Sea water cooled engine water flow

"I had pulled my boat today to

"I had pulled my boat today to put her away for the 6 month winter here in Wisconsin. I have a 740B with a DP/C outdrive. When I winterize, I remove the 1 1/4" hose from the water pump, install an adapter I mad up and fun the engine on the hose until it heats up. I then drain the 4 petcocks to get most of the water out of the system and pull the thermostate. I have drains on the manifolds and 2 on the block itself. I always remove the "T" from the petcock and insert a pick to insure the passage is open. I than close them up and run 6 gallons of -100 antifreeze thru. However, today out of the port side block drain I got zero water out. I even turned the hose on, closed the other 3 drains, to try to get flowage thru this drain. Still nothing. I have had no over heating problems thru the season. I did the work at the ramp and not on level pavment. Would this have anything to do with it? Or do I have an internal blockage issue? Is there a way to clear it? Or am I just not realizing water should never came from there?"

"Bryanm, You should be able to

"Bryanm, You should be able to drain most all of the sea water from the engine via the two side engine drains. That is what they are for.
You will need to "probe" these drains ports with a wire in order to un-clog any sand/silt debris that may prevent full draining.
That may be what's going on with the Port side drain port!
Being out of level would not affect this, IMO..... at least not to this degree!

Be sure to remove the engine Circ pump large suction hose and allow the Circ pump to fully drain any sea water!

Now.... that being said; filling the engine with antifreeze is OK... but you must note that this alone does not necessarily dictate that you have removed any residual water. The risk is the residual water may not have become fully displaced by (or mixed with) the antifreeze.
Draining the engine block once again, IMO, would be protocal........... leaving the engine block/heads dry!
Air alone will not freeze!


I'd pull the raw water pump impeller for the layup duration..... often you can get another season from them if still good! (leaving one in only shortens the life span)

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"One way to be sure the 'm

"One way to be sure the 'mix' gets around, is to, after filling the block and reinstall the thermostat, remove the impeller and start!
The circulation pump will mix it around in seconds.
Then 'top up' and leave the engine.
Left dry, might cause scaling and disaster with blocked passages when you restart in the spring.
Be sure you get some anti-freeze mix between impeller-pump and drive as well, or your oil-coolers might suffer!"

"I am in heated storage, so th

"I am in heated storage, so the antifreeze is just a precaution. I'm more concerned about getting the blockage opened up. I ran the antifreeze thru, but am worried about the lack of mixture in the block. Is it safe to use an air hose and presurize the block thru the drain? Ive tried the clean it out with a pick but got nothing."

"Morten, If the thermostat is

"Morten, If the thermostat is re-installed, then bringing the engine up to operating temp would be required in order for the Circ Pump to mix the E/G solution with any residual sea water...... and by this time (with no raw water flow), we'd risk burned exhaust couplers, bellows, and likely a few other exhaust components.
Did you by chance mean; "Leave the thermostat OUT" for this? That may work, as a 20/30 second dry start would not harm anything, IMO.

After my oil changes, and after I run the engines back up to operating temperature, I remove my raw water pump impellers.
I then do a very short dry start for fogging each engine.
A 6-8-10 second "dry start" is about all it should take if you know how to do this!
(however, mine are closed system cooled, so I am not draining down engine low point drains.)

Each to his own.......
I'm just making a suggestion that any rust scale (from not having E/G mix in the block for the winter) will be minimal... especially after the E/G has done some coating!
If a person is able to <u>guarantee himself</u> that he has either "fully removed" or "properly diluted" the sea water well enough w/ E/G/H20, then I guess the gamble is a good one!

Would I possibly do this myself? Yes, maybe!
Would I recommend this to someone who does not do this professionally? No! Not in good conscience-ness.

<font color=""0000ff"">Every spring time people find out the hard way that they had not performed this correctly, only to learn of the cost for an engine replacement!
It's a proven fact that "Air" will not freeze and expand causing damage.
I'll take a little rust scale vs a cracked engine block any day.... It's a much better scenario, IMO. </font>


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"[b]Quote: "I am in heated

"Quote: "I am in heated storage, so the antifreeze is just a precaution. I'm more concerned about getting the blockage opened up. I ran the antifreeze thru, but am worried about the lack of mixture in the block. Is it safe to use an air hose and presurize the block thru the drain? Ive tried the clean it out with a pick but got nothing."

Your call on using compressed air... doubt that you'd hurt anything! I'd try probing with a longer and heavier guage piece of wire or ??? also!

When you DO get it free, run some more coolant through the engine and out that drain!

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