Winterizing A Diesel Motor

[cod]

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Russ, here is my set up....Ron's set up is great for gas engines but you need a larger diameter supply hose. This set up doesn't require any juggling act.

 

[Alex F]

Ric, I pretty much drain the engine by taking out the zincs and clean out the strainer with a vacuum (this year the Sea Flush will have blown out the water on the strainer side) then pre-fill as much antifreeze as I can. So, I think most of the water is gone before I start adding antifreeze except what might be in the exhaust system. I try to minimize the amount of time the engine is running dry so I don't think I'd be in favor of running the engine without trying to put some liquid through it.

I'm sure this is another one from the category of "dozen of ways to skin a cat", but even though I'm in mostly fresh water I still rinse the engines and genny with fresh water before I proceed with winterizing it by adding pink. Whether you do it on land or on water the simple way is to close the seacock, open the seastrainer, stick the garden hose in the strainer (make sure it's secured and won't pop out), turn the city water and let it spill over the strainers lid. Fire up the engine and let it circulate the city water for about 5min. Shut the engine and proceed to get the stuff ready to run the antifreeze thru the engine.

When I did it on my 320DA all I had to do is to turn one valve and the intake would switch from city water in to my bucket with antifreeze. It was a pleasure to do it with such ease. The key thing was that I made a flushing system for my engines.

Since my 420 doesn't have flushing system I have to manually change the supply and connect the hose from the bucket to the special strainer cap.

Russ,

Here's a fun thread regarding HWH: HWH - Switched from antifreeze to air