Heat Exchanger Failuer

As long as it has a similar surface area any thing will do the job

 

Dish washing liquid is great for breaking oil up

 

This happened to my car about 2 years and 4000km before I got it, they did all the clean /drain stuff at a dealership, it cost a fortune to rectify at the time, then I picked the car up from Melbourne and drove it to Sydney 900km in a day ,you should have seen the sludge in the expansion tank the next day, I nearly passed out as I read about this problem thinking it had just happened, I drove to my mechanic and we went through the wad of invoices to find it had been fixed beforehand and then he suggested that the big drive was the best thing for the car, even though the system had been thoroughly flushed it didn’t properly remove the transmission fluid lining the hoses but the long drive properly flushed it all into the expansion tank.
We flushed the system twice again and it’s been clean since but I still get diff chatter on reversing and slow down hill rolling in second but it’s been fine for nearly 4 years now and the clutch is nudging 34,000km so at 122500km ,so far so good

 

Current situation
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Just ordered the parts from Europe. Those rubber cups are about $200 each at eurospares.

A more digestible price.

 

Definitely an A/C compressor leaking

And looks like you’re getting new motor mounts (not yet reattached to the frame and the engine)...



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That's where I got mine; and it only took 4 days to get to San Diego. However, I'm uncertain that I even needed them. My old ones were virtually indistinguishable from the new ones in terms of pliability.

 

I just had a major done and motor mounts
And yes the ac unit took a dump . Would love if someone for the life of me can post a delphi part number.

 

I was combing through these threads today and could not find any pictures of a failed heat exchanger...

Given the unknown history of my car and doing a major service at 40,000 miles I decided to take a look at my heat exchanger "while I was there." Additionally, having just rebuilt my LSD, I did not want to have an exchanger failure filling it with coolant! After extraction, a couple of observations and a new alternate theory of failure.

1) there are some, what I would call, large metal chips from machining in the water side.
2) my car seemed to have a considerable amount of black sludge in the transmission oil. I decided to clean both the oil side and water side. Initially, the paint thinner did not want to flow through the oil side which was worrisome!

I now wonder if the cause of heat exchanger failure is not due to corrosion from the water side, but due to pressure buildup on the oil side from lack of flow, causing it to burst into the water? I would be curios to see a if that is how it occured on failed exchangers.

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This wahsed out of one of the tubes!
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I am going to thuroughly clean and inspect both sides before reinstallation and make sure the oil side flows.

 

See if any local shops have some carbon cleaning liquid and fill up the oil side, be sure you have good ventilation as it stinks. let it soak a few days and see what you get out.
I did an explanation re tube failures on another thread- leakage of this type of tube cooler is common ships where we have lots of these, they generally leak in the first part of the tube at the water inlet end- caused by a form of cavitation which removes the zinc molecules from the alloy used to make the tubes. We call it de- zincafication
If the water velocity is too high then you get turbulence in the tube inlet and cavitation. Your water velocity depends on your style of driving so if you drive at low revs you may not get a problem etc.
No way will the oil pressure rupture the tube unless it is thinned by the water, as its in compression.

 

I suspect that the problem is simple. Owners would rather look at it in the garage and think “I have a ferrari” than actually drive the car for fear of loosing value. Acidic degradation of either side of the aluminum exchanger leading to failure. 68k miles on mine with no failure on my euro.

 

Is that a 360 or a 430

 

360.

 

I was wondering as it looks like a brass / bronze cooler

 

Mine is an earlier car.. when I had it apart with a scope it looked aluminum from the inside..

 

Has it got baffle plates on the oil side to direct the flow ?

 

I believe it does. I opened mine up after replacement and there are half circle baffles the length of the oil side to encourage longer path oil flow. The exchanger hadn't failed but I replaced it as a precaution. Fortunate I did, the oil side was near completely blocked with black grainy crud (I guess LSD wear material).

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/transmission-oil-water-heat-exchanger-autopsy.595055/

 

It does not surprise me, the crud as you call it will be carbon from the combustion, it will come out of the hot oil as it hits the cooler tubes. We used to circulate carbon cleaner in the big ships coolers to remove this stuff. The modern plate coolers can be opened up and both sides of the plates cleaned.
To clean yours you would need to pump the solution through at a fair rate to break it up, might be an idea to think about putting some STP engine oil flush in the sump for 15 mins before you change the oil and that should stop it building up.

 

What combustion?? It's the gearbox oil cooler. No combustion inside gearbox.

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I am not with it this week, 2 nd time i picked something up wrong in last few days- do u think i might be loosing it.

 

Thanks for that great link! I am surprised I did not find that with the search.
I think that is exactly what is going on in my exchanger. This weekend I was flushing it out and black crud/particles kept coming out. I eventually put it in an ultrasonic cleaner 4 times for 10 minutes with Simple Green cleaner, then a DI water, and now drying. At $900 I don't want to throw it away if it's still good.

 

I think they're cheaper from Eurospares, but I recommend getting a new one if yours is original. The cost of a failure is potentially an order of magnitude more than $900!

 

It has occurred to me also that I am slowly losing my mind but for the love of God I can't remember why.
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I asked god and he said i was more crackers than you are. We better both be cautious of men coming in white coats and a van with bars on the windows

 

guys this does happen to F430's as well? or only a 360 thing?