Re: heater core failure; reading tea leaves post mortem

[farna@xxxxxxx]

(ref. last sentence in attached message) -- not until it rusts through and the whole thing has to be replaced! But that's generally 20+ years down the road. 

On November 22, 2005 Tom Jennings wrote:

> On Nov 22, 2005, at 4:14 AM, farna@xxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> > Sacrificial anodes are as good as tea leaves in a car. In a
> > previous post I put in a link that explains. In a nutshell, it
> > works for marine and under ground pipe applications because the
> > water and soil will pass current and complete the circuit. There's
> > nothing but air around a car, so nothing to complete a circuit. To
> > top that off, rubber tires are an excellent insulator! Notice that
> > you haven't seen an electronic rust inhibitor for cars offered
> > lately? Apparently there is a law against it (federal) because they
> > physically can't work!!
> 
> You're 100% right; sacrificial anodes work, but require a path for
> current flow, eg. a metal boat sitting in water.
> 
> However, you could put a chunk of zinc in the top radiator tank, it
> would help locally, but that's not usually where the problem is, and
> if it is there, then you have some electrical thing grounded to the
> radiator instead of the chassis, and the radiator::chassis connection
> is poor (eg. loose bolts). Electrical cooling fans, it would be very
> bad practice indeed to ground the motor to the radiator!
> 
> Also when the zinc anode gets eaten, the zinc salts need to go
> somewhere -- and you probably don't want a zinc salt additive in the
> radiator juice!
> 
> No one ever changes the anode in domestic hot water heaters, either :-)
> 


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