Winterizing engine. Do Antifreeze turns colorless (after 2 days) inside the manifold?

[bruceb58]

And, you DO NOT have to drain an engine before using A/F!

Please ...nobody follow this advice.

 

[thumpar]

My GF used AF in her RV after draining everything and then flushing it out with the AF. In the spring the valve on the head and kitchen faucet valve assembly were cracked. I have been draining my boats for around 11 years and it works great. The manual says DRAIN and then use AF as an option if wanted but I won't.

 

[Scott Danforth]

propylene glycol - the main ingredient used in RV antifreeze, boiler anti freeze, etc still freezes. it still expands. the key is to use the -100 variety (pure PG). as it is watered down, the freeze point rapidly goes up. even the -100 stuff gels at about 10, starts to freeze into a slushy mess about 0 and becomes solid (and expanding about 4%) at -100. water it down and it expands a bit more at a much higher temperature. this expansion is what cracks blocks, manifolds, and Bruce's GF's RV water system

PG is primarily used as an environmentally friendly alternative to EG (Ethylene Glycol) which is extremely poisonous. While PG is GRAS (Generally Regarded As Save), it still isnt something that I would recommend drinking.

anyone who thinks you can suck up antifreeze thru a set of muffs and is good doesnt know how a thermostat and cooling system of the boat works (the stuff just goes out the exhaust) just simply doesnt understand engines and should not ever be working on them. that is the fastest way to a "boo hoo, my block cracked" post thread come spring time if there ever was one. anyone who suggest they can winterize that way is not a factory trained mechanic, and is gambling with your motor.

side notes:

When PG is used in a genset (most hospital installations), the gensets must be run anytime the termperature is 10 degrees or below to keep the PG from freezing or geling in the event the emergency generator is needed. otherwise when the generator is called on, it will run (with or without coolant flowing) and without coolant flowing t will overheat and fail in a short period of time. The downside is unless there is a power outage, the generator isnt loaded, and running a large diesel or natural gas motor at idle without a load leads to other problems. PG is simply a nightmare around an engine as people read the word antifreeze and automatically think its good without understanding the physical and chemical properties and the ramifications they hav.

pure isopropyl alcohol (99.9%) is still the original antifreeze used when cars were first invented. however it is much more expensive than EG or PG and just as deadly as EG. It also does not have any significant heat transfer properties to be used as a coolant as it would go to vapor quickly. It would not work in a water system. however pure ethanol alcohol would work. bruceb58 you may want to talk your GF into running a couple jugs of 192 proof polish whiskey ( Polmos Spirytus Rektyfikowany) into the RV water system. Then when done, it makes one heck of an octane booster for your drag car or your coctails.

 

[stonyloam]

Another thing to Scott's point is that even though the RV antifreeze does expand as it freezes it goes through a "slushy stage" where it still free to move as it expands and can flow out of the block or manifolds, where pure water would likely freeze solid from the outside in and trap the water in the engine. That was the theory behind the shape of a milk bottle that when it froze the milk would just push the cap up and not crack the bottle like here: https://www.google.com/search?sclie...31k1j0i10k1.DT2HuO2glKQ#imgrc=rvH8B-YjA4S2UM:

 

[bruceb58]

bruceb58 you may want to talk your GF into running a couple jugs of 192 proof polish whiskey ( Polmos Spirytus Rektyfikowany) into the RV water system. Then when done, it makes one heck of an octane booster for your drag car or your coctails.

You must be thinking of someone else. My GF does not have an RV and not sure where I said anything about them.

 

[Starcraft5834]

drain it all out and leave it empty

 

[Scott Danforth]

You must be thinking of someone else. My GF does not have an RV and not sure where I said anything about them.

was Thumpar's post....my bad...

 

[Pete104]

Thank you all for your help! I will try to get the marina to refund me what they charged me for winterizing the engines.

Won't happen!!

 

[Pete104]

Ayuh,..... Sounds like you ain't found a real boat mechanic, yet,.....

The 1st step of any, 'n all winterizations is Drain the block, 'n manifolds,....

Once Drained, the coolin' system fills from the bottom up, if yer pumpin' in antifreeze,....
Countin' on the t-stat be open is a fool's chase to a frozen busted block,....
The manifolds would probably survive, as any water, or antifreeze the block don't take, by-passes out the manifolds,...

Or, you can just Quit after step #1,..... No antifreeze,... Air don't freeze,......

So, Bondo. As a seasoned boat mechanic, I really take your statement as an insult! This bunch is so narrow minded it's a shame! Your theory on the block must be drained is total BS. Keep in mind this is the guy hiring a service! If he signed a work order, he is going to have to roll with it!!! And guarenteed, that ain't water. It's not the guy in his drive way trying to figure out what he's doing! I'm not trying to convince anyone on A/F is better or worse. You can or should maybe share your advice in one direction or another whether it's a DYI'r or whatever! There is alot of up & coming talent in iboats land & every fall it's the same thing!!! Air don't freeze. But doesn't i-boats sell anti-freeze?

I don't care if any of you have any respect for this or not. I just think it's dumb this post started with a "customer" of a service facility. He had questions, came here and 90% of you said they did it wrong.

Ain't this place for the guy that does it himself? And what is said is just an opinion?

