rhall81646

I use to winterize with a 5 ga tank and muffs. The mercruser mech said don't use muffs burns up impellars. How do I manually?
Air pump the fill AF to what hoses?

93viperboy

Interested in knowing also

Sydwayz

IF you have a fresh water flush fitting, you can put the antifreeze in there just like when you run it on a hose to flush out salt.
What your mechanic is trying to get you to do is get him to do it, and drop your lower unit into a modified 55 gallon drum or similar of antifreeze. You could also do this yourself.

Or, you can use muffs. It can be done, but it depends on what kind of water pickups you have on your outdrive, low, dual, or high water pickups. It's best to use the muffs that clamp though the drive (on the high water pickups).

You can put a schraeder valve (motorcycle tire valve stem) on your winterizing jug to push the antifreeze up to the sea water pump.

The air actuator system is a DRAIN SYSTEM ONLY. All it does it open up two ports on the bottom of the sea water side of the engine to drain out MOST of the water, to EXTEND your boating season. It is NOT a full winterization. It does not displace the water. All it does when you pressurize is open the two spring loaded drains.

Do a search on winterizing 496s here on the forum. It's been discussed a bazillion times.

What I typically do:
-Treat the fuel with stabilizer.
-Run the motors to heat them up and run stabilizer through.
-Change the oil.
-Run the motors on the hose again to circulate new oil.
-Drain as much water out of the motors as possible by pulling the little blue drain plugs AND pressurize the drain system.
-Release air pressure and re-install blue plugs.
-Run 3 gallons of antifreeze through.
-Then switch to your "fogging" concoction of a mixture of gasoline and 2-stroke Mercury oil. (Also found in a search. You can't spray fogging oil into these motors' throttle bodies.)

mike tkach

i bought a pump at menards that i put in a 5 gallon bucket of antifreeze and run a short garden hose from the pump to a good quality muffs,it pumps it to the sea pump in about 40 seconds,i add another gallon of a/f before the bucket is empty.works great on all closed cooling engines.

BUP

if you have a sea strainer then it can be done very easily with a funnel and filling the sea strainer with water or anti freeze while the engine is running. Next way if no sea strainer is --- pull off your internal water inlet hose either at the inside engine compartment transom side or at the inlet water impeller housing side, If you pull off the inlet water hose at the impeller housing side--- add a new 3 ft or 4 ft water hose same diameter as the one you pulled off. Get a 4 gallon or bigger size tub or bucket - stick the hose in the tub /. bucket - fill it up with water or non toxic anti freeze to run your engine on. Just keep filling your tub / bucket with water or anti freeze so it does not run dry while running the engine.

For anyone who has the impeller in the drive app this procedure as I mentioned above will not work.

BUP

If applicable the gen III cool fuel systems needs the water completely drained before anti freeze lay up as well. If not depending on how cold you get, it 100 % still needs to have the correct freeze and corrosion protection.

Pol83x

I'm working on a Y setup now with 2 ball valves so I can run on water through muffs then throw 2 valves so it will immediately switch over to an antifreeze bucket. Should work much better and shouldn't cause any fluid interruption to the impeller.

Sydwayz

This should work just fine, BUT...
...I would run at least 10 gallons of antifreeze though the motor doing it with this method.

Why? There is a strong chance that you will still end up with a mixture of antifreeze AND WATER throughout the block, instead of pure antifreeze.
The more antifreeze you run through it, the better, especially in the coolers which are extremely thin brass.

See this thread:
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...d.php?t=115804
...with a bunch more details.

I have installed a motorcycle valve stem on my winterzing jug that allows me to pressurize it with a 12V compressor when winterizing. It works like a charm.




You can buy them at any box auto parts store.






(Totally separate tip: You can also install them on your 5 gallon gas cans, just above the handle at the back of the can, remove the stem/plunger inside, and your can gas cans are free flowing like we had back in the 80s.)