2013 Nautique 230 winterizing

[ffmedic74]

Have time to winterize my boat this year. Fortunately the boat came with the external engine flush on the rear of the boat. Assume I can close off my bottom boat raw water intake, open my engine flush intake, start the boat cold and run 2-3 gal rv antifreeze through? Also, have the single ballast pumps for fill/drain. What's the quick easy way on this boat... Dump some antifreeze down the overfill discharge and discharge a little bit of antifreeze by running the pump on discharge? Will remove raw water pump to allow fins to relax, change oils/grease rudder, and stabilize fuel.

[Jeb1974]

I'm not sure that you'd actually get antifreeze into the pumps by dumping into the overflow (since they have check valves.) When winterizing mine I just disconnected the intakes and dumped in antifreeze with the pumps running for a few seconds. It didn't take that long.

I'd also pull all the plugs before running antifreeze through as well. There's less chance of diluting your antifreeze and raising the freezing temp.

[Quinner]

If you have an open cooling system you will definitely want to drain all the water first before drawing in the a/f. Be prepared with 5-6 gals of a/f if equipped with heater & shower.
If closed cooling I would drain water first as well, like Jeb mentioned, less chance of having diluted a/f in your system.

Stabilize fuel before the last time it runs so the treated fuel gets throughout the entire fuel system.

[ffmedic74]

Forgot to mention I have closed cooling system with the fresh water flush inlet on the rear of the boat.

[Beg4wake]

Forgot to mention I have closed cooling system with the fresh water flush inlet on the rear of the boat.

As stated above, even with the fresh water flush, there will still be water in the system prior to running antifreeze through it. If you simply try to run antifreeze through it then the antifreeze will mix in with the water before anything starts to get flushed out, diluting the antifreeze which in turn will raise its effective freezing temp. You really still need to drain as much water as possible before adding any antifreeze to your system.