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Winterization starts tomorrow morning with the last outing of the year....to head over to the marina next door to empty the holding tank. From there it's changing the oil and oil filters, fuel filters, genset oil, emptying and blowing out the freshwater system, and winterizing the A/C and genset. Haven't decided if I want to tackle the engines myself or not yet. I'll see how tomorrow goes with the other items and take it from there.

Question for other 298 owners....how much of a PITA is it to get to the drain plugs on the engines? Getting to the oil filters looks bad enough. It's a pretty tight fit in there. Especially with a genset. I'm a little worried about removing a plug and not being able to see to get it back in...or dropping it and watching it roll under the engine.

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'01 Vista 298

WELL, I hope there is room between the engines, because the drain plugs are right in front of the starter on the starboard side and near the oil pan dipstick tube on the other. I have the old style bronze colored plugs and I use a small adjustable wrench to loosen them....Honestly that alone is a good reason to have closed cooling, which for sure my next engine is going to have...
You should have remote mount oil filters so that shouldn't be so bad, and get a good vaccum pump with a garden hose adapter that will screw on to the engine dipstick tube. You have to warm up the engine to get the oil to pump out. I'm not going to subject you to my rant about NOT sucking AF up the drive in a raw water cooled engine other than to say don't do it, drain all the water and then fill with AF if you want, that's optional, I do it because in salt water we need all the help we can get with corrosion....

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

If I remember to, I'll take a picture of the engine bay tomorrow when I'm down at the boat. It's tight. Real tight.

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'01 Vista 298

The engine bay. Tight. Not sure yet how to reach all of the drain plugs.

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'01 Vista 298

In the marina world we call that lots of room! Tight is when you can not fit a piece of paper between the manifolds.

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Brian Borchik
The Winds of Cold Springs Harbor Marina
Baldwinsville, NY

That does not look that bad at all to me. The manifold drains should be no problem. The block drains on the inner cylinder banks may be a little tough, I'd get a telescoping inspection mirror (auto parts stores sell em, I've used one for years) so you can see the drain plug. All you have to do is be able to feel it, get one arm in there with a small adjustable wrench and turn it the right way...try not to drop it in the bilge.

VERy Important, water MUST come out of every drain, they can get blocked by rust, so if water doesn't gush out, and just dribbles, take a long wood scew, or machine screw, or even a long very thin screwdriver or awl and poke the drain holes and get the water OUT...



Then you need to remove the hoses on the raw water pump and let them drain, the big hose on the front of the engine for the circulating pump and some engines have a square plug in the front of the intake manifold (later model V-6s have this, but I'm not sure about V-8s). If you then want to use Antifreeze (use the good stuff -100 with corrosion inhibitors), then disconnect the feed hoses from the thermo housing. Pour AF in the hose till you see AF come out the manifold drain. Replace the drain plug or rubber cap and fill each manifold till it runs out the exhaust, you will hear it run on the ground. For the engine, re-connect the lower end of the big hose on the front circulating pump, leave the top end off. Then start filling the engine till you see AF come out the drains. Stop and replace the drain plugs. I like to put marine grease or motor oil on them if they are metal plugs, makes em come out easy next time. Then fill the engine till you see AF appear at the thermo housing neck. Then re-connect the upper end of that hose to the thermo housing neck. Take the raw water intake hose that comes from the transom, after pointing it down to make sure all the water is out, and fill it with AF, some AF will run out the drive water intakes. Take the hose that goes from the raw water pump to the thermo housing and fill that with AF too from the thermo end, that gets AF in the impeller housing.

that's the SAFE and PROPER way of using AF that's in some engine manuals, the short cut method sucking it up the drive will not work if the engine does not warm up enough to fully open the stat, and on a cool fall day, with 45* water, it most likely will not. So learn the right way the first time and have no worries.

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

so how's it going, job done yet?
It's 44 degrees here today, glad I did mine last weekend it was almost 60.
I opened up the cover and did a few extra things, charged the batteries, greased the steering ram, etc.
I need a new circulating (water) pump, the bearing started howling and there is play in the shaft. Sprayed PB Blaster on the bolts and loosened them up a bit to make it easy in the Spring....pretty good that pump lasted 22 years....

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

I could write a book on this....

Today's project was changing the oil on the generator. Simple process, right? Sure. The genset (Kohler) has a quick release adapter for draining the oil. Of course, I don't have one and can't find one locally so I rigged up something that worked pretty well. The oil filter...yeah, well...that's another story. Whoever owned this boat before me sure liked to make sure their filters were on nice and snug. I got it off....but not before the filter wrench made contact with the positive connection for the battery cable to the genset....which was hidden under the filter and the boot had slipped loose. So metal on metal on open positive connection, sparks fly, I let loose a few words, drop the wrench in the bilge, and curse some more, and start stressing about whether or not I just cost myself serious money in the form of fried something in the genset or elsewhere. Ended up getting the filter off and it would appear that the 1/2 second contact between the filter, wrench, and terminal was enough to burn two small holes through the filter. No big deal in terms of the filter having holes, since it's the old filter and getting tossed anyway. Run down to my local marine store to buy the new filter and of course they don't have one. I did find where to buy one but they're closed until tomorrow. So now I wait until tomorrow night to get the new filter, install it, top off the oil, start up the genset, and pray to God I didn't fry something when the sparks flew. I'm hoping that since the oil filter seemed to take the worst of it, I'm safe....I'm always the optimist. Don't worry, I'll let my FW friends know what happened.

