Easy Winterizing/Flushing Fitting

A

alnav

Well-Known Member
GOLD Sponsor
Sep 16, 2009
2,786
West River, MD
Boat Info
40 MY
Engines
QSB 425
Thought I would pass on the fitting I pieced together at Home Depot and used for flushing my engines and adding antifreeze today. I have been looking for a suitable cap for my strainers to facilitate running antifreeze into the engines but they don't seem to be made anymore. I was going to try and make a fitting from scratch using PVC and was looking for a PVC cap to get started. I happened on to the "Test Titan Mechanical Test Plug" stocked at Home Depot in the PVC fittings shelves. It is something of a compression fitting and fits into PVC pipe; the red ring tightens to secure the plug into the pipe. It has garden hose threads at the top; I had to drill out the top because it comes closed. The 3 inch PVC male adapter fits my strainers perfectly (Groco 2000/2500). I used a short hose attached to the top with the other end in a bucket of antifreeze. Worked like a charm and made the process much easier. Total cost was $7.41 counting a bit of retired military discount (thanks Home Depot for offering that).

Winterizing Fitting.jpg
 
Al,

Thanks for this idea. I've been going crazy trying to figure out how to accomplish a fersh water flush on my 6CTA 8.3's.

Beautifully simple, and cheap. Thanks for posting.

John
 
Al, This is a nice setup. I have a 340 and is a pain to winterize so I took my Strainer caps and tapped them for 3/4" Bronze ballcocks. The back side needs to be turned on a lathe so they are flush where the strainer basket is against the cap or you cannot get the assembly together. Also releaved the handle so the antifreeze flow is not blocked. The works like a charme, winterizing is very fast and clean vs messy and time consuming. I have done this on several boats over the past 20 years and wish the manufactures of strainers would off this. I will post pictures soon.
 
Can also just install a T in the line at the strainer that will also work the same way.
 
JMarrotta said:
Al,

Thanks for this idea. I've been going crazy trying to figure out how to accomplish a fersh water flush on my 6CTA 8.3's.

Beautifully simple, and cheap. Thanks for posting.

John
Click to expand...

I'd be real concerned about getting enough flow through that fixture to feed those motors...
 
5/8" may supply enough volume for a 5.0 gas motor....but a Honkin' big Cummins 480CE will have a much thirstier appetite.
 
osd9 said:
5/8" may supply enough volume for a 5.0 gas motor....but a Honkin' big Cummins 480CE will have a much thirstier appetite.
Click to expand...

The 5/8 is plenty for a Cummins. Generally it is on the cooler side any way when you are winterising so the engines never even heat up. This how I do it every year. I pull the hose off the output side of my strainer and shove an threaded pipe adapter into the hose and hook a 5/8 hose to the adapter. I run the hose to a 5 gallon container and run the engine until the 5 gallon container is empty. 5 gallons is a enough to make the pink stuff come out of the exhaust. The test plug that ALNAV came up with is crazy awesome. Just what I have been looking for. Thanks for sharing with us ALNAV. Great Idea.
I typically pour a little down the inlet side of the strainer to make sure the thru hull has some pink stuff in it. Using this adapter I will probably just run 7 gallons in the system and leave the strainer filled with the pink stuff. Then I will know that some of the pink stuff got down into the thru hull valve.

Did you look to see if they had any other test plugs that were smaller. Maybe something the size of the AC and Generator strainers. Regardless I would imagine that we could just use an adapter or two and reduce the 3" size down to the small strainer size. Talk to you guys later, Off to Home Depot I go.
 
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It might work well enough for a cool motor just to winterize....but I'd be a little leary using it to flush a hot diesel motor.

I don't know the exact sizes, but there's a reason why boat manufacturers use a much larger diameter raw water supply line and much larger raw water pumps on a 350HP diesel motor compared to a 370HP gas powered boat.
 
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Morgan Jane said:
Did you look to see if they had any other test plugs that were smaller. Maybe something the size of the AC and Generator strainers. Regardless I would imagine that we could just use an adapter or two and reduce the 3" size down to the small strainer size. Talk to you guys later, Off to Home Depot I go.
Click to expand...

I had the same idea about getting one of these for the genny and A/C. I bought a 2" version but it didn't fit; believe my smaller strainers are 1.5". Home Depot carries that size on-line. I did a further search and the manufacturer is a company named "Sioux Chief" at this site: http://www.siouxchief.com/Testing/Plugs-And-Caps. They also make a version of the plug with an air hose fitting on the nipple, seems that might be useful for something as well.

I don't disagree with Dom that the flow through the fitting may be fairly sparse and wouldn't cool the engine but this fitting is equivalent to the flushing/winterizing fitting that Groco sells for the same purpose, only about 50 times less expensive. In my case the antifreeze was sucked through the engines and was coming out the back in a matter of seconds.
 
alnav said:
Thought I would pass on the fitting I pieced together at Home Depot and used for flushing my engines and adding antifreeze today. I have been looking for a suitable cap for my strainers to facilitate running antifreeze into the engines but they don't seem to be made anymore. I was going to try and make a fitting from scratch using PVC and was looking for a PVC cap to get started. I happened on to the "Test Titan Mechanical Test Plug" stocked at Home Depot in the PVC fittings shelves. It is something of a compression fitting and fits into PVC pipe; the red ring tightens to secure the plug into the pipe. It has garden hose threads at the top; I had to drill out the top because it comes closed. The 3 inch PVC male adapter fits my strainers perfectly (Groco 2000/2500). I used a short hose attached to the top with the other end in a bucket of antifreeze. Worked like a charm and made the process much easier. Total cost was $7.41 counting a bit of retired military discount (thanks Home Depot for offering that).

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Click to expand...

Alnav, Great, great find. Worked like a champ today. Quickest time I ever spent winterizing.[

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I use a seaflush. No need for all the threads, just keep dumping in gallons jugs of pink. Check it out, this thing is awsome and allows you to remove water from your seacocks if you leave it in the water like I do...

www.seaflush.com
 
The seaflush does work well if you have clearance from the strainer to the area above the strainer. On my boat, there was not enough clearance above the strainer for the seaflush device to be in position correctly to work. I guess I need a bigger boat to fit my seaflush. :) Had to resort to old measures again. So I bought the above Titan plug as well...
 
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