shaw as Quint and just nudge the throttles just a tad further. We always made it back to the dock though.

ghost said:

You should have told your buddy to tow you in from the stern. At least if somebody took a picture it looks like your doing the towing.

My buddy used to have a pair of 454s in his dive charter. They were crusaders and actually amazing good engines. But every time something unexpected acted up, he'd get this nasty sparkle in his eyes. I swear he would channel Robert Shaw as Quint and just nudge the throttles just a tad further. We always made it back to the dock though.

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This 454 gas engine has certainly disproved just about every theory of taking care of, babying, overpropping, normal life in hrs, etc...etc...an engine people come up with.

The only thing that's worked it run it hard and run it a lot!