[C320-list] Coolant mixing with raw water

[Marianne and Kevin Waterbury]

With the help of this association I’ve found how my coolant was able to get into my muffler then out the exhaust.
When I had some friends over to look at the motor we could still find no leaks and it was determined it was probably the head gasket. This was more then I felt comfortable replacing, so I went looking for a mechanic. After a week one called me back. He came down and took the heat exchange tank home to test it, the initial result was no leaks.
After leaving the tank out in the sun for a few hours to heat it up he tested it again and found a small crack had opened and was allowing coolant to pool in one of the exhaust ports. I ordered a new tank and gaskets from parts4engines, a British company(I had them in less then 48 hours) and it was a quick fix. I want to thank Dave for his great pictures and instructions on removing the tank. All in all I feel pretty lucky it wasn’t worse, and it was good to find out I wasn’t alone in trying to figure this thing out.
Thanks 
Kevin Waterbury
Harvest Moon hull #111

> On Jun 28, 2019, at 10:07 AM, Marianne and Kevin Waterbury <water23 at optonline.net> wrote:
> 
> Thank you again for all the good advice and ideas everyone has been sending, what a great group. With the absence of coolant in the blige I’m leaning toward and hoping my problem is with the tank. I had the heat exchanger tested at a radiator shop and it was found to be tight with no leaks. On Thursday evenings I race with a group on L.I. Sound, and I brought my problem up with several folks that know a lot more about motors than I do. A few seemed to think it could be a gasket inside the motor, over the weekend we are going to take off the coolant tank and start looking at and testing the system. I’ll inform the group our results.
> Thanks
> Kevin Waterbury
> Harvest Moon hull #111
> 
>> On Jun 27, 2019, at 6:21 PM, Troy Dunn <troutwarrior at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> My vote is for small leaks inside the heat exchanger.   The combination of
>> high pressure on the freshwater side and the Venturi effect on the raw
>> water side is likely to drain your coolant very rapidly, and at an
>> accelerating pace as you lose more coolant and the fresh water side starts
>> to get super heated.
>> 
>> I wonder if you might need to do a couple of flushes of the block once you
>> figure this out in case any raw water...hopefully not saltwater...got into
>> the block as the engine cooled back down...that could be pretty bad.
>> 
>> Troy Dunn
>> Hull #514
>