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Hi Everyone,
Well I'm about to winterize my 2006 244 Funship Volvo Penta 5.7 GXI Dual Prop. Upon reading my manual, I discovered that there is a flushing adapter (looks similar to a dip stick tube) that you thread a garden hose onto. This is located on the starboard side of the engine. I'm assuming that this is used instead of a flushing muff commonly used on a stern drive. My questions are;
1) Have you ever used this flushing method on yours instead of muffs? If so, what do you think of this method?
2) The cooling system on this engine "is not" an enclosed type, meaning that it's a fresh water intake only system. Therefore antifreeze is not used. I have located all drain plugs on the engine in which the manual states to drain off along with removing the hoses off of the water pump.
My questions in this area are;
1)Upon draining the engine do you retighten the drain plugs and reinstall the hoses and add antifreeze to the engine? I may be wrong, but the way I understand it, is that all you need to do is drain the water from the engine.
2)The boat is kept in my un-heated pole building, therefore I'm thinking of leaving the drain plugs/hoses off through the winter. What would you suggest?
Everything else is pretty straight forward for winterizing.
Your input & suggestions would be most appreciated! Thanks

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Ray & Paula
2006 Four Winns 244 Funship

While I don't have the flushing adaptor on my 5.7L I've seen the picture in the manual. Looks like it goes down to the lower part of the engine, possibly the water pump?
I just ordered a set of muffs and winterizing kit from West Marine. It's really just a 5 gallon jug that holds the all the antifreeze. I'll attach a hose to the muffs and let the engine warm up to open the thermostat. This will also give the fuel stabilizer time to run through the fuel system. I'll then switch to the antifreeze tank and shut the engine off when nothing but antifreeze is coming out of the exhaust. I've been told that removing the upper plugs at this point would be a good extra precaution, I'm not sure if I will go that far though. It makes sense to me that one reason for the antifreeze is to prevent corrosion by displacing any oxygen, so why intentionally let air in?
To partly answer your question, just pulling the plugs may not guarantee all the water is drained. By running antifreeze through and then pulling the plugs, anything left in would not be just straight water.

Good luck

That's what we've been doing ourselves for the last 5 years. Works fine, never a problem. The only thing we add is to make up a batch of fogging oil/gas mixture to run thru the engine prior to adding the antifreeze.

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2000 Vista 268

This past fall I tried winterizing for the first time my 5.0 FL. After warming the engine up for 20+ minutes I changed the hose connected to the muffs to a bucket of 3 gallons of antifreeze and ran the engine till empty. After reading a post somewhere I removed the hoses that plug the aft ends of the exhaust manifold-pure water came flowing out! So I drained the engine block, disconnected the cooling hoses and poured antifreeze in the thermostat housing after closing the drains.
Next year I plan to skip the antifreeze as I also read that pink RV antifreeze has no anti corrosive additives anyway.
IMHO draining the system and blowing out the exhaust manifolds should protect the engine.
Does this make any sense to anyone?

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'96 Horizon 200
"Have fenders...will raft"