Can I winterize with coolant instead of draining all of the raw water??

[2009216v]

Odd question but I wanting to see if anyone has winterized their boat with pumping/pulling coolant out of a bucket into the motor intake hose versus having to drain all of the water out of the multiple drain plug points. I realize I would still need to drain the water out of the ballast pumps, etc but just thought the coolant idea would be much simpler and still ultimately protect the boat from freeze damage.
Anyone have any insight or suggestions on this, please let me know.

thanks!

[BrennanK]

I am sure it would be okay, but would I do it - no.

I always drain all the water, then run a few gallons of AF though, then drain the AF. Has yet to fail me.

[nyryan2001]

antifreeze is toxic, kills fish and plants, bad for humans... and you'd be dumping that into the lake in the spring. we'd all hate you and you committed a felony environmental hazard to your local water way.

if you are going to do it, use the RV pink stuff, non toxic. still not preseffered to dump into the waterways.

problem is you still stand the risk of having dilluted areas where the water and pink stuff mixed, and it could still freeze even if you sucked in 5+ gals of the pink. Also, you gotta have the engine over the Tstat temp so it opens alll the cooling loops for that 5gals of pink stuff. that'd be a costly $5-10k mistake.

learn to drain your engine-?bolts, exhaust-4 bolts, tranny-1 and its cooler 1 hose clamp, Vdrive in/out hoses, waterpump 3-4 bolts, strainer if you have one.

newer boats with 1/2loop cooling- 2 bolts on the heat exchanger, and heater core if you have one. put all those bolts and clamp in the strainer in the driver's cupholder and replace them in the spring when you are ready to go.

Look up on PCMs website for your engine manual, or contact them, they all have pages with diagrams dedicated to winetrization.

before you put it away, run the ballast pumps on drain till there is NO water. done. same with bilge pumps, done. <--- check these on warm days periodically throughout the winter to ensure no rainwater or other water made its way back into those pumps. verify they are drained.

[2009216v]

antifreeze is toxic, kills fish and plants, bad for humans... and you'd be dumping that into the lake in the spring. we'd all hate you and you committed a felony environmental hazard to your local water way.

if you are going to do it, use the RV pink stuff, non toxic. still not preseffered to dump into the waterways.

problem is you still stand the risk of having dilluted areas where the water and pink stuff mixed, and it could still freeze even if you sucked in 5+ gals of the pink. Also, you gotta have the engine over the Tstat temp so it opens alll the cooling loops for that 5gals of pink stuff. that'd be a costly $5-10k mistake.

learn to drain your engine-?bolts, exhaust-4 bolts, tranny-1 and its cooler 1 hose clamp, Vdrive in/out hoses, waterpump 3-4 bolts, strainer if you have one.

newer boats with 1/2loop cooling- 2 bolts on the heat exchanger, and heater core if you have one. put all those bolts and clamp in the strainer in the driver's cupholder and replace them in the spring when you are ready to go.

Look up on PCMs website for your engine manual, or contact them, they all have pages with diagrams dedicated to winetrization.

before you put it away, run the ballast pumps on drain till there is NO water. done. same with bilge pumps, done. <--- check these on warm days periodically throughout the winter to ensure no rainwater or other water made its way back into those pumps. verify they are drained.

You made many great points, many that I didn't even think about or consider until reading your reply. I will stick with the traditional winterization method. Luckily I do have the ZR 409 motor with the closed cooling set up so that is one less thing I will have to drain.
Thank you!!

[jsta281]

I have the ZR 409 and I drain all the raw water (impeller hoses manifolds heat exchanger raw water filter) and then suck up 5 gallons of pink AF (buy turning the boat on) into the motor via the hose that runs down to the water pick up at the hull. When pink AF comes out the exhaust I know it's made it's way all they way through and turn off the boat. It probably takes 10 -15 seconds to suck up 5 gallons. Done.

[Nordicron]

Odd question but I wanting to see if anyone has winterized their boat with pumping/pulling coolant out of a bucket into the motor intake hose versus having to drain all of the water out of the multiple drain plug points. I realize I would still need to drain the water out of the ballast pumps, etc but just thought the coolant idea would be much simpler and still ultimately protect the boat from freeze damage.
Anyone have any insight or suggestions on this, please let me know.

thanks!

I've heard from several that there are many dealers that follow this protocol!!! The one that I know of locally does use the purple -100degree rv antifreeze though.

I personally always drain everything then out plugs back in and suck up about 8gals of pink antifreeze into motor and call it good.


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[Jono]

Can I winterize with coolant instead of draining all of the raw water??

In a decade I have only used the antifreeze once and thought what was the point. If you pull all of your plugs you have zero chance of a cracked block in my opinion because there's so much room for expansion. If you mess up with the antifreeze you have no room for expansion if you somehow messed up.



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[scottb7]

I agree with above. Although I have only owned a boat 10 years. Last 2 years I figured it was unnecessary to do the drain and then backfill with rv antifreeze. Just drain per mfgr instructions and that is it. Some folks suggest you avoid corrosion by backfilling with the rv antifreeze. I am going to take my chances on that one.

[Woody_tobius_jr]

When mine gets winterized the lines are all drained, and then filled with the purple RV antifreeze. In the spring, I hook up my hose to my flush pro and clean the antifreeze out and rinse it off my drive pad onto my gravel drive. Even though it's says that it's environmentally friendly, I don't like dumping into a lake, and when I rinse it into the gravel, I don't have to worry about the pets getting into it, because I'm usually washing the boat and vehicles at that time, so it's pretty much diluted to nothing.


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[countiemountie]

I use a flush pro to suck in the RV A/F after I have drained the block and blown out the heater with compressed air. Our winters in northern Michigan can get cold. I put in the AF for two reasons. First, I re-open the drains and watch some AF drain out. This tells me that all the water came out. Second, to a lesser degree I hope that the advertised anti-corrosive properties of the AF work.

If you are going to fog the engine because you are worried about condensation, why wouldn't you add AF? My question, is condensation an issue or isn't it? I keep reading posts and manuals for different engines that advise storing the fuel tank full of gas to avoid condensation buildup. Isn't that just an non -issue now that fuel tanks are made out of plastic and not metal?

[DanielC]

As far as the gas tank goes, filling it prevents condensation because it reduces the amount of air that is exchanges with temperature changes.
An empty plastic tank will not rust. But it will still hold water, you really do not want going into your engine in the spring.