Jacuzzi J-355 heater 6500-402 leaking

This product has 3 (orange) seals/gaskets near the electrical connections ... Water and Electricity don't mix so this leak is causing the GFI breaker to trip ... all attempts to contact the manufacturer Therm-Product failed due to their broken contact page ... the Heater is rated for 22.9 A at 220 Volts which by ohms law means the element should measure around 10 ohms ... element measures 10.9 ohms ... in Canada, a replacement heater is $500+ which is hard to take for something that should IMHO be repairable

Newer heater products have redesigned the method of interfacing the heater element ... but ... moving to a different heater would require a major rework of the plumbing

Does anyone know of a liquid gasket product (possibly used in the Automotive world) that might be usable with these existing gaskets? Would need to be flexible, heat-resistant, and not eat the existing gasket material

The element gaskets appear to be fine, the main 1" pipe gasket is the one that really needs to be replaced/repaired

Thanks in advance for any useful ideas

 

You can use red RTV silicone safely in that application.
Can't guarantee the seal.
Auto parts and home improvement stores carry it.
Permatex red RTV

Posted picture of newer style element.
Not sure why this one would be a problem.

 

Pete ... no that isn't the heater (I believe that is the heater Jacuzzi is using now) ... the one I have is the J-shaped 1" diam heater ... I actually tried the Permatex Red RTV ... my initial application failed within 5 minutes of turning on the heater and pumps ... after taking it apart, this wasn't a failure with RTV rather it was that the main seal broke during reassembly ... with my second attempt I liberally coated the broken seal AND every possible escape route with RTV on the business end of the heater PLUS let the RTV cure for 48 hours ... the RTV once curred is indistinguishable from the gasket material and did bond to the existing Gaskets which I reused (even the broken one) ... now in process of reheating a freshly filled tub ... fingers crossed

 

The heating element I had posted was the older style. I've changed it to the new style.

 

Thanks again Pete yes that is the heater I have.

update: 1st 12 hours so far tub has heated to full temp with no leaks (touch wood) ... the repair isn't pretty but I will accept this as a $500 in my pocket win (less $12 for the RTV Red) ... the solution involved liberally spreading RTV on all the inner surfaces, the Rubber seals, ALL surfaces that sandwich the seals, PLUS the Pipe entry and exit from the plastic housing. After letting the initial application set for 24 hours I then applied a liberal amount of rtv on all plastic plate joints ... let that cure again for another 24 hours ... if this leaks now I doubt I will be able to do much more.

 

Pete in answer to your question ... the Main Seal (the large one in the first post) was leaking ... the black case has 4 screws that expose the inner housing which has the heater terminals and a Hi-temp Cuttoff switch ... the pipe is held in place with a compression sandwich of 2 plastic plates held together with 4 3" long screws ... the seal appears to have suffered chemical damage ... at one point we were using the floating chlorine puck treatment ... ... never again as this destroyed the impeller on our main pump, along with the tub cover ... our water supplier has since installed a mega-million dollar treatment plant which has reduced our need to use huge amounts of chems to keep our pool clean ... I hit it now with a couple tablespoons of Pool grade Chlorine after each use and that has worked for well now for over 4 years replacing the water once every 6 months.