closed cooling heat exchanger


F

Formula Tenn

New member
the heat exchangers on my 8.2l inboard v-drives are located at the front of the motor which means it's really hard to access them to check or add coolant. some engines have them located on the back of the motor. i wonder what would be involved in moving them from the front to the back??
 
a bunch of work ;D

Honestly, my buddies sea ray has the same setup...we looked at moving...wow, what a job.

sure it is possible...but we just bought him a cheap inspection mirror and that took care of that problem for $12
 
seeing it ain't the problem. when the deck hatch is raised, the exchangers are located at the front of the engines (remember, i'm the black sheep here. i have v-drives). the exchangers and the caps are under the back deck and about 3 inches below. not to bad to take the caps off but adding fluid is a real pain. until someone comes up with a solution i guess i'll deal with it :( i can't imagine why Formula didn't locate these differently. these boats are so well laid out imo. it appears as if they purchased the drives and installed them without any thought to this access. i was looking at a Seabag the other day (please keep your comments nice ;D) and the exchanger was located at the back of the engine. i thought "man, that would be cool cause then i could actually get to it real easy". i was only looking at the Seabag cause someone asked me to. i only have eyes for Formula :-*
 
On my last boat getting to the heat exchangers was a real pain. To top up coolant I bought myself a 1 gallon plastic pump up sprayers from the hardware store. The kind with a hose that you would use to spray weed killer or whatever. Fill it with coolant, pump it up open the spray nozzle all the way so it pours instead of sprays,put it into the fill and pull the trigger. Cost me 10 bucks I think.
 
What about moving the exchangers to the sides? I have seen that and it gives quite a bit more room.All this would take is longer hoses.
 
i also looked at that option but it would really hamper access to the bilge. there is already a heat exchanger located at the back of my engines (coolers for the v-drives i believe) but they flow raw water not anti-freeze. i was thinking about trying to swap the front to the rear and the rear to the front but i think that might prove to be way more difficult than it looks. i'll just go with the garden sprayer idea. it suits me very well - easy and cheap!! i'm still trying to decide if i should pull out all the heat exchangers and give them a good cleaning to be sure they aren't clogged or restricted but no one has given me any advice as of yet :( suggestions??
 
Tenn,

I had a boat buddy with a 34 ft Sea Ray Sundancer w/V-drives that had the same issue. His solution was to cut 2: hatches in the big hatch in order to gain access to the heat exchangers. He did a pretty good job with it and it looked "factory" when he was done.

I'm not sure how yours is laid out and if that would work for your boat...just an idea.

My last big boat was a Sea Ray 40' Express with straight shafts...real simple and easy to get to. I have owned 4: Formulas and one Sea Ray and believe me...I'm a Formula Man. I did look at a Formula PC..35' ...about an '89 model that had 454's and V-Drives...scared the bejeezus out of me!! Sea Ray had a big edge on us 25 years ago with 30 foot and larger but I think Thunderbird has not only caught the "Rays" but out done 'em by a stretch in the past 10 years.

I will admit though that I still have a bad case of the "want its" for a '95~98 Sea Ray 46' 'Dancer with 3120 Cats.
 
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