Winterization motors pull the hose or use muffs?


S

SF

New member
I am thinking about doing my own winterization this year, I have a seloc manual on order. The boat has twin 350 mags, model year 04. Is it safer to pull the hoses off and back fill with anti freeze or is it OK to run the anti freeze into the blocks with the muffs?

If I were going to use the muffs, here is my plan. Warm up the motor on the muffs using water. Once the motor is up to normal temp shut down the motor and then pull each freeze plug and let the water drain. Now run the motor on the muffs with anti freeze until it runs out the back. Next loosen each freeze plug and verify that anti freeze runs out, tighten plug

Is that ok?
 
I've done it both ways but be forewarned  , antifreeze does NOT like to get pumped through an engine. I have a 5 gallon jug (commercially available) with a tee  for water and antifreeze so you can warm the engine on water the rotate the knob and shut off the water and turn on the antifreeze. I have to keep the jug up high to use gravity to aid in the flow. Keep your eye on the temp gauge , you will possibly see it over heat or at least run warm.
Last year I warmed the on the hose and fogged them then drained and refilled manually with antifreeze. Personally I felt better this way.
If you pull the drains in the block and don't get any water , stick a screw driver in the hole.  These usually get clogged with dirt.
Don't forget the oil coolers and seawater pumps too.
 
Mopower,

If the anti freeze runs out of the exhaust, does this mean that the block and associated compents are filled with anti freeze? Can you cut the anti freeze with windshield wiper fluid?
 
SF said:
Mopower,

If the anti freeze runs out of the exhaust, does this mean that the block and associated compents are filled with anti freeze? Can you cut the anti freeze with windshield wiper fluid?
Click to expand...

It doesn't necessarily mean your engine block is full, you can still have pockets of fresh water in your system somewhere.  UNLESS you completely drain every component of your system manually first.

I found this out the hard way, after going thru 5 gallons, yes 5 gallons, of antifreeze and it was coming out of the exhaust since the second one........after all that, it STILL never made it into the tranny cooler!  Froze and was a costly repair the next year!

See, there are so many paths to the cooling system, it's like a wiring diagram.  Fluid will obviously take the path of least resistance.

The least resistance is usually thru your engine, vs. thru you smaller cooling hoses going to your other coolers, etc.  You could have several complete cycles of water flowing thru your motor before one complete cycle makes it thru a cooler's "path".

Hope this made sense.   ;)

This is why i started doing it the way the factory manual suggested, which was manually draining everything, and manually filling everything.  Not very much more effort, but a huge load of worry I didn't have  ;)
 
Yes, I realize that is a possibility. I would double check this by pulling each drian plug and make sure I see anti freeze drip out, then put the plug back in. The only one I can not pull would the risers as no plug exists.
 
Like 74 said , you can wind up with pockets of water. This happened to me last year. I pulled the big hose off (between the tstat and circ pump and got pink out. Did the other and got WATER :eek: :eek:. Really glad I checked. Wound up draining and refilliing with antifreeze manually. Slept a whole lot better on them cold nights last winter ;)
 
The seloc manual is telling me to take out the t-stat and fill the block directly with anti freeze? If I do this how would the freeze get into the other coolers? For the manifolds, do I fill the top or bottom hose with freeze?
 
SF said:
The seloc manual is telling me to take out the t-stat and fill the block directly with anti freeze? If I do this how would the freeze get into the other coolers? For the manifolds, do I fill the top or bottom hose with freeze?
Click to expand...

Yeh, i think I posted that in another thread here about pulling the T-Stat and filling from there. Also, put a new T-Stat in when you close her up. They're cheap! :) Then the next year that's one thing that's already good to go.

As far as getting antifreeze into all of the coolers......it may or may not happen, but that's why it is super-important that you properly drain your complete system before doing anything else. A drained cooler with no antifreeze is much better than one with water trapped in it. ;)

On the manifolds, I don't know what top/bottom you're referring to on your manifolds, but it would be the highest cooling hose on your manifold system. Once they are full, the anti-freeze will overflow your risers and trickle out your exhaust.
 
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