New to winterizing a cruiser

rh320

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Mar 2, 2018
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Good evening, all. Hoping to find some advice on how best to winterize my 320DA 5.7l v-drives.

This boat is very different from my small bowriders so looking for some solid instructions on how to winterize the boat. Im confident that I can do it just worried I might miss something and cause big and expensive problems.

If you could share the steps and processes that you take to completely winterize your boat that would be great!
 
Start attacking it by individual systems. Generally on a cruiser you will need to winterize engines, generators, ac system, cold water system, hot water system, gray water system and black water system.

None of them are hard to do, but each different, and specific to your brand and model. Pick a system and systematically research how to correctly perform the winterization task.
 
Good evening, all. Hoping to find some advice on how best to winterize my 320DA 5.7l v-drives.

This boat is very different from my small bowriders so looking for some solid instructions on how to winterize the boat. Im confident that I can do it just worried I might miss something and cause big and expensive problems.

If you could share the steps and processes that you take to completely winterize your boat that would be great!
1) Drain the hot and cold water. Open the drain valve on the Hot water heater too let that completely drain.

2) Take the cold water line (blue in color) going to the water off at the heater, Do the same with the hot water line (red in
color) at the heater. Twin those two lines together. Put 2-3 gallons of pink Antifreeze into the water tank, Turn on the water pump till it stops open each faucet one at a time till pink comes out and your done !

3) The head ! Make sure you have pumped out. Flush 3 gallons of Antifreeze into the toilet, If you have a discharge pump
I would run a little threw that and then thats done.

4) Put ears on the outdrive flush the motor. Then fill a 5 gallon pail with Antifreeze. With a short piece of hose from the ears and into the pail start the motor when pink comes out your exhaust ports your done !

5) The A/C ! Get a small pony pump or even one that hooks up to a hand drill. Pump the antifreeze into the A/C discharge
hole on the side of the boat when pink blows out the A/C intake at the bottom of the boat your all done.

Good Luck
Les
 
4) Put ears on the outdrive flush the motor. Then fill a 5 gallon pail with Antifreeze. With a short piece of hose from the ears and into the pail start the motor when pink comes out your exhaust ports your done !
Les

Les, According to the OP, and southern cross, they both have V-drives.

You’ll have to do some research and find the proper way to winterize the raw water side of your cooling system.
 
Les, According to the OP, and southern cross, they both have V-drives.

You’ll have to do some research and find the proper way to winterize the raw water side of your cooling system.
My mistake Just pull the intake hose off the valve and stick that into the pail it's not rocket science ! lol
 
Just for the engines:

If you are on land with the v-drives then close your sea cocks and warm up the engines running fresh water from a hose feeding directly into the sea strainers. Helps to have two people for this - one at the helm and one on the hose.
When the engines warm up we stop.

Now, with my 8.1s we winterize the engines with a fuel pre-mix (fuel + 2stroke oil + stabilizer per Merc spec) in a portable tank that we feed directly by disconnecting the fuel line and attaching. With a 2005 you probably have a CoolFuel3 (CF3) and the 5.7s may have a different recommendation so check the manual. At this step we hook up the portable tank and run again for a couple more minutes to get the pre-mix into the engine.

Then we drain the Vernalift (muffler) tanks and after that as (suggested above) we use a Sea Flush with the snorkel (if available) and a five gallon bucket of AF with the snorkel pickup in the bucket. Start the engine and wait once you see the pink AF run drain through the muffler you are pretty much done. Without the Sea Flush you will need to pour in the AF as fast as the pumps move it through.

Repeat on the other engine and don't forget to winterize the genset if you have one too.

