Warbird gets new heat exchanger

Warbird, recently acquired by George Streadwick, ex-owner of Voila (1998-2003) gets fitted with the 2nd heat exchanger ever done for the Bukh DV 10. Warbird's engine had never seen salt water, and George was keen that it never would. As one would expect, the 2nd installation of this innovation was better than the first. Biggest improvement was mounting the Heat Exchanger to the two vertical 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" tubular aluminum columns each side of the steps at the front of the engine. Voila had mounted her's on the engine angle steel mounting unit where it experienced substantial vibration and made it difficult to prevent the wearing of the cushioning between the HE and the mounting brackets. Warbird's installation was so nice, that Voila followed with the modification to the same. Warbird's install turned out really sweet. San Juan Engineering custom built the Heat Exchanger for $289, and a new Johnson pedestal mounted impeller pump was found on Ebay for $180. I machined the two pulleys and made up the mounting brackets using 3/16" x 3" x 3" angle aluminum. Again we relied on the engine's own female threaded bosses on the port side of the engine, though one of the bosses used is not tapped at the factory (but is there) and we had to tap that to 8mm to take up the mounting.


Plumbing arrangement


Edited by frfletch - 10 September 2013 at 4:05pm

Sweat installation. Is the boat again "WarBird"?

Got a post about reregistering on the forum. Bills e-mail adress came up as a link to some third party. I enjoy the forum and offering what I can in tips or advice (mostly bad) and hope to stay a member.

Wicked (fka WarBird)

WarBird wrote: Got a post about reregistering on the forum. Bills e-mail adress came up as a link to some third party. I enjoy the forum and offering what I can in tips or advice (mostly bad) and hope to stay a member.

Edited by Bill Layton - 10 September 2013 at 11:16pm

We have been using antifreeze that does not specify dilution. I suspect similar as to what goes in most cars or other diesel engines. I'm not sure of the name. I think my HE has been installed for 3 or 4 years and I've only done a complete flush once, and that was when I just took it off to convert the mounting to be similar to Warbird's. Last weekend I had to motor both two and from a regatta that was 3 hrs 15 minutes each way, and now there is no vibration on the HE. Before, when mounted on the engine, the vibration kept wearing down the padding between the HE and its mounting cradle, no matter what kind of padding I used it tried to ware through it. That is why I went to the mouldable polyurethane this time, but I'm finding that it is probably overkill, since there is no such vibration in the new position.

Winner wrote: Frank you should consider selling these as kits for people to retrofit to their boats.  Very useful for the salties.

I have thought of making these into kits, and if a sufficient number of owners show interest, I could prepare a number of these.   Indeed it is a useful conversion for the "salties" and will go a long way to extending the life of our little Bukhs. As with most things that apply to our little boats, if we applied marine-yard labor rates to the various projects we do to keep our boats "up-to-scratch", we would all have $100,000 Lasers! On the other hand, I enjoy such projects at least as much as sailing and am happy to assist anyone who want to convert their boats. I could easily prepare shop drawings and specifications for the conversion. The brackets can be made with a hacksaw, file, drill, and a bench vice. The pulleys need the use of a lathe, but are simple to machine and any little shop could make them. The two conversions I have done I did as one-offs and much time was spent in thinking and experimenting. However, now refined, templates could be made of the brackets and this would speed their making.

Thanks for your suggestion and compliments to the project.