www.iFourWinns.com

Anyone here ever use that cool winterizing system by Camco Marine?? It's easy to use, and for those with the easy flush out system in the VP's, it's even easier to winterize your engine with anti-freeze. I think it's even easier than completely draining your engine for the winter.

My neighbor bought this kit last year and let me try it out this weekend. Another member on this site, "cougar cruiser" has also used this kit on his 240-H and like it too.

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2006, 220 Horizon
Kent, WA.
"Semper Fidelis"

Be careful with those...it's possible that the thermostat will not open up enough to get enough AF in the engine to keep what water is still in there from freezing, and often most of the AF winds up going out the exhaust...check the block drains, drain some of what's in the block in to a paper cup, and put it in the freezer, see if it stays liquid, if not drain and backfill. If you have mostly water or a weak AF/water mix in the block, it could be new engine time in the spring....
The only good use of those things, is to winterize the raw water side of an engine with closed cooling....no sterndrive manufacturer ever recommended winterizing a raw water cooled inboard that way, they ALL say manually drain and then you can add AF by pouring it in if you want. I've heard of people using them and not having problems, but tell me.....'do you feel lucky?'

Don't want to see you start a ' water in the engine oil' thread or asking 'why did my freeze plugs pop out last winter'.

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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

How much are they wanting? I'm already winterized, but it looks a little simpler than what I do.

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Walt B
"Debt-Charged"
Black '07 H210SS
6.2L Bravo One turning a 21P HIFive
Wakeboard Tower with Perfect Pass Stargazer version
Missouri River; Kansas City, Mo.

LouC....thanks for your imput. The instructions on this say to make sure that the engine warms up first as you flush it out with fresh water, and make sure the thermostat opens up way before you open the valve on the jug filled with anti-freeze to run it through the engine.

Any idea if that sounds sufficient? By the way, the winters here in the Seattle area get cold, but are relatively mild compared to the rest of the country. We usually don't get sustained freezing weather here in the northwest...if that makes a difference..

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2006, 220 Horizon
Kent, WA.
"Semper Fidelis"

In more than 5 years of boat ownership, I've NEVER had to disconnect any hose. However, I'm darn sure the T-stat is open before flushing with AF.

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Walt B
"Debt-Charged"
Black '07 H210SS
6.2L Bravo One turning a 21P HIFive
Wakeboard Tower with Perfect Pass Stargazer version
Missouri River; Kansas City, Mo.

Only way you can tell, is to drain some out of the block and put it in the freezer, if it stays liquid in your freezer, and your temps are above zero, then you're fine. I don't like those things because you really don't KNOW if the thermo is open, unless you can feel the thermo housing, then you will feel the top of it get hot, (hot water coming up out of the block) and the hose to the circ pump will also get hot, and the hoses to the manifolds will get warm. On a cool November day here, that could take a while, esp if you have a sticky thermo that sticks open a little bit and does not let the engine reach 160. I have this problem because of raw water cooling in salt water (typically a piece of rust gets lodged in the thermo), then it doesn't close, and the engine would not go over 100 on the water hose. I actually had to pop in a new thermo to get the engine warmed up enough to change the motor oil! I also feel it's important to remove the drain plugs once a year so they dont' get frozen (rusted) in place. I coat the threads of the plugs in OMC triple guard grease and they always come right out.
And about disconnecting hoses, well if you never take them off, and one day you need to, they will be rusted in place (keep in mind, open system, no antifreeze, no corrosion protection, cars have antifreeze, much less corrosion). And then you will have a BAD day trying to get it off. Mine are original, yep 20 years old, and they come off, because they get removed every year, I put a little grease on each fitting the hose came off, just like the drain plugs. When you operate in a salt water environment, you need to do these things or suffer the consequences. You fresh water guys don't need to worry so much, but this is why I do what I do.
REMEMBER, no stern drive or inboard manufacturer recommends using those kits, that tells you something.

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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

Thanks again LouC....I will take your imput as food for thought, appreciate the insight!

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2006, 220 Horizon
Kent, WA.
"Semper Fidelis"

I'll add my 2 cents in here... I picked up this kit for 37 bucks from Boaters world.

It's a fantastic kit... you use 5 gallons of AF (about 3 bucks/gallon locally). I hooked all this up with my VP flush kit and got the engine good and warm. How do you know when the T-stat opens? Well - I watched the temp guage come up to temp and then at aboug 175 degrees, the t-stat opened up and the engine temp dropped immediately with the rush of cold water. Let the engine then warm back up to operating temp. Took about 7 minutes of running time for this to happen.

When I was sure it was open you pull the valve and flush away. Couple minutes later, it's empty.

Is it rocket science? Nope... Is it guaranteed 100%? NOPE - but it's a heck of alot better than not doing it.

with some of you who get crazy temps down low - you might want to double check with Lou's test.

