How long for water in an I/O to freeze?

[GMTK]

2004 Hurricane with a 4.3L Volvo. Boat is located 3 hours from me in an enclosed shed with a concrete pad. A freak weather system came through Texas the last two days and temps hit 0. I did not have time to get down and drain the water out of the engine. (And have never had to in south Texas).
Question - how long do you think it has to be below freezing for the water in the engine to freeze and then crack the engine block? Roads are impassible right now and I don’t have any buddies near the boat I trust to pull the drain plugs. Outdrive is stored in the down position. And there is a cover on the boat and engine bay.

 

[Bondo]

Ayuh,..... One of my mentors always said 6 hours at 26*, but I never tested his theory,......

It's my guess, yer gonna have a problem,....

 

[Scott06]

Agree with bondo my guess is you will have a cracked block and exhaust manifolds.

my cousin lives in austin, been speaking with him, i know the weather yku are having is freak but why don't you guys drain your blocks? Doesn’t take that long and sh$t happens very day.

 

[Scott Danforth]

your block and manifolds are now toast. at 0 degrees, you had maybe 15 minutes (if it was salt water in the block, at 0 degrees you would have had 45 minutes). As Bondo mentioned, 6 hours at 26F, its about 4 hours at 22F, about 2 hours at 15F. you get the picture.

out of the 580000 registered boats in Texas, about 250,000 are I/O's and only about 50,000 of them were moored or winterized.

you are now the second Texan out of 200,000 to mention it on iboats. but you are not alone. cold weather thru-out the south killed a lot of boat motors.

 

[tpenfield]

12 hours, 38 minutes and 22 seconds, or thereabouts

I'm with Bondo on this one , I'd say 6-12 hours in the mid 20's F will freeze the engine. Since the boat is inside a garage (unheated right?) that adds a variable, but the temp was 0˚ F - ish outside for a couple of days. . . I think you should expect a frozen/cracked engine. Consider yourself lucky if you escape unscathed.

 

[Lou C]

It’s very unfortunate but these changing weather patterns mean that anyone who has an I/O should really drain it at the end of a typical season’s use. Even if this extreme weather is a complete anomaly.
Also if installing a new or re man engine spend the extra cash on closed cooling at least a half system. That protects the most important most expensive component of the boat. Raw water cooling is just a lousy system for inboards in my opinion. They were designed as automotive engines with pressurized cooling systems by GM. It was the marinizers that came up with this system to save money.

 

[gm280]

Amazing the forces freezing water presents. That is the very reason northern states have such a hard time keeping roads reasonably drivable. Any little crack in the road and water, snow, and ice gets in the slightest crack and freezes and breaks the road open. And since that happens over and over and over every winter season, road paving is a non-stop business. Some rock quarries actually use water for that very reason. They drill holes in a line, fill with water and either mother nature freezes and breaks the slab off, or they purposely freeze the water to break the slabs free.

 

[H20Rat]

Sorry to hear that, I have probably the identical boat, with a 4.3.

About the best thing to do at this point is to start shopping for a reman block before the typical rush in the spring. 100% chance the water in the block froze solid if it got to zero. Normally a nighttime low dip into low 20's/high teens is enough to freeze it.

About the only good thing is that pulling a motor from a hurricane is probably pretty easy, with the forward folding engine hatch, and 2 pins to remove it. Easy access to everything you need to get to.

 

[Grub54891]

I've seen a tractor block freeze overnight and the temp only dropped from 50 degrees to 25 overnight. It warmed up to to 50 the next day but all the water was in the oil pan. Wasn't mine but the owner had just got it running from an overhaul and wanted to see it run.

 

[Bt Doctur]

how long does your fridge need to make ice cubes

 

[Scott06]

how long does your fridge need to make ice cubes

Good point...unfortunately Longer than it takes a block to crack at zero

 

[jhande]

Keeping my fingers crossed the freeze out plugs worked but not likely.

Here in NH if below 32F overnight damage is done by the time you wake up and sip your morning coffee.

 

[Scott Danforth]

Keeping my fingers crossed the freeze out plugs worked but not likely.

Here in NH if below 32F overnight damage is done by the time you wake up and sip your morning coffee.

No such thing as freeze plugs. They are core plugs to get the core sand out at the foudry during the casting process

 

[jhande]

No such thing as freeze plugs. They are core plugs to get the core sand out at the foudry during the casting process

Oh dang... that sucks

 

[JimS123]

I feel so sorry for all you guys that never had to deal with this. Its no fun to have a problem when you didn't expect to have to prepare.

In my case earlier this year we had a record 56 days of sub freezing temperatures. Of course, we expected it so we DID prepare. Same old, same old.

Nevertheless, there is a simple solution. Three years ago I dumped the old I/O in favor or a brand new 4-stroke outboard. No more u-joints, gimble bearings and bellows. Instead of hours to winterize, it now takes me about 5 minutes.