Winterizing today, have a few questions.

[DRAGON88]

I've read up on winterizing and am confident that I'm more then good enough with a wrench to do it on my own. But I have a few questions, I have an Excalibur 330 in a '05 210, where are the drain plugs on the block, and will I remove the dividers for the rear storage comparments? (inbetween the wedge tanks and the engine compartment) also I purge all the water out of the system, then connect all the hoses back up and run marine antifreze through the system? Is that correct?

Is there something on the V-drive that needs to be drained as well?

Thanks in advance,
-Richard.

[skinautique]

RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

I hate to say this but if you are asking these questions, I would call your dealer, pay them to winterize it while you watch them and then start doing it on your own. Just my words of advice to you. It will be a long winter wondering whether or not you did it right.

[DRAGON88]

RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

Skinautique, my dealership is a good 6 hours away, and I am fully competent to be doing this kind of work. (I appreciate your words of advise but I know that this is something I can easily do. I've worked on much more complex things...) I know about the two main brass plugs on exhaust manifolds, and also the plug on the bottom of the water pump. But I don't know what else I need to take out. I don't have a clue where the engine block plugs are, unless they were the plugs on the sides of the exhaust manifolds that I already removed...

I am rather good with a wrench and very mechanically inclined, I've done lots of major work on my cars and know my way around a motor. (just not necessarily a raw water cooling system.) I just want to be sure that I'm not missing anything.

Also any tips for removing the heater hoses? I've removed the hose clamps but they are stuck on there pretty good.

[nms1991]

RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

The starboard side has a 9/16 head brass plug on it and the other side you must remove the knock sensor to drain the other side. To drain the v-drive if you have the dripless packing is to remove the top hose off of the impeller pump and remove the forward most hose on the starboard side of the thermostat housing and blow thru the hoswe until you remove all the water from the hoses, also do not forget to drain the water from the trans cooler also. But if you do not have dripless packing then you must also remove the drain plug on the v-drive on the starboard side facing towards the rear of the boat towards the top od the unit and it should be a square head 3/8 plug. To remove the heater hoses you may have to heat them with a heat gun to make thenm come off easier but when you do put some grease on them so they come off easier next year. When you reinstall the knock sensor do not forget to retorque the sensor to 16 lbs/ft.

[Edwin]

RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

Since you're rather good with the wrenches, read the manual and get at it.

[DRAGON88]

Re: RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

nms1991, Thanks, I should be able to finish it up tomorrow. :mrgreen:

Since you're rather good with the wrenches, read the manual and get at it.

Thanks for the help. :|

[jhiestand]

Winterizing today, have a few questions.

DRAGON88, the plumbing on your GM engine is different than on my GT40 but I think nms1991 has you getting all the trouble spots. You might also want to consider fogging your engine. Opinions differ as to best way to accomplish it, but my '01 manual says to pull each spark plug, spray each cylinder individually then rotate the engine a couple turns by hand. Of course, you might've already addressed this so ignore it if that's the case!

Also, I had a ton of problems with the heater hoses and finally this season I addressed that issue by installing quick disconnects. There's a how-to on Wakeside rides that has all the info.

http://www.planetnautique.com/index....218&highlight=

[DRAGON88]

RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

Ok, call me an idiot, but for the life of me I cannot find this stupid plug. Could someone give me a picture of it, or even where I would find it as related to other parts of the motor.

jhiestand, thanks for the link, I saw that the other day that is indeeed a tempting modification....

[skinautique]

RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

which plug are you looking for? The knock sensor is on the port side with a wire clipped onto it. If you find the starter, go forward and down a little bit from there. The other block plug is on the stbd side in the center of the engine (front to back) and just above the oil pan. It needs a 9/16 wrench.

[DRAGON88]

RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

A thousand thanks to you Skinautique! I know that my dealership does all the heater and shower installs so would it be common to replace the drain plug on the starboard side with a barbed connection running to the hot part of the shower? When I removed it it leaked out as much water as the port side did when I removed the Knock Sensor.

Thanks again!

-Richard

[skinautique]

RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

Do you know how to winterize your heater and shower?

[DRAGON88]

RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

Shower: turn off cold water knob turn on pump. purge hot line. Turn off hot water knob, turn on cold water knob: turn on pump. purge cold line. Correct?

Heater, disconnect both hoses from engine. (I think I'm just going to buy some fittings and do the quick connects like jhiestand did.) Use compressed air to blow in one end of the hose until no more water comes out the other hose: then fill lines with marine antifreze and re connect them. Correct?

[skinautique]

RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

Yeah you have it right but you can also just use your mouth to blow the air through the heater hose. Point the lower hose down into the bilge and keep it there. The water and the antifreeze will flow a lot better. When you put the antifreeze in the heater line, hold the upper heater line as high as you can so that you have an easier time getting it to flow.

On the shower, make sure you run antifreeze through there as well so that you don't have any trapped water in the pump and/or the lines. Run it until you see the antifreeze pumping out of the shower head.

[bkhallpass]

RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

Be careful blowing compressed through the heater core. The solders on those things aren't very strong and will blow without much pressure.. As Skinautique suggest, you'll get enough pressure just blowing with your mouth.

BKH

[DRAGON88]

RE: Winterizing today, have a few questions.

I did the quick connect mods and blew out the heater core, and managed to get a wrench lost under the gas tank.

However I still have one more stupid question, where is the transmission cooler/ what does it look like?

Thanks,

Richard