www.iFourWinns.com

All my boats until now have been outboards and we used them heavily during the winter. This is my first time winterizing a cruiser and if the pros can critique me it would be great.

Drained the manifolds and block
RV antifreeze in the shower sump
RV antifreeze in the holding tank
drained water heater and water tank
opened all water outlets
hooked a hose to the water inlet and blew low pressure (18lb) of air through the system until all the water was out of the lines
put 4 air dryers in the cabin.

Here in Oregon we don't get real cold all that often, but will hit 25 a few times in the winter. I just want to make sure I drained the water system so it won't break, and I guess the drain valves on the manifolds and block take care of the engine. Is there anything else I should do?

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2000 268 Vista "Reely Nauti"
http://www.facebook.com/#!/rivercruiser

id pop the thermostat housing and add a gallon
of antifreeze to the block and also remove
the water from the impeller housing. I assume you
don't have AC?

Nope no A/C. I guess this will give me something to do this weekend.

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2000 268 Vista "Reely Nauti"
http://www.facebook.com/#!/rivercruiser

There is a recent post "Muffs for the VP 5.7 engine" that has some good information about winterizing your engine.

You might want to take a quick look at that thread, it might give you some ideas.

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2004 268 Vista "Satisfy My Sol"

I don't put antifreeze in the fresh water tank. I prefer not to leave it in the tank. The water ends up off tasting and takes too many purges of the water to make it worth the hassle. I put a shutoff and a Tee with a hose fitting on the line. Now I can just put a hose on the tee, shut off the valve between it and the tank and run it into a 5 gallon jug of antifreeze. Then I just turn on the fresh water pump breaker and open taps to run it through. Works nicely.

That and I put a bypass kit on the hot water heater. Better to take it out of the loop and leave it empty instead of wasting 10 gallons of pink in it. That and I don't have to purge the tank of the pink next spring. Supposedly the pink stuff ain't all that great for the heating element in the tank either.

Bear in mind your shower sump goes overboard, but has a non-return valve in the line. Be sure to put enough pink into the sump to have it pump up and overboard. This will leave enough pink in the line behind the valve instead of water to avoid freeze issues.

Also, be sure you've purged EVERYTHING. That includes the shower mixer (the knobs) and the hose to the showerhead. Also the shower at the transom, the icemaker and the cockpit sink. And be sure to fully purge both the COLD and the HOT lines.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

All I ever do is drain the block and manifolds, that takes care of the motor and outdrive.
For the freshwater system, drain the tank and water heater, install water heater bypass and winterizing kit before the water pump, with this you can draw antifreeze right from the jug to the entire system. I use less than 1 gallon to winterize, including the a/c and sumps.

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2000 248 5.7L DP
'92, '94 SXI 750, '08 STX 15F, '12 Ultra LX 300
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