I spent a winter in Ketchikan with the Coast Guard, we had 12 inches of snow and 212 inches of rain. The sea water was warm all year and we still had block heaters on our 6-71's all year for Search and Rescue calls.

Well, I've been having fun. Warm all winter? Compared to Fairbanks this is the tropics! +44F right now, and raining. The coldest I've seen is +10F. Had the boat in the water all winter last year because I waited too long to get it out. Road was too icy to tow it home. I can't imagine living anywhere but Alaska;
where the men are Men!--and so are the women.
And for you salmon fishermen, the famous Tee shirt say's " Ain't no nookie like Chinookie"
Should be working on the boat, never enough time or money. --Ed

That's it, end of topic, Dave Morris's post and his friends system wins hands down.....

Two in the block, plus 4 for the manifolds and elbows--six total per motor.

Jeff

Yes! As usual, I was talking about my own boat with its RWC system. Duh!

With FWC all you need to do is drain the elbows (the manifolds are usually in the FWC circuit) and run the Pink Stuff through 'til it blows out the exhaust pipes. Probably take a couple of gallons, mainly to fill up and protect the muffler.


Sorry about that.

Jeff

Guys, when I winterized with the boat (for the first time for me) with the guy who winterized the boat (in the same climate, cold N. Michigan weather) for the preveous 15 or so years, we started the engines with the raw water intake below the strainers shut off, with emptied strainers, and the hose modified so we could pour the pink stuff directly into the hoses with a funnel, ran the motors until pink came out the stern. My question to you is, because I'm thinking back to my old shop days 35+ years ago, why should you pull the T-stats hoses off if water will not get out of the engines until the Tstats open? Isn't that water going to be pure (or close to it) antifreeze if you drained your petcocks? The function of the stats is to recycle the block water until warm, right? How can pink stuff get out the back unless the t-stats opened, thereby flushing the T-stat hoses? I think that pulling the hoses may be an extra step or can water get by the Tstats somehow and get out the back? I asked the guy about pulling the hoses off the T-stats for a direct dump but the guy said he had never done that. Or am I reading two separate functions, winterizing without starting the engine vs with starting the engines?

Jack:
I don't pull the t-stat hoses, I remove the thermostat itself to allow the pink stuff to immediately circulate through the block.
As you can see in the diagram below, the raw water pump will split the flow between the circulating pump and the top of the t-stat housing. With the t-stat in place and closed, the pink stuff will bypass the block and go straight to the manifolds.

How many gallons of AF would you go through before the thermo opens? 30 gallons ???

Here's how I do it (my boat stay in water all winter):

1) Remove two block drain plugs (per engine), let drain, turn over engine starter a few times to get water out of main water pump,then reinstall plugs.
2) Remove 4 plugs from exhaust logs and elbow (per engine), let drain, then reinstall
3) Remove thermostat and pour in pink AF until block is full.
4) Install t-stat and cover.
5) Open salad bowl (water strainer)
6) Admiral starts engine while I pour 3 gal of pink AF through strainer (never run a sea pump dry). Turn engine off.
7) Pull coil wire and ground coil with jumper wire.
8) Spray Sea Foam down carb while Admiral turns engine over 15 seconds.

Crack open a cold one and wipe my brow.

I think I cover all bases... I learned all this here on the forum..Can you guys see any holes?




Phflaw,
My understanding of the raw cooling system is water comes in cycles through sea pump which supplies the main engine water pump. Then the water goes through the lower part of block and flows to the upper part of the block and out of thermostat (if open) then out fo the exhaust.

I found a great diagram...Here
I know this is a car engine, but ours should work the same except for exhaust cooling which is supplied directly from the sea pump.

First of all thanks guys for your responses! Second, thanks Peter for a great diagram, it illustrates the "t" that I did not know about from the seawater pump that puts the water in the exhaust logs right away. Well done!