Bringing Coolers Back to Life
By: Leroy Carranza, South Texas Radiator
In February 2026, NARSA South Texas Radiator in Texas worked on a challenging job involving marine grid keel coolers.
These marine coolers came off a tug boat, which helps big barges and ships navigate in and out of the harbor. These were some of the worst we had seen come into our shop with so many barnacles attached to the metal.
Our team at South Texas Radiator brainstormed together on what kind of tools would work best to try and remove all the heavy scales. We purchased a few small handheld reciprocating battery-operated saws and special scraper-type attachments, which worked great.
Once the heavy scale was removed, we then soaked them in a biodegradable marine solution to help remove the rest of it. We also, steam cleaned, pressure washed, internal flushed and tested each one in our 12' X 12' test tank. These were 14' 6" long, so we had to dip each end of the coolers one at a time to test the full length of them.
Very time-consuming, but the turnaround time was a lot quicker than getting new replacements, and not to mention, saved the customer thousands by not having to replace them.
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