advice on saltaway

[minnesota]

First of all, thanks for being so patient on answering some of mu dumb questions, your advice has been very helpful. I bought a boat used in salt water for 4 seasons to fresh water and want to keep it a long time. I was reading about the product salt away and was wondering if I flushed my engine with it in the spring time it might be a good way to help clean up any salt or corrosion in my fresh water cooling system. Any input?? Can I hook it up to one of those rubber cupped flushing thing you use with a hose? Or, do I need to hook it up directly to the engine and how do you do that? Would I need a new hose when I eventually took the saltaway "feeder" off? thanks again. tom

 

[coolings]

There is a small bottle of saltaway that comes with a little bowl that connects to the ears you use to flush the engine. If you have an academy sports in your area, go there and pick up one. It is called salt eliminator I think. Just follow the instructions on the bottle. Here is the salt-away with the bowl.

http://www.saltawayproducts.com/ComboPage.htm

It may help clean up any salt left in the block. I started flushing mine with it every time I come out. It will not help with any possible corrosion.

 

[Four Suns]

I thought that stuff was snake oil when I first heard of it. However, I found somewhere that actually did some independent tests on the product and started using it a few years ago and it's good stuff. I keep a spray bottle of it in my engine room now to spray off tools and other things that get saltwater on them from maintenance/repair work (changing impellers, cleaning transducers, etc). It's part of the "rinse cycle" now for stuff in the engine room and lazarette area. You may want to give other things on your boat a bath with it.

 

[Four Suns]

Here's the report:

http://www.powerboat-reports.com/issues/17_12/features/5503-1.html

Powerboat reports is out of business now so you won't be able to see the tests they did now... oh well... it's a good product though.

 

[Sundancer]

If you boat in Minnesota and did so last season, I can't imagine there would be much salt left? I would expect it to dissolve in the freshwater you probably boated in. I guess there could be some spots where salt might reside, but I wouldn't think there would be much left at all? I'd just drop it in freshwater and take it for a nice long run if this is your first season with the boat.

 

[avguy]

First year we bought our Sundeck we took it to the gulf. Rinsed the trailer with it after launch when we got there then put on the muffs & rinsed everything else down real good when we pulled it back out. Have not had any issues & that was 4 yrs ago.

 

[JV II]

its salt water, not acid. your boat won't fall apart by touching it.

 

[comsnark]

It is salt water, not acid.

But it is NOT fresh water. Salt water corrosion is real. The biggest thing you can do to prevent further corrosion is to stop running in salt water, and start boating in fresh water. . .which you have done. If you are not going back to salt water, I would not sweat it and just run the boat. If you were going back to salt, I would seriously consider investing in this system.

I run jetski's in salt: I make sure I flush them with fresh water after every use. I broke motor mounts, but have not (yet) experienced salt corrosion problems

When you say "fresh water cooling system" what do you mean? Most sundecks are sold with a raw water coolant system, but you can get a closed loop system that uses an extra heat exchanger and a glycol blend coolant.

 

[Morpheus]

First of all, thanks for being so patient on answering some of mu dumb questions, your advice has been very helpful.

There are no dumb questions, just watch out for the dumb answers.

I bought a boat used in salt water for 4 seasons to fresh water and want to keep it a long time.

Did you have a survey done when you bought the boat that included removing the outdrive and checking everything for corrosion? Do you know how the previous owner took care of the boat? Did they keep it in the water or trailer or dry stack it? Did they flush the engine after each use? Did they maybe use a salt away type product?

I was reading about the product salt away and was wondering if I flushed my engine with it in the spring time it might be a good way to help clean up any salt or corrosion in my fresh water cooling system.

The salt away product is to used normally right after the boat was used in saltwater. For you like someone else said if you've been running it in fresh water it is probably flushed out as much as it can be. As for corrosion I do not believe it's reversable if you have any it's there for life. As someone else asked you say fresh water cooling system, that would indicate you have a closed loop system that does not use lake/river/sea water to cool the engine. Is this what you have?

Can I hook it up to one of those rubber cupped flushing thing you use with a hose? Or, do I need to hook it up directly to the engine and how do you do that? Would I need a new hose when I eventually took the saltaway "feeder" off? thanks again. tom

The rubber cupped flushing thing are nomally called muff's because they are like ear muffs for your engine. You should probably have this whether you are going to use salt away or not. Since your lake boating you won't need the saltaway product now, however my personal opinion would be to flush the boat out with the "muffs" even though you run in fresh water just to get all of that dirty water out of the engine and outdrive. To properly flush your boat you need to hook up the muff's to your garden hose and attach it to your outdrive covering up the water pickup holes. Turn on your gardenhose (all the way on) and then start your boat up (remember to lower your outdrive as far as possible you should never start or run your boat in the trailer position) you will need to run the engine long enough for it to warmup and the thermostat to open which allows water to run through the engine.

Hope that helps.

 

[Pseudomind]

I believe I recall someone posting a good while back about removing four ounces of water from each engine strainer, and adding four ounces of Saltaway, then running the engines until you see suds coming from the exhaust, at this point shut down the engines. Only two ounces used for the generator.

Does anyone have a link to the post I am referring to?

Thanks

 

[my3sons]

I believe I recall someone posting a good while back about removing four ounces of water from each engine strainer, and adding four ounces of Saltaway, then running the engines until you see suds coming from the exhaust, at this point shut down the engines. Only two ounces used for the generator.

Does anyone have a link to the post I am referring to?

Thanks

I thought I saw it also, turns out it was on their site.
http://www.saltawayproducts.com/InboardFlushingPage.htm

 

[Chris R]

I use this stuff to flush my 8.1's through the flushing system on each engine. I also use it when flushing the jet ski (through the impeller port at the back of the nozzle). Seems to work well.