winterizing and H2o Drain.

[Onevw2go]

I have been reading several posts, but can't find the info i'm looking for. I understand pulling the engine plugs to drain the water, is there anything in the transmisson that needs to be drained? and how often does the Trans fluidd need to be changed? If anyone has answers to this, it would really help me out. also, can't tell if my dealer is ripping me off, How much does it cost at your dealer/shop to have your ride winterized? last time I had mine in it cost me 350$ ?!? seems a bit steep to me, wanted to know what others pay. Thanks in advance for your responces.

[DanielC]

RE: winterizing and H2o Drain.

Start off asking the shop what all they do when they winterize your boat. They are probably doing a lot more than removing plugs, and letting water run out.
In no particular order, this is most of the things I do when I winterize a boat.
Put fuel stabilizer in the gas tank, and fill the tank.
Run the engine until it is warm.
Change engine oil, filter, Transmission oil, V-drive oil
Change the coolant in the engine if it is a closed system.

By the way, they have started having problems with the orange coolant in GM engines. It is not lasting as long as it was advertized, and it starts to jell in the cooling syslem. If you have a ZR-6 motor more than two years old, I would flush out the engine cooling system, and put new coolant in the engine.

Restart the engine, check for oil leaks.
Remove the spark plugs, spray fogging oil in the engine.
Turn the engine over by hand two turns.
Spray more fogging oil in.
Reinstall the spark plugs.
Check torque on exhaust manifold nuts and bolts.
Remove all the water jacket plugs, drain the water.
Try to flush out rust flakes that migrated into the exhaust manifold
Drain the V-drive water.
Drain the transmission oil cooler
Remove the raw water pump impeller, inspect it.
Some shops then put the cooling system back together, and fill it with antifreeze/ water mix.
Drain the heater, and shower pump.
Drain the ballast tanks, put antifreeze in to make sure the remaining water does not freeze around the ballast system pumps.
Drain the speedometer hoses, and balance tubes.
Make sure all the water is out of the bilge.
Loosten the drive belt, or belts.
Disconnect the battery, check the battery water level, and fully charge the battery.
Some shops may check the engine to shaft alignment at winterization, some may do it when the boat is recommissioned.
Some shops may check all the engine mounts for tightness, in the fall, some do it in the spring.
Some shops put all the plugs back in, so the boat is ready to run, some do not. Sometimes the spring recommissioning is included in the price of the fall winterization, sometimes it is not.
On a V-drive boat, the back storage compartments have to be taken apart to get access to the engine to do all the stuff listed above, and many times the shop has to move all of your stuff stored in there.
In Wisconsin, they have to be a little more careful than I do here in Western Oregon, because it gets much colder, and the time of layup is longer.

[TravisFling]

RE: winterizing and H2o Drain.

But then again, what does this guy know? Geez... typical rookie.. hahahaha... just joking. DanielC your posts are always extremely informative and well thought out. Picture perfect Nautique owner. I was asking my Marina what they did for their winterization and it's considerably cheaper, but they do considerably less. I think it's 189, plus 80 for oil change, but I'm not terribly confident in their attention to detail, so I'll be doing it myself this year.

[DanielC]

RE: winterizing and H2o Drain.

Picture perfect Nautique owner? Not quite. I do like my boat, a lot. My motivation is simply this. I have figured out that by being excessive about preventive matainence, you can reduce the cost of operation. This leaves money to pay for gas, and you are rewarded with a reliable boat. The cost of replacing a Ski Nautique, I do not want to even think about.
I do need to get a fair amount of upholestery work repaired, or replaced.
As much as I love my Nautique, I see it as a tool that is needed to enjoy waterskiing. For the type of skiing I do, a Ski Nautique is the best tool available. Like a hand tool, a good tool that is durable and reliable is worth much more than a cheap tool that breaks, and needs to be replaced, even if the hand tool has a "no questions asked lifetime warrenty"
In 1997, the Ski Nautique was the best slalom boat made. The fact that they were used in both amature and professional water ski shows proved their durability.
Because of the quality of manufacture, and the preventive matainence I do, my 11 year old boat, has over 2057 hours on it, and I hope it continues to be useful for many years to come.

[Mr.O]

can you elaborate on draining the vdrive water? not sure what that means.
and also why would you drain the oil in the vdrive? would it be just in case there is presently moisture in the oil you don't want to freeze?

[DanielC]

There are two plugs on the back side of the V-drive housing, near the top. They have a square head. That is for a Walters V-drive, I do not know anout the new PCM V-drive
Moisture in the oil is why you change it. I believe the change specification for Walters v- drives is every 500 hours, or once a year.

[jmo]

can you elaborate on draining the vdrive water? not sure what that means.
and also why would you drain the oil in the vdrive? would it be just in case there is presently moisture in the oil you don't want to freeze?

The cooling system cycles water through the vdrive unit as it will heat up like the transmission does and hence has plugs to make sure you get all the water out when winterizing.

Many folks change the vdrive oil as well annually, though I think the manual says to do it every 100hrs, so it depends on your usage. Both the transmission and the vdrive oil only take around a quart each (check your manual for exact amounts) so you need to be more diligent about changing it than in a car, especially since there isn't a filter to remove particles.

HTH's

JMO

[Onevw2go]

Thanks for the info everyone. very informative. Helped out alot.