First time Winterizing Tonight ( Late I know ) - HELP

[Brad Fraser]

Ok, so unfortunately my boat just came out of the water yesterday, pretty sad I got a Christmas tree before the boat came out. I lost a V-Drive and the Marina had it for a LONGGG time. But, I'm hoping all you seasoned pro's out there can help me out and tell me if I did it right. So here goes.

Engines are 1998 350 MPI V-Drives with closed cooling.

First: I opened all three petcocks on the blocks, one on each side under the manifolds and then the one right behind the cool fuel. The most water came out of the cool fuel petcock. Once this was drained, I put all the plugs back in and moved on to the next process.

I pulled the plugs out of the water lift mufflers and drained the drums completely and put the plugs back in.

Then I pulled the plugs out of the sea strainers and drained them completely and added a little pink in the bottoms after plugging them back up.

After this, I pulled the hoses on the engine side of the strainers that go to the raw water pump. From hear I had a 5 gallon bucket and hose full of the good -60 purple engine antifreeze which I attached to the raw water hose to the pump. With 4 more gallons on deck and ready to go, I started the first engine and ran all 7 or 8 gallons through the raw water side. I had purple antifreeze coming out of the shaft seal, the bypass exhaust port and the underwater exhaust port. Then I re-attached the hose to the strainer and moved on to the next engine and did the same thing.

I think thats it for the engines correct? As long as I double check the fresh water side and its acceptable for the coming cold weather right?

The actual water system side was pretty easy (faucets, drains, etc.), but I ran the pink through the A/C system in reverse like i've read in a bunch of posts. Is that all I have to do for the A/C system? I read something about a condensate line or something but I'm not sure where it is?

Any help is much appreciated, I'm a nervous wreck about this boat over the winter hoping I did it right.

Thanks guys.

 

[K-DUB]

Sounds like you're good to go on the motors. Doesn't hurt to check the temp mixture on the antifreeze in your closed cooling tank to be safe. Don't forget the shower sump, where your air conditioning condensate drains. If you dumped pink in the shower drain, it will have pink in it anyway.
Also hidden faucets. Anchor locker, aft deck wash down,etc.
You didn't mention a generator, so I am assuming you do not have one.
Suck out any extra bilge water and wait for spring.

 

[63chaos]

I thing we did OK, you still have to prepare the old may for the cold winter months. What works best is 750 ml. Of crown royal

 

[perryk123]

for future reference, I pull the block and only the block plugs first and let them drain. They will drain a fair amount of water, and I always use a 5" piece of wire (or 3" nail if available) to poke around the whole, making sure there is no obstruction after the plugs removed. Then move on to manifolds, fuel coolers, circulating pump, raw water rump. My theory is start from the most expensive parts and work your way around.

As others mentioned don't forget the generator and its exhaust, the A/C and pump, hot water heater

 

[Brad Fraser]

The hot water heater can just be drained right? That's all I did, opened the valve and pressure relief and just let it drain down. The I bypassed the heater to do the rest of the water system and hoses with pink.

as for the a/c I pumped pink in backwards until it came out of the sea strainer under the boat, is that ok?

 

[Brad Fraser]

One more thing, should I leave those water lift mufflers filled with that antifreeze or drain them down again now that I've run it through the whole raw water side? They have to hold a gallon or two of antifreeze in there.

 

[K-DUB]

That's how I do my hot water tank. Sometimes I'll blow compressed air through the inlet line with the valve open just to be sure.
Your air conditioning should be good. That's also how I do mine.
As far as draining the mufflers again, I never do. Doesn't hurt either way, unless someone else knows something I don't.