Aquahot Antifreeze Leak

[al perna]

Is the Aquahot tied into the S60 coolant ? or are they 2 seperate systems ?

[Bumpersbird]

(04-04-2013 17:26)al perna Wrote:  Is the Aquahot tied into the S60 coolant ? or are they 2 seperate systems ?

Yes, the Aquahot has a pump that circulates hot coolant from the motor to make hydronic heat and hot water, as well as the aquahot can heat the cold engine block, so the coolant can for lack of a better explanation flow in both directions to either heat or scavenge heat

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So if I'm understanding you correctly it's not the filler neck to tank that gives problems, it's the brass cup to filler neck that typically leaks???

That's correct

I'm imagining a steel neck that's around four inches in length and then a brass cup that's maybe half that length,

Got the steel neck part correct, but the brass cup is very shallow. Actually it's flat on the bottom with a very shallow lip 1/4" max. and it's smaller in diameter than the filler tube diameter, you just center as well as you can by eye and solder it on.

and the brass cup is soldered to the top half of the steel neck.

Yes
How does the steel neck attach to the tank? Is it welded or soldered?

Welded it's steel to steel[/i]

If the leak is at the cup to neck interface I may be able to get in there with a small torch...

Possible, Slim Sommerville fix his Aquahot that way[i]

[al perna]

so you could have a Aquahot system leak , and the loss can show up in the engine coolant tank ?

if so why is there a seperate tank for the Aquahot ?

I ask cause i have been trying to track down a loss of coolant for the past 10 k miles or so .

[Bumpersbird]

(04-04-2013 17:51)al perna Wrote:  so you could have a Aquahot system leak , and the loss can show up in the engine coolant tank ?

if so why is there a seperate tank for the Aquahot ?

I ask cause i have been trying to track down a loss of coolant for the past 10 k miles or so .

If the aquahot is leaking you'll know it, because you'll have coolant in the bay or in the aquahot itself but if you noticing a lot of coolant lost a leak at the Aquahot will be obvious. If the lines to and from the aquahot to the engine are leaking there may some telltale signs in one of the bays. My transfer hoses are 18 years old but they looked brand new, so their a good quality hose. I'd start looking for a leak in the motor compartment. Probably just need to tighten some claps but of course that's just a guess and a starting point.

[davidbrady]

Thanks Kurt,

That's great news. I'm headed outside now to give the AH filler neck and cup a good inspection. I'm going to try to repair it in the bus. I've had it out once already and I'm afraid if I take it out again it ain't gonna go back in! I'll find another solution. A while back I was looking at other solutions and someone had a setup that was made of two components. It had a front end that housed the pumps and made connections to all the house and chassis loops, then it had a backend that housed the burner and the boiler. There was a clean interface between the two. It made sense to me. You could remove the boiler without upsetting all the house related plumbing and recirculation pumps, etc.

Al,

The engine preheat/heat loop is in it's own circuit. It doesn't mingle with AH antifreeze. It's another copper loop that wraps around the boiler tank similar to the way the copper domestic fresh water loop wraps around the boiler.

[Bumpersbird]

http://itrheat.com/products/oasis-heatin...16-gallon/

Oasis

http://itrheat.com/products/oasis-heatin...16-gallon/

They are also have low pressure burners which make them quieter and the service schedule is every 5 years not annually like the Aquahot.
I looked hard and long at these, and if I had to buy a unit it would not have been another Aquahot

[Arcticdude]

So besides the nozzle & filter not doing their job, what else might cause one to smoke heavily?

[timetravelers]

One time after I changed the filter & nozzle, I didn't quite get the unit seated right when I put it back together. I didn't get the back swivel bolt into the slot on the main burner housing together right. It would run, but the performance was totally messed up.

[Arcticdude]

I hadn't touched it prior to yesterday evening. It worked great last December, but now does want to fully light. Tons of smoke. I changed the nozzle last night, but can't remember how to get it to fire without a heat demand. I can't seem to get onto Roger's forum to do some poking around there.

[davidbrady]

Now that cold weather is around the corner I can't postpone my aquahot repair any longer.

I unbolted the transfer switch and the domestic fresh water manifold and swung them out of the way: . The fresh water manifold is easier to maneuver once the inlet hot and cold water connections are disconnected: . There's plenty of slack in the PVC domestic water tubing to free up the manifold: . Once everything is out of the way there's plenty of room to access the filler neck: .

After pressurizing the AH boiler to 15 psi and dousing the filler neck with windex it was easy to see bubbles forming at the solder joint leak. I took a wire brush and scrubbed the old solder. I then swabbed the soldered joint with alcohol, applied flux, heated the brass neck with my propane torch and sweated in new solder. The new solder flowed nicely into the fitting. I then repressurized to 15 psi to check for leaks. Pretty simple job - what took me so long!