I'd say it's a pretty safe bet though. Camco would probably have feedback if it wasn't good. at least in my area, I've only heard good things about it.

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2008 318 Vista -SOLD, but I am still around!
All Night Long, Seattle WA

All I would say, is check what comes out of the block drain, put some in a paper cup and put it in your freezer. I actually went out and bought an antifreeze tester that is capable of measuring the concentration of proprylene glycol (no tox) AF/water mixes, the ones for ethlyene glycol won't work on P.G. If you could find one (Sierra makes one for their PG coolant) you can measure it more precisely.
Keep in mind that these no tox antifreezes, when sold, are rated by burst temp, not freeze temp. In other words, if it says -50 -60 or -100, that is the temp that the solution will cause a copper pipe to burst. Ice crystals will form, and it will become semi solid (but not expand, yet) at as high a temp as 10 degrees F for the -50 stuff, and that's straight -50, not diluted with water as it might be in the engine. So make sure if you use this kit you are using -100, which will stay liquid at least down to -54, that's what the freeze protection is when I measured it with the AF tester. I know it doesn't get that cold where you guys are, but I would be very interested to see just what is the freeze protection of the solution that gets into the block with one of those kits. Crawling around in the bilge is not fun and it gets less so as you get older, but being able to not think about it all winter is nice too. And I will say, having used the AF every year I have this boat, that it does seem to cut down on corrosion, the thermo housing I replaced in 2003 still has no flaking rust, and the part of the intake manifold that I can see when I pull off the thermo housing had no flaking rust as well. At the end of next season I'm going to check the manifolds I put on in 2004 and see what they look like.

If you are using the $3 a gallon stuff, it aint the -100 that is for sure, that costs like $12 a gallon here! I bet it's the -50, and like I said, put a gallon of that in the freezer (I did) and watch what happens, in about a day it will be pretty solid inside. And that's not diluted, add some water to it, and I'd be concerned.
The way I do it, I can guarantee, it is as safe as you can make it, the water is drained, and what I put in, won't freeze, and has corrosion protection. That's why this old boat is soldiering along on an original 20 year old engine....even in salt water for 1/2 of its life, I do go a bit over board, but my very good salt water IO mechanic agrees 100% with me.....you guys with nice new boats and nice new engines.....please check em......

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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 agree with Lou about mixing water with the -50 AF. It doesn't take much to make the stuff useless. for mild winter areas this is more than likely sufficient. I have never watched a marina do a winteriazation but I suspect they do something similar (suck up outdrive) because it is fast.... and time is money! this past weekend, I drained my block, manifolds and OIL COOLER. I pulled both the hoses off my raw water pump and drained them into the bilge. I was confident that the system was "dry" so I then buttoned it all back up and removed all the hoses from the thermostat housing and dumped three gallons of the -50 AF down the hoses. This year I am confident that i will not have any problems in the spring! I say this because I know the system was completely drained and I added the antifreeze as an extra cautionary device. I could have just left it dry but added the antifreeze so that it gets to all the low points and helps protect the invisible/nondrainable areas. Here in Canada we sustain temps of 0F for days or weeks at a time so we need to make sure we are prepared.
BTW, Propylene Glycol is non-toxic but I am not too sure how good it is for the environment when it gets flushed into the river or lakes atleast the -50AF is alcohol based and will eventually evaporate or just make the fish blind!

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Marc, Kathlin & Nathalie


'89 Chaparral Laser 32

'93 Vista 245, 5.8L w/ King Cobra

Former Boats
'01 H260, 7.4 VP Duoprop
'98 H200, 5.0 GL w/VP SX drive

This is the exact kit I use. I run it on the water at planing speed to get the temp up, put it on the trailer and hook it to the hose within a matter of minutes so that there is not much cool-down, and then run it again on the hose until I'm confident we are back up to normal operating temp. Then I turn the valve and watch until it is gone.

I see where LouC is coming from. I think the manufacturers probably don't recommend that thing because of the several obvious places that the user could go wrong, thus making the device a lot less effective.

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Paul
2007 Four Winns Horizon 220
Mercruiser 350 Mag MPI w/ Bravo III Drive
2004 Ford Explorer Limited (V8-AWD)
Pomme de Terre Lake (Southwest Missouri)

Here in Texas, our winter is so short all I do is empty the system, takes a total of 10 minutes. Open all petcocks plugs on engine (4 total), pull the lower water pump hose and impeller hose, turn the engine over a few times and done. Winter is Dec till Feb for us, if that. Probably will fog this year though.

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2006 FW 203 FS
2005 Dodge Laramie 1500
2003 CRF 247F SuperMoto racer
2001 CBR1100XX