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This is my first post to the site but I've been reading here for awhile. Got an 08 Horizon H200 5.0 MPI last fall and had it out pretty much all summer, love the boat.
Anyway, I winterize mine slightly different given that I use regular auto antifreeze and suck it up each spring from the single source drain using my vaccumn pump and store it for reuse in the fall.
Here's how I do it;
1) change the fuel water separator before starting the engine, pour gas stabiliser into fuel tank.
2) run it up to temp on the muffs, shut it down, then change the oil and filter.
3) change the outdrive oil
4) drain the freshwater into the bilge, close the single point drain and clean the bilge with soap and brush using all that nice warm water.
5) put a 126 litre plastic container under the outdrive with a spare bilge pump in the bottom of the container. The container tucks up nice and tight to the boat and is wide enough to catch the exhaust discharge.
6) Pour 6 gallons of unmixed auto antifreeze into the container then cut it with water to -45 celsius, end up with about 10 1/2 gallons of antifreeze.
7) hook up bilge pump in container to muffs with a very short hose.
8) unhook the fuel line and hook up to a 5 litre container of 2 stroke oil, gas and stabiliser, "merc brew".
9) start up bilge pump, start the boat up and grease the outdrive point.
10) circulate the antifreeze mix by picking up the discharge that exits the exhaust and run it back through the intake via the bilge pump.
11) watch the water temp gauge and check the antifreeze temp in the container. Run it for about 10 minutes in total on the antifreeze mixture.
12) Shut off the engine, wait for things to cool a bit, rehook the boat fuel line.
13) do a final visual, put some dielectric grease on the battery posts.
14) pour the remaining antifreeze into containers for reuse next fall. I measure the remaining antifreeze and subtract it from the total. The 5.0 Merc hold 20 litres or about 5 gallons so I'm left with about 5 gallons of mixed antifreeze.
15) in the spring I like to run the boat on the muffs prior to hitting the open water so I start by draining and recovering all that green stuff before starting the boat. Then I run it on the muffs with the container under the outdrive to catch any residual antifreeze and put that into containers as well for reuse. When I see clear water I know I've purged all the antifreeze.
Anyway, it's a plan and it works well for me. Besides it's very difficult to buy propylene glycol (the safer, less toxic antifreeze) locally and I don't use regular RV antifreeze, the common pink stuff, because it contains ethanol and we all know ethanol and rubber gaskets don't play well together.
Cheers all and sorry for the newbie long post. I've been doing it this way for a number of years but if anyone sees fault with this method I'm all ears.
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2008 H200 5.0 MPI
Love that "glass" on glass feeling
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