Worried about my engine

B

Badfish888

New Member
Jul 18, 2015
85
Va beach
Boat Info
175
Engines
3.0
So prior to cold weather. I removed my outdrive to do some work and change the gimbal bearing. The outdrive is off and in a heated garage. When i ran the boat i ran anti freeze through the gimbal hole untill it spat it out the exhaust.
then i shop vacced out through the gimbal hole and actuall got quite a bit of water out. Issue is I never used the bloc drains. Its been cold here in va. Am i screwed Or should i be ok
 
For peace of mind, I would simply use the block drains now and see what comes out. If the pink stuff comes out, then you "should" be OK.
 
At this point you have "some" percentage of a mix of AF/water in the lower block. What % that is, though, is anyone's guess. Unless you removed the t-stat, the upper block is likely still filled with raw water (0% AF). The upper block, fyi, will not drain completely by just removing the block drain.
 
Lazy Daze said:
At this point you have "some" percentage of a mix of AF/water in the lower block. What % that is, though, is anyone's guess. Unless you removed the t-stat, the upper block is likely still filled with raw water (0% AF). The upper block, fyi, will not drain completely by just removing the block drain.
Click to expand...

Is that specific to the 3.0?
 
I'm trying to understand - did you winterize your engine AFTER you took the drive off? If so, where/how did you supply the antifreeze to the engine? What do you mean by gimbal hole?

I too took my outdrive off and have it in my garage, however I winterized the engine and drained the gear lube before I removed the outdrive.

The general process to winterize a Mercruiser I/O is:

1. Run / fog engine,
2. Drain water from engine block, manifolds and cool fuel unit (if it has one) - usually 4-5 blue drain plugs.
3. Remove thermostat housing and thermostat - fill engine block / manifolds with anti-freeze (4-5gal). Antifreeze will drain from the exhaust when the manifolds are full.
Some people run the engine at this point and suck antifreeze in through the cooling intake until antifreeze comes out the exhaust.
Problem where is you don't always get the block full because you don't know for sure if the thermostat is open.
People also tend to skip step #2 and just suck in the antifreeze, in this case you can end up with a diluted antifreeze solution in the block because you are not sure if the thermostat is open.
I personally either drain the water out and leave it or remove the thermostat to fill with anti-freeze.

If you did something different from the above and are not sure the block and manifolds are either 1) Drained completely of water or 2) filled with antifreeze. You could have a problem - I say could because you would have to have left enough water in the engine/manifolds AND it would have to be enough prolonged subfreezing temperatures to freeze it solid enough for the ice to expand and break something.

There are a few variations and other items that need some attention, but this is the high level basics.
 
Badfish888 said:
So prior to cold weather. I removed my outdrive to do some work and change the gimbal bearing. The outdrive is off and in a heated garage. When i ran the boat i ran anti freeze through the gimbal hole untill it spat it out the exhaust.
then i shop vacced out through the gimbal hole and actuall got quite a bit of water out. Issue is I never used the bloc drains. Its been cold here in va. Am i screwed Or should i be ok
Click to expand...

Define "cold". High 20's- to low 30's for a part of a day will unlikely cause the catastrophic damage you're thinking of
 
Strecker25 said:
Is that specific to the 3.0?
Click to expand...

No, this will pertain to any raw water cooled engine. When I'm referring to the "upper block" (very general term), I'm talking about the intake manifold area - basically the flat area under your air intake (carb/throttle body/whatever you want to call it). Water will lay in this area, even if the water is drained from the engine - which is why I always recommend backfilling the engine through the hoses. I VERY often see anywhere from 12 to 24 ounces (just a rough guess) come flushing out of the engine when I backfill it - the water is coming from the upper block.
 
The gimblal " hole in the outdrive that the impeller supplies water through for the engine. I used a small electric pump and ran anti freeze u till the exhaust was pink. No i diddnt remove t stat. And the weather was in the high 20s for a day or two Then stayed mid thirties
 
Ok, so what that did (pumping anti-freeze through the raw water pickup on the gimbal housing) was pump the antifreeze into the exhaust manifold. Since the engine was not running and cold, the thermostat would not have been opened, so none of the antifreeze would have made it into the block. My guess is your block is still full of water. If you can get to the boat, at this point I would drain the engine block, pull the thermostat housing and fill the block with anitfreeze.
 
I'm in RIC. I don't think it got cold enough, long enough in VABEACH for there to be a problem. I say that assuming your engine was still in the boat and the engine cover was in place.
 
Lazy Daze said:
No, this will pertain to any raw water cooled engine. When I'm referring to the "upper block" (very general term), I'm talking about the intake manifold area - basically the flat area under your air intake (carb/throttle body/whatever you want to call it). Water will lay in this area, even if the water is drained from the engine - which is why I always recommend backfilling the engine through the hoses. I VERY often see anywhere from 12 to 24 ounces (just a rough guess) come flushing out of the engine when I backfill it - the water is coming from the upper block.
Click to expand...

Gotcha, had me scared for a minute but I filled mine with AF (twice, as you may remember from my leaky blue plugs) so I should be good.
 
Badfish888 said:
The gimblal " hole in the outdrive that the impeller supplies water through for the engine. I used a small electric pump and ran anti freeze u till the exhaust was pink. No i diddnt remove t stat. And the weather was in the high 20s for a day or two Then stayed mid thirties
Click to expand...

In my opinion, and I may get blasted on this, but you're likely fine. My experience is it needs to be a sudden cold spell, like the low 20's and into the teens at night, suddenly, for a few days to pop a block or components. The untreated raw water has no where to go and expands suddenly causing the damage. Now I've seen a slow decrease in temp to the 20's and no damage because the the raw water had time to expand to other parts with no damage. Vise versa for no explanation on a mild winter winter there has been damage.

I think if you have some mixture of AF on the raw water side and you are in the 20's for a few days likely you will be fine. Like others stated, pulling blue plugs will never hurt.

Me personally, I run 8 gallons of pink from the intakes through the raw water systems while motors are running. There are crazy raw water cooling systems you never take into account. I'll give you three: Tides shaft seals are water coooled, tranny cooler, oil cooler. No matter how much pink you pour into your hoses you can't be sure they will get there even they are suppose to "self drain."
 
BillK2632 said:
Ok, so what that did (pumping anti-freeze through the raw water pickup on the gimbal housing) was pump the antifreeze into the exhaust manifold. Since the engine was not running and cold, the thermostat would not have been opened, so none of the antifreeze would have made it into the block. My guess is your block is still full of water. If you can get to the boat, at this point I would drain the engine block, pull the thermostat housing and fill the block with anitfreeze.
Click to expand...

The impeller in the lower unit supplies the engine mounted pump with water to circulate . I had the engine running When pumping water through the tube. And water came out the exhaust as it should. Was it warm enough for the thermostat ...... I doubt it. I will try to get over to the boat this week. And boat is coverd So hopefully it diddnt get that cold For to long. Ill let you guys know what i find
 
Its the average daily that really matters. Looks like you might have been below freezing on 1/18 and 1/19 at 30 and 26 degrees. the days prior the average was 40 degrees and 33 and 40 degrees right after. I'd be willing to bet that nothing froze.
 
My dock neighbor didn't pull his thermostat or drain his block. He ran 12 gallons of antifreeze through the raw water intake. He asked me if I thought he was good. I said drain a little and see what you got. It was pure water in the block.
 
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