One of the great things that came to us when we purchased this boat was the experience of the yacht broker who arranged the sale.  Joel has a vast store of information about how these boats are put together, and the best way to use and take care of them. He is happy to share that information with his customers.

By email I asked him a question about our engine installation.  After answering that, he mentioned that I might want to look closely at the transmission cooler.  They had a history of corrosion and if they corroded to the point of failure, the engine room could fill up with seawater.  Not a good thing!

The other day we drove a bit to get a new cooler, and I spent most of today in the engine room getting the old one out and the new one in, after a few modifications.

Sure enough, the old one was badly corroded!  All on the inside.  The outside looked just fine.  Thanks again to Joel for the heads up on this!

The new and the old…

As you can see from the picture, several parts of the old cooler have lost a lot of metal compared to the new one.  Sharp eyed viewers might notice a hole in the new one.  I drilled and tapped a hole to take a zinc anode which will hopefully reduce or eliminate the corrosion in this part in the future.

New cooler modified with zinc installed.

Here is the new cooler, modified to take a zinc anode, ready to install on the boat’s transmission.  Now, instead of changing a $200 transmission cooler because it has corroded, I can change a $2 zinc.  Getting this project done took most of a day, but it  will help us follow the first, and most important, rule of sailing, “Keep the water out of the boat!”