Black Sand and Coil Cover

[pacer]

Up at Lake Tahoe today, detecting in the water. Early on, everything was going well. Towards the end of the day, my CTX began to act up. Thought my CTX was having a melt down. Simply put, it became erratic to the point I couldn't continue to detect. Decided to call it a day. Arriving home, I do what I always do, began to clean my machine. Got to the point where I remove the coil cover in order to clean the coil. Much to my surprise, upon removing the cover, I found all the recessed areas on the bottom on the coil was literally filled with Black sand. And I mean "literally filled". There wasn't one recessed area on the coil that wasn't filled. Now, this is only a assumption on my part, would be safe to say the Black Sand was what was causing my machine to operate in a erratic fashion?

 

[trojdor]

Yes...absolutely!

I tend to clean out my cover before every hunt for that very reason...not that I have black sand so much as red dirt.

 

[tcornel]

I have seen people put silicone caulking around the coil edges to minimize the issue.

 

[foggynotion]

I finally gave up on the coil covers because of crap getting in them. Now I just do like many others and spray three coats of bed liner spray on the bottom. Works great.
The only coil cover solution I found that held up was to fill all the voids on the coil bottom with clear silicone caulk and then fill the coil cover with caulk and install it. Secure it all around with plastic cable ties and wipe off the extra caulk. I went over a year with it and it held up with no issues. It does make the coil a little heavier.

 

[utahshovelhead]

ID be interested to know how the bed liner works? how long does it last? how heavy or how much weight will it add? I m thinking about it . sound smart what would be the cons?

 

[pacer]

Thanks to everyone for their posts.