What's the right way to winterize ???

[airshot]

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

[gregnwtf]

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.

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.

[dan scott]

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.

[MBLMIKE]

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

[pap]

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