Lessons learned today....get the new filter before starting. Typically I do this but I couldn't see the numbers on the filter from the way it was sitting so I gambled it would be available at my local store. Lost that gamble. Bigger lesson...take a long hard look at the work area before starting work. Thought I did but obviously missed something rather important. What will tomorrow bring?

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'01 Vista 298

It's a lot tighter than it looks....at least in my opinion. The problem isn't getting between the engines, it's getting to the outsides of the engines.

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'01 Vista 298

This is one of those live and learn things, now when I work on the side of the engine where the starter is whether it's changing the plugs or taking out the manifold drain, I turn the battery main switch to OFF. Why, well the stud for the starter which is directly connected to the battery switch plus lead does have a rubber cover on it but still, you do not want your hand on a wrench that completes a dead short to ground. The starter on a GM V6 or V8 is near both the manifold drain and one of the center spark plugs, the wrench if still touching the spark plug or drain (both grounded) somehow touched the plus terminal on the solenoid, that's a dead short to ground. You can burn your skin and if there are gas fumes in the bilge (like if you just changed the fuel filter) it can be dangerous. I have been teaching my son little by little some minor mechanical repair stuff. And one of the things I told him is that the battery is one of the most dangerous things in a boat or car engine compartment. Capable of delivering anywhere from 650 to 850 amps, and full of acid. I have my batteries in boxes but also have rubber covers on the plus and minus terminals just in case I have to put them on the charger and its hard to see. I feel that all batteries should come with a bright red + under the plus terminal. How many people have ruined an alternator by hooking up a battery backwards? Happens more than you would think.

So it's not a bad idea to switch off the batteries unless you need them on for some reason. I heard of a story on one of the Jeep boards that I frequent that someone was changing the oil filter on a 4.0 inline six. Now the filter is near the starter solenoid, and the filter wrench managed to short the two connections on the solenoid and to his surprise the engine started cranking over! Must have been an older one that did not have the red rubber protector on the starter hot lead....

be careful, electrickery is dangerous.....

Also take off rings, watches and bracelets, I know someone who got a burn all round their wrist from a watch that somehow touched both the plus terminal on a Chevy truck starter and the engine (ground) looked really bad, took a long time to heal.

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

Both starting batteries were set to off for the engines. However, the genset is always "live" when it comes to the batteries. It doesn't matter where my battery switches are, the genset will always start. I read the manual first and it said nothing about disconnecting the batteries. Then after my little incident I went back and checked again and still didn't find anything about disconnecting the batteries. Like you said...it's a live and learn thing. By next season I'll have this down!

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'01 Vista 298

that's interesting, I am surprised that there is no switch between the generator and the batteries, seems like an oversight, just in case of an emergency, if the plus cable wore through and was grounding on the engine what the heck would you do, let it catch on fire? You know that some batts have enough amps to weld with, that's a dangerous force to not be able to turn off....then again no vehicles have a batt shut off switch but I feel that they also should....

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

VERY Important, water MUST come out of every drain, they can get blocked by rust, so if water doesn't gush out, and just dribbles, take a long wood screw, or machine screw, or even a long very thin screwdriver or awl and poke the drain holes and get the water OUT...

Yep - truer words never spoken! This brings back some bad memories. The third (and last) time I winterized the engine on my former boat myself, I just opened all four drain plugs, and felt the water dribble out of each. All seemed well, but after a particularly cold winter, I launched and started it up fine, and went out for quick test run - sluggish performance and heard a strange hissing sound from the engine compartment and when I opened it up there was spray everywhere!

Turns out the plug from one of the manifolds had some rust filings blocking it, and what I should have done was poked something up through the hole and made sure all the water drained. Expensive lesson, and now I'm happy to take it the the marina and have a professional winterize things for me. It's also easier on me, as only way a 6'3", 220 pounder can get to the drain plugs on the block is to go in head first, and spend a few minutes upside-down - not a pretty sight.

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2005 Sundowner
2008 Highlander V6

Winedown-
Get yourself a Kohler Sea Spares kit for your 5E before next season and carry the spare fuses, filters, etc for your genset.

Then you'll also be all set to winterize next year and just need to replenish your kit.

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2007 358 T-5.7GXi IB
Previous Boats
'08 H240, '08 V318, '04 268, '04 225

Tonight's update....wait for it.....a SUCCESS story!!! Finally! Tracked down and purchased the new oil filter, installed it, filled with oil, crossed my fingers, pressed start and it fired right up. Ran a few of the systems including the reverse cycle heat to make sure the genset would still operate normally under load after my little sparking incident and I'm happy to report that all systems are running normally. Phew!

I think the rest of the winterizing will have to wait until next weekend when I can work during daylight hours again. Here's to hoping all future updates will be happy ones.

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'01 Vista 298