Winterize pump AF no plugs removed

I have a 1992 Nautique and has always been winterized at a dealer. This year I had it winterized by a "Mobile" service. He came with about 15 gallons of AF and put it in a huge bucket. He connected a hose from the bucket to the water inlet, started the engine and ran it for about 10 minutes. The returned AF (from the exhaust) went back into the bucket. Turned off engine, and that was it. He checked the AF with a meter and still read good to -30 degrees C.  I was blown away. No drain plug removal at all.

Rene,

The guy charged me $150. I will definitely check with my CC dealer to see what he had done before. The only reason I went with the mobile service is because my boat was 350km away this year. Next year the boat will be back. I will go back and drain the manifolds just to be sure.

@gun-driver, I just spoke with my mobile mechanic and he told me that he has been winterizing boats for years and he never removes any plugs at all. The AF he brings to his shop and reuses it until he sees that the mixture is no longer strong enough for the cold weather. The method used is safe when you have "heaters" like my CC has.  

Pete how are you sure you get all the water out when you just drain? Is the motor level, is it leaning to one side, do you raise and lower the nose, how do you know the heater was empty  and got antifreeze into it?

KENO wrote: How can you have a good argument about antifreeze without knowing that

So Rene...........it looks like your boat has been winterized the same way by the dealer over the years and nothing has cracked yet

Rene can you do us a favor?

SNobsessed wrote: You can drain & leave dry for $0.

gun-driver wrote: SNobsessed wrote: You can drain & leave dry for $0. How do you know the heater core and/or the shower is dry??? Also leaving it dry is an invite for rust/corrosion of the small passages.

I realize you stated that the engine was run for a few minutes first.  Keep in mind that if the engine was not at full operating temperature, then the thermostat was likely still closed and little or no antifreeze found its way into the engine block. In many marine applications, the thermostat is designed to let water bypass the thermostat (while thermostat is still closed) and go directly to the exhaust manifolds.  As such you may have no A/F in the engine block.  I would opt to pull the drain plugs and drain all fluid from the engine.  If you are still wanting A/F in a cold, drained block, you can add It directly into thermostat housing or into the intake manifold through temp sender port.

It seems people are still confused about what the thermostat does- it should be noted that it controls water flow OUT of the engine (not IN). It can also be highly dynamic- just getting the engine “up to temp” doesn’t mean that it opened at all- let alone that it opened long enough for any presumed mixture ratio of AF to have backfilled in its place. The path out the exhaust manifolds is different and while it’s interesting to note the freeze protection offered by what came out the back, it doesn’t mean that’s what you’ve got inside the block.

Ken’s comfort level comment is spot on. I know what I’d be doing.

One size fits all doesn’t work well on fuel tank storage either.

I have seen lots of bad things happen when people run their tanks very low... they pick up junk and contaminate their entire fuel system. With that caution in mind, I would:

If I had a metal fuel tank I would keep it relatively full to prevent moisture from corroding it over the winter.

If I had a plastic tank I would let jt get fairly empty before storing for the winter.

Either way I’d be sure that the fuel was of high quality before storing and I’d top it off with fresh in the spring. Fuel quality/freshness has made a much bigger difference than anything else in my boats- with what I now assume was lower quality (lower cost) fuel, stabilizer never helped. I couldn’t get the boats to start if they had sat for 2 weeks (without a shot of fresh down the throat). With what I believe to be better fuel, my boats will start on 2yr old fuel. Both are/were e10.

My 2 cents.

Kind of a blanket statement- there are approximately 20 different blends of gasoline through out the country-what works somewhere might not in others. Right now I'm using 2 year old Illinois fuel in 3 different tractors. I have had 3 month old Florida gas go bad eating a tank liner. Because of that I drain every thing except the tractors now.

rwittmer wrote: I did check and there is NO warranty against frost damage.