[ccjohnson]

Much better than an internal engine issue for sure!

[Nebster]

Agreed, much better than the engine.

An AMU is an Aircraft Monetary Unit. It's pegged at 1:1000 USD.

[Guy]

In watercraft its, "BOAT"
Break out another thousand.....

[Nebster]

It's update time. The "cooling pack" has been removed, and not only is the radiator leaking, but also the charge air cooler. Rather than risk ongoing issues with these after attempting to weld them closed, we will replace both with new cores. Estimated cost for each is about 1.7AMU, plus maybe 4AMU for all the labor.

[encantotom]

thats an expensive fix for sure. the 4AMU sounds high to me to remove and replace them though. i dont think it takes 20 hours to remove and 20 hours to replace them.

tom

[Nebster]

That's definitely a conservative labor figure, but the rate here is something like $150/hr, and there is some labor involved in installing the new cores, apparently.

[ron skeen]

That's definitely a conservative labor figure, but the rate here is something like $150/hr, and there is some labor involved in installing the new cores, apparently.

Who manufactor  Radiator and CAC for Newell in 08? I have used Atlas in Texas who made the originals for both my 96 and 04 which I did replace in both. My 04 coach radiator is now leaking again and I am going to have to remove again and fix. I think Richard has come up with the ideal that the unit are not sitting properly and may need to be shimmed. Hope Richard give you some advice.

[encantotom]

150 and hour is stunningly expensive. wow

tom

[Richard]

This is what Ron is referring to. When I replaced the cac and the radiator I had to install the cac first and slide the radiator under the cac. It was obvious that with the cac bolted in place that the radiator was not parallel and evenly spaced from the cac. Hmmm. The cac bolts from
The top, the radiator bolts from the bottom, but if they don't line up then forcing them
To bolt together is going to stress them both.

I noticed a series of tapped 1/4 20 holes in the bottom frame of the radiator. I used ss bolts in the tapped holes as jacking screws and raised the radiator to meet the cac.

So far, so good.

[Nebster]

Okay, today Newell 1234 is finally out of the shop!

It turns out both the rad and CAC had leaks at the header (I think that is the right word), and since the labor cost along to remove and replace going to be > $4k, I decided to recore both units. It got a little more complicated when the local radiator shop decided to punt on welding up the new CAC -- something about aluminum, mismatches, and not wanting to "be responsible" -- so I had to ship the CAC headers out to Joplin and have them order and install the new CAC.

The radiator was welded up here, and then when the CAC+headers came back, everything was reassembled and reinstalled.

Having had a bunch of conversations with different radiator companies now, my conclusion is: no one understands why they are so poorly engineered, but these radiators fail a lot on a 7 to 10 year interval. I guess I will just have to hope that I don't have to worry about this for another decade.

New CAC core, installation, shipping: 2.86 AMU
New rad core, shipping, installation: 1.8 AMU
Chassis removal, diagnosis, reinstallation: ~5 AMU

They said they could do it again in about half the time, or 2.5 AMU.

So if you have a failed cooling stack on a C-15 Newell and want to replace everything at an expensive shop that hasn't done it before, I suppose you should expect to spend about 9 or 10k.

I will follow up separately on my plans for a much quieter remote radiator fan design for the generator. For now, though, we have to scurry off to Miami for a whole slew of remodeling and other work.