What's the right way to winterize ???

This year totally sucked for me, poor fishing,but most of all,I had a overheating problem. I consider myself mechanically inclined, but this year my engine put me to the test. I pulled the thermostat,replaced with new one, no luck,next I pulled the risers,cleaned them out bolted them back on,still over heating!!! now I didn't mention the lower water pump in the out drive, because I replaced that last year, when my problem started. To make a long story short I ended up pulling the motor, heads were blocked solid with rust in the water jackets, the block was the same way. Needless to say it was time for a complete rebuild, which I did myself, new heads, acidwash the block, complete reman!! Now the reason I'm telling this story is becouse I was told that Just draining the water out is not a good idea, because over the winter the cast iron rusts and over the years you get more rust and soon you'r in my shoes. The marinia I use for parts is a merc distributor for the north east coast, they recommend filling the entire engine with RV antifreeze, so there is no air in the system to start the rust mode. What do you guys do? PAP from PA.

I'm interested to hear replies. I basically do what you are doing and just drain. Although I do dump antifreeze into the front of the hoses until. Get it coming out of the exhaust manifold drains. Then close them leaving it with whatever is in there. Same for the block.

First thing I do is drain the lake water out of my engine. Then I start it up while pumping RV antifreeze to the water inlet on the out drive. It will take in about 2.5 gallons by the time the thermostat opens and starts to spew antifreeze out the exhaust. I hit the carb with fogging oil and I'm done.
I leave the block full of antifreeze during winter.
Takes about 30 minutes.

Dont know if this is the right way or not, but I never have and problems...so it must be working! (knocking on wood!)

How do you pressurize the RV fluid so the lower unit pulles the fluid into the lower unit pump? Do you use the water muffs or what ? Any info would be great, just might get far enough to fire the old girl up this weekend !!

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Originally Posted by pap

How do you pressurize the RV fluid so the lower unit pulles the fluid into the lower unit pump? Do you use the water muffs or what ? Any info would be great, just might get far enough to fire the old girl up this weekend !!

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I use a bilge pump mounted in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket, alligator clips wired from the pump...just hook it to any battery.
A length of hose from the bilge pump connected to the muff and you're in buisness!!

Hope this helps!!

That makes total sence to me, I just couldn't figure out how to get the RV fliud into the lower unit under pressure, you are a blessing. Thank you, I had a long no fishing season, but it's all comming together now. The walleye will be in trouble next year!!!!!

Glad that I could help!

I will be building a setup. I've actually considered a tub big enough to lower the outdrive down in to and filling it with anti freeze. Then let my friends with boats come over and use it.

There are lots of ways to get the job done and each boat may be different. I follow my Mercruiser repair manual for layup. Basically, they have you add fuel stabilizer, warm the engine and change the oil and filter. Then run the engine on the new oil until warm then fog the engine. Remove the spark plugs and fog the cylinders. Drain the engine block, exhaust headers, and power steering oil cooler. Close the drains and remove the thermostat. Fill the engine and exhaust headers (remove the hoses monetarily) with non-toxic antifreeze. Replace the thermostat with a new gasket. Check or change the gear lube in the lower unit. I have used this procedure the last couple of years without any problems. I really like seeing that the engine is full of antifreeze. The book describes all of this in more detail and if you are going to do your own maintenance it's really worth the money. Now I am ready to do mine.

Thanks for all the input and ideas for the proper way to winterize, lord only knows I dont want to go through this BS. again, 13 hours to remove the motor, probably all weekend to do all the hook ups, then fire the old girl up, deal with the unexpected, test run her on a near buy lake then winterize, hopfully be done for the year. Thank you all for your help!!!!!

Use the merc manual and you can't go wrong!! If you do not have one....
get one...well worth the investment if you plan on doing your own maintenence. You should be able to find the correct manual on the I-boats
boating forum. They are great people and willing to help in many ways. I was able to download the entire service manual for my engine/outdrive onto my thumb drive in about 20 minutes at no charge, that is 1200 pages worth of info. Now I just scroll thru until I find the info I need and copy just that material.

Airshot

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Originally Posted by Hoss928

I will be building a setup. I've actually considered a tub big enough to lower the outdrive down in to and filling it with anti freeze. Then let my friends with boats come over and use it.

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I run my engine with the hose on the mick mouse ears to warm up and open the thermostat. I add a " Y" to the hose by the MM ears. this "y" goes up to a 5 gallon bucket the is full of marine antifreeze. With two valves and some vinyl hose and fittings, put a hole on the bottom of the bucket. Put a valve on the water hose to stop the water and open the valve for the bucket of pick stuff , let it suck it all in , all while the engine is running. Pink stuff is gone and shut the engine off. This would be the last thing to do after the oil is changed and etc. Been doing it this way for over 10 years. Never a problem and its too easy.
I have heard of the little tub method but I think it would be alot of antifreeze to fill the tub and cover the water pump inlet. My method take less than 30 minutes or so to do the antifreeze part, with no mess and no tuff hoses to pull off. Did it that way a few times till I figured this method out.

An easier way is to open the petcocks on the block ( there should be 2 ) and let the block drain completely. Then, close the petcocks. Disconnect 2 of the water hoses ( 1 goes into the water pump ) and just pour your anti-freeze right into the block until it is full. I have 4 cylinder Ford block and if I recall correctly, it holds about 1 1/2 gallons of anti-freeze. That's better than just draining the block and leaving it. You will get some rust in there over the winter if you don't put the anti-freeze in. Also, if you have to leave your boat outside over the winter, you should leave the outdrive all the way down, so you don't get water/melted snow and then ice in there.

We see this a lot in my shop there is no way but the right way to do this or you will end up a very unhappy boater next spring , all the advise here is sage material one thing I will add is when you open the petcocks dont ever assume because very little water came out its empty very often we see them full of sand or dirt , take a few extra minutes and remove the entire petcock or at least poke a small pick into the hole for additional water to drain ck manifolds, risers ,heat exchanger and oil cooler they also have petcocks on them . we do several engine replacements every spring just from this mistake alone . www.mobilemikesautoservice.com

After pulling my motor for the second time, with over heating problems I took the bull by the horns. I ckecked the new heads out myself,put the heads on the block with out the gaskets only to find out that the new heads were warped, took 8thou to clean up I said cut them 10thous. That explains a little water in two cylinders, but I got water in all 8 cylinders, what the hell is going on? well I put new exhaust manifolds on new exhaust baffels when motor was out the first time, the only thing that puts fuel to each cylinder is the intake manifold right? so if the intake is rotted through like the rest of this hunk of iron was that would put water in all 8 holes, so I pressure tested the intake, I'll be dipped in **** there is my problem! Put the motor all back together AGAIN hooked all the water **** up put water to her started her on the floor, set the timing, dwell, ran her on the floor for 1/2 hour, everything is going great, gave her some throttle she took it like it was thirsty for more, shut her down bolted her in to day, made all the finales, fired her up in the boat today. Run it a few minutes took her 5000rpm sounds sweet, no more heat,or water in cylinders. The fish will pay this year!!! PAP:cool::)