-Kevin
 
Starting out by changing the oil and filters is solid advice.
I’ll add to it that you should do your fuel filters and zincs too while you’re at it, and bring a light and screwdriver down in the bilge with you because this is a great time to inspect hoses and belts and to make sure all your clamps are healthy and tight.
Another way to do the raw water side of the engines if you have fresh water cooling, without a Sea Flush, on the hard is to take the hose off the through hull.
Stuff it in a bucket full of antifreeze equal to the raw water capacity of your system. Have an assistant start engine momentarily while you hold the hose in the bucket. Tell the asssistant to stand by the ignition switch. Let your raw water pump pull the antifreeze in to the system. When the bucket is just about empty tell your assistant to turn off the ignition. Replace hose on through hull. Tighten clamps. Repeat for other motor and genny.
I’ve got a Sea Flush and snorkel. It was an impulse buy. I did my genny with it last year and it was okay.
Honestly though, I find it quicker and easier to do my motors without it.
I do my AC units the same way that Express390 does, but start by pushing fresh water backwards through the discharge first, then cleaning the strainer.
I do my fresh water system and water heater like he does too, but since I can easily transport my portable compressor to my dock I start by blowing the system out with about 40psi hooked up to the dockside water inlet and then opening each faucet one at a time. The same way I do my Sprinklers at home.
Afterwards, I still put a couple of gallons of pink in the tank and open each faucet until a little pink comes out. Don’t forget your windshield washers if you have them. No need to do both blow out and pink. You can do either one. I just do both because I get anal with things.
After pumping out my waste tank I pour about half a gallon of pink in each head and flush.
I drain and clean my shower sumps, then pour a couple of cups of pink down the shower drains and momentarily activate the float switch in each sump.
I pour a bit of pink around the other bilge pumps and activate them too.
 
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Good stuff. We are going to leave the boat in the water this year (upper potomac). Any additional tips for an area that can get in the low teens for a few weeks? I plan on buying a bilge heater and winterizing after the Dec parade of lights.
 
Good stuff. We are going to leave the boat in the water this year (upper potomac). Any additional tips for an area that can get in the low teens for a few weeks? I plan on buying a bilge heater and winterizing after the Dec parade of lights.

If you are going to heat during the winter consider getting some type of monitoring system to keep tabs of how cold things get. I'm using an Acurite system with 3 sensors. Need to have internet access for it to work but there's other systems out there that use cell service.
 
If you are going to heat during the winter consider getting some type of monitoring system to keep tabs of how cold things get. I'm using an Acurite system with 3 sensors. Need to have internet access for it to work but there's other systems out there that use cell service.
This is certainly something I want to look into. Thankfully we are close to the dock but I want the peace of mind that a monitor would provide.
 
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I dont know how but I missed all of your replies this week! Thanks to everyone for their input and advice!
 
I winterize all the water systems on the boat but I leave the engines to my marina. I consider it insurance. If anything goes wrong and a block is cracked in spring, its their issue, not mine.
 
I have a 496mag 8.1.
Does that cocktail mix "fog" the engine and cause it to staul?
I plan on running antifreeze through the earmuffs so just trying to figure out if the motor will stall out before the pink has gone thru the engine.
 
Starting out by changing the oil and filters is solid advice.
I’ll add to it that you should do your fuel filters and zincs too while you’re at it, and bring a light and screwdriver down in the bilge with you because this is a great time to inspect hoses and belts and to make sure all your clamps are healthy and tight.
Another way to do the raw water side of the engines if you have fresh water cooling, without a Sea Flush, on the hard is to take the hose off the through hull.
Stuff it in a bucket full of antifreeze equal to the raw water capacity of your system. Have an assistant start engine momentarily while you hold the hose in the bucket. Tell the asssistant to stand by the ignition switch. Let your raw water pump pull the antifreeze in to the system. When the bucket is just about empty tell your assistant to turn off the ignition. Replace hose on through hull. Tighten clamps. Repeat for other motor and genny.
I’ve got a Sea Flush and snorkel. It was an impulse buy. I did my genny with it last year and it was okay.
Honestly though, I find it quicker and easier to do my motors without it.
I do my AC units the same way that Express390 does, but start by pushing fresh water backwards through the discharge first, then cleaning the strainer.
I do my fresh water system and water heater like he does too, but since I can easily transport my portable compressor to my dock I start by blowing the system out with about 40psi hooked up to the dockside water inlet and then opening each faucet one at a time. The same way I do my Sprinklers at home.
Afterwards, I still put a couple of gallons of pink in the tank and open each faucet until a little pink comes out. Don’t forget your windshield washers if you have them. No need to do both blow out and pink. You can do either one. I just do both because I get anal with things.
After pumping out my waste tank I pour about half a gallon of pink in each head and flush.
I drain and clean my shower sumps, then pour a couple of cups of pink down the shower drains and momentarily activate the float switch in each sump.
I pour a bit of pink around the other bilge pumps and activate them too.

Why go through the effort to blow out all the water from the fresh water system, then fill with red pop? I thought the purpose of blowing out the lines was to avoid putting the stinky red pop in the water system?
 

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