I previously removed the aftercoolers from my Cummins engines to do the recommended service. While removing the aftercoolers, I noticed a leak at one of the freshwater cooling hoses on another part of the engine, so I removed that, too. It turns out that rust had built up between the the hose and the stainless steel hose fitting to the point that coolant could slowly squeeze by at a rate of about one drip per week. I used a wire wheel to clean up the rust and then sanded all of the parts in preparation for coating with Devoe 235. Along the way, I reaffirmed my belief that the regulatory nanny state has taken over.
Rusty stainless and a very slow drip
Rust allowed coolant to pass
Cummins paint strategy: only hit what can be seen
Time for some sanding
Sanded, suspended, and ready for coating
Engine room steps will finally get coated, too
Sanded and suspended aftercooler end caps
I ran out of white Devoe 235 epoxy when I installed the engines over the winter. So when I made the Engine room steps, I wasn’t able to coat them immediately. Devoe is an excellent epoxy primer/topcoat for metal surfaces, and it’s super tough. 235 is “surface tolerant,” which means it sticks tenaciously to surfaces even if the prep work isn’t 100%. It’s also approved for submerged uses. It’s also semi-gloss, so as long as it’s not exposed to sunlight it works as a topcoat, too. At $53 per gallon kit, it’s also very economical. I called the local distributor I used to buy from only to hear that they no longer carry it. Then I discovered that Devoe’s website is out of date, and none of the local distributors and dealers listed carry that line anymore. I found some places online that sell it, but our nanny state Department of Transportation regulations require Devoe epoxy coatings to be shipped as hazardous material. The shipping costs to move a $58 gallon of primer 200 miles was $198!
So I sent emails off to Devoe headquarters and eventually got a response indicating there’s a supplier in Baltimore: Budeke’s Paint. The shipping costs were, once again, absurd, so I got in my car and made the round trip. Think about that for a minute–nanny state regulators want to protect the environment and make sure everyone is safe, so they require special placards on trucks (because placards are demonstrated to keep people safe from epoxy paint) and special driver licenses for commercial drivers who operate the trucks (but they drive exactly the same as everybody else), and special pieces of paper filed by otherwise unnecessary workers, all of which makes the cost of shipping a gallon of epoxy primer ridiculously expensive. The silly regulations and associated costs inspired me to drive my car 90 miles–which, of course, the nanny state regulators have told us is bad for the environment. So what was the point of that regulation, exactly, with respect to single gallons of paint?
They call it socialism/communism when the collective (via the government) controls the means of production (AKA shops, stores, factories, and other businesses). By “control,” the conventional definition means “own.” But I have come to the conclusion that here in the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave,” where we have more regulations than any other country on earth (more than a million at the federal level alone), the private sector has been almost completely taken over by the regulatory state. We are listed as the owners of businesses but it’s the regulators who decide how they shall be run, and they don’t care if the regulations are self-defeating and have unintended consequences. I keep these things in mind every time an election rolls around.
OK, rant over.
Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Installing Cleaned Up Cummins Parts
1969chriscraftroamer46 