Suckin' up the pink stuff

My dog has no nose

75 Tique wrote: Quinner. Did you link this thread to the ones on PN, so that charlie guy with the boat with no drain plugs can see the results of pumping without draining? As others pointed out, he is in NC and not quite a critical as up north, but blocks can freeze and bust down here too. Happened to a friend of mine down here a few years ago.

quinner wrote: Larry I did not bother, not sure if you saw any of Chuckies posts be he was being a real Richard at times and no point in trying to convince a guy who aggressively argued that our engines have no drain plugs that Ken's tests are more reliable then Underwriters Laboratories!!

Chris,
Charlie may not come around but, it may help others who visit PN that may fall for his method.

Everybody just wants to pamper their favorite toy!

I'm on PN too, there's a lot of useful stuff relating to the weak points (ahem, FEATURES) of my '03 Super Air. I couldn't help myself on a recent thread about to drain or not to drain (first) and pointed out that if you don't want to spend the 5 minutes* just put in some quick drain valves.

*I have to admit, it took me a lot more than 5 minutes doing my Super Air this year. But it's been a while since I did a v-drive, and access just isn't the same as on a direct drive.

This is great information, although not surprising - and if you do have a heater, I'd bet money it would crack in my climate (NH) if you didn't drain it first.

63 Skier wrote: Morgan, I think we're on the same thread on PN, I'm DaveNH over there. I know it's repetitive with people asking the same questions but if someone asks respectfully for info, and then follows up with other questions like that guy did, I like posting and helping out. No question on the heaters, even though I think I've got mine blown out pretty completely I still pour a few ounces of antifreeze in so I see clean pink coming out the lower hose.

Ha! Yup, definitely, on all counts.

I couldn't help but notice, just today someone posted in the "winterization prices" thread: "I did my winterization myself this year - I got tired of paying for it. I just pulled the line on the outlet of the strainer and pour in AF till it came out the exhaust and shaft seal."
Can of worms: opened.


The owner of the marina where I used to work would leave his boat in basically until it froze around it; I remember once driving his boat to the ramp where the steering was literally frozen. Another time we needed 4wd to pull it because it was snowing so hard. Anyway, we had quick drains set up on that boat so we could drain the block after using it every time, and sadly, we had to bypass the heater when it got really cold. He went through 3 or 4 heater cores before deciding to finally do this.

Cheers.

I suspected not draining first ended up with highly dilluted antifreeze. Had a SBC years ago blew a head gasket or otherwise got all milkshakey my second time out one season. Maybe 6 hours the first time out and oil was fine.

Second time maybe an hour or two in it wanted to die in the middle of the main channel near Philly, right about where that DUKW got run over by a barge some time later. In any event, cruising at 25-30 MPH I had a loss of power so I throttled up and aimed toward the Jersey side to get out of the channel. Lots of tug, barge, container ship, tanker, etc. traffic near me so if I lost the engine I didn't want to be in the channel particularly when I could see big ships under power headed my way. Went wide open and she picked up some speed and power briefly, RPM and power slowly dropping though. I got it out of the channel and reasonably close to shore and started backing off from WOT, as soon as I touched the throttle it died. Popped the engine cover and it was milkshake everywhere. I ended up picking up a running SBC out of a Camaro and dropping it in, enjoyed the boat a few more years before getting an inboard.

Best I can figure is something was damaged or weakened from freezing. My winterization procedure was to drain the block and manifolds then suck 5 gallons of -50 RV antifreeze through it, leaving that antifreeze in the engine. The winter before the engine failure I went down on my bike and was still on crutches when I needed to winterize so I had a friend help since I couldn't climb in the boat. Told him the plugs to pull, for one side of the block he said not much water came out. Gave him a pick to poke around and he said still nothing more came out. Figure it was fine and most came out the other side. Ran the antifreeze through and figured all was well. Speculation, but I figure one side of the block was mostly straight water and froze.

I didn't do a postmortem on the engine so cant' say for sure, but ever since I drain everything, run RV antifreeze through it, and drain that, leaving the engine empty and dry aside form any small areas that can't drain but should have fairly undilluted antifreeze. I have a heater in my boat too, I just blow through the feed hose to the intake, and observe some pink coming out of the return before the raw water pump. The heater core has both fittings low but always gurgles so there's some liquid still in it every winter but never had a failure.