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Winterizing

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boater7

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[FONT=Verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I know winterizing is a very talked about topic but after a lot of research I still haven't found an answer to my question. I have been a boat tech for awhile but just recently started winterizing boats for the last few months and the one problem I continue to run into is draining the blocks, on most boats I can drain both blocks without a problem but every now and then (mostly gibson house boats with crusaders) I can only get to one side of the block (theres not enough room to get to the other side) I have heard that you can drain just one side of the block and it drains all the water out of that side and MOST of the water out of the other side (the side you can't get to) and then from there you can run 4 gallons of antifreeze through the sea strainer and you will be fine, is there any experienced techs out there that can confirm this or that has another solution? I understand you can run the engine up to temp to get the thermostat to open or even take the thermostat out but its not realistic for me to do that when I am responsible to winterize up to 100 boats a year, would greatly appreciate answers. [/FONT]
 
I have a Gibson and I know what you mean. I run the engines to get them warm and then open then try to open the two drain cocks on each engine block. For some reason I seldom get the left side of the starboard engine (350 engines installed with V drives). I have a hook up where I can turn off the sea-cock and open an adapter inboard of the sea-cock and I have a 5 gallon container sitting in the engine room with one end of a short reinforced hose in the container and the other at the adapter. I turn the engine on and suck up all the antifreeze and turn off the engine just before it is empty....

21 years and so far no problems with freezing (In Canada where -30C could last a week, at times.)
 
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