Winterisation. what should i do/check?

[ianainge]

its that time again, boat comes out next week (Southampton) what exactly should i be doing i.e

1/ oil , belts ,fuel filters ,oil filters, air filters do i change these now or just before she goes back in in March.

2/ what happens to salt water in cooling system should it be flushed with fresh water or left (volvo 200hp diesels on legs ).

3/ is the freshwater cooling system ok with volvo coolant in it or should it be flushed and replaced with something else.

4/ what should be done to outdrives.

5/ anything else i should do.

 

[DepSol]

Read MBM November issue for 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, 1994 etc etc blah blah 1856, 1855 ;-)

That should cover it.

Dom

I am boating again ;-)

 

[Guest]

Most important thing apart from changing oils and filters is- get antifreeze where the sea water goes in the cooling!

This stops the corrosion- significant in exhuasts and in my case heat exchangers.

Trouble is there is a technique for doing this which I do not know- without covering yourself in antifreeze and wasting a load into the bilge. Perhaps someone knows...

Bob

 

[BarryH]

Winterization is only second best to using it! To get the antifrezze in the cooling, put the raw water pickup pipe into a bucket of antifreeze and