 

[Pete104]

Please ...nobody follow this advice.

The guy doing anti-freeze in his drive way must drain his cooling system first.

But this post wasn't started by "the guy in the drive way"!!!

 

[Scott06]

Pete what's your skin in the game here?

Perfectly fine for him to ask questions- no one ever made a mistake performing a repair ? Why wait til next spring to find out there is a problem

 

[bruceb58]

The guy doing anti-freeze in his drive way must drain his cooling system first.

But this post wasn't started by "the guy in the drive way"!!!

So enlighten us...how do you do it?

 

[Bondo]

So, Bondo. As a seasoned boat mechanic, I really take your statement as an insult! This bunch is so narrow minded it's a shame! Your theory on the block must be drained is total BS.

Ayuh,.... I'm sorry yer insulted by the facts,.....

But that don't change the facts either,....

ALL winterizations, start with drainin' the block,.... Period,....

 

[Grub54891]

Drain, Drain Drain.......Always drain the block, and manifolds, coolers. Seen enough broken blocks from not doing it. Add anti freeze if you choose to, or not. I personally do just for peace of mind.

 

[tpenfield]

I have found that it is better to hold on tightly to a glass than it is to clean up broken glass on the floor. Regardless if a bad winterizing job is on the mechanic's dime, it still puts the owner in a bad situation. So, it is certainly good that the OP checked the winterization done by the shop, otherwise he may have been "sweeping up broken glass" come spring time.

 

[garbageguy]

...Your theory on the block must be drained is total BS. ...

I don't think it's just a theory. Please, tell us how we can save the time and effort it takes to drain a block (not too much, really), and still protect it from northeast winter temperatures. I am always looking for ways to save valuable time, so I look forward to understanding your method.

 

[Watermann]

Yeah Pete, I'll bite too. As a Mercruiser sterndrive owner who lives in a cold winter climate I too want to hear all about the best way to winterize.

 

[muc]

This post points up one of the reasons why it's hard for a professional boat mechanic to read/post here.

There are many ways to protect a I/O from freezing. And your telling the O.P. His job was done wrong. When it very well could have been done the BEST possible way. You backyard guys are going to winterize maybe 5, heck maybe even 10 engines this year. A pro has to do that many in a day. And now you've got me on the phone trying to explain to a worried customer why all these shadetree mechanics on the internet are wrong and the customer should listen to a guy who's winterized over 3000 engines (without cracking any of them) is right. And now you've got him asking for his money back. Thank You

The fact is we don't drain a block unless it's very easy to do it. We don't have the time.

We use 100% nontoxic antifreeze (with corrosion inhibitors) and we pump that into the engine while it's running, we recapture this antifreeze and pump it right back into the engine until the thermostat opens, than run it for about 5 minutes more. At that point we shut down and open a block plug to sample the antifreeze with a refractometer and check that we have at least a -20 reading. Now the impeller is coated with the slippery nontoxic so in the spring it has some lubricantion. The block is full of corrosion inhibitors so there will be LESS internal rust. All in all a faster way that's better for the engine.

Trouble is this doesn't make sense for somebody who is doing less than a lot of engines because of the up front costs to buy the equipment and materials.

As a side note to the people who treat the service manual like a bible. It was OUT OF DATE the day it was published. New ways and better materials HAVE come out. It's still a good reference, but is is written with the idea that the person reading it is a factory technician that is staying up to date with the constantly evolving ways of getting the job done.

 

[JASinIL2006]

I fully understand what you're saying, Muc, and I can understand why a guy who does this for a living (especially if he's conscientious and successful) might take umbrage at the tone of this thread. The problem is that many of us have had more than one bad experience with folks working on our boats who didn't really seem to know what they're doing. From my perspective, it's not easy to tell the difference between the knowledgeable and conscientious guy who winterized my boat sufficiently and some inexperience/careless mechanic who did it poorly, leading to a cracked engine block. I've read lots of threads here where folks took in a boat to be winterized with antifreeze (or who did it themselves that way) only to have a cracked block come Spring. I don't recall reading many (or any) threads where that happened when the block was drained.

Even more to the point, I guess what I don't understand is how what you described is quicker than just draining the engine. I am not the speediest, but draining my block, circulating pump and P/S hose doesn't take much more than 7-12 minutes, and I've only done it 5 or 6 times. Heck, the slowest part of winterizing for me is warming up the engine to change the oil and then wrestling with my awful Moeller oil extractor to get it to suck the oil out. The draining is a snap.

Not meaning to be argumentative, but it really doesn't seem that the antifreeze method saves any time. I don't get any anticorrosion benefits, of course, but I boat only in freshwater and I don't really feel that's a big issue.

 

[thumpar]

I was the person that mentioned the RV. I can assure you the tank was drained and then the system was flushed with the pink stuff. If there was any water in it it could only have been a cup or so throughout the system.

Muc is sounds like you do a it a way that works. The problem is the guy that gets the kit from some store and just puts 5 gallons in and thinks it got through because it came out the exhaust. They don't don't understand the way the engine flows. The AF never makes it into the block in those cases. Heck up until a few years ago I didn't even know the block filled from the bottom up. I have just been draining my whole boat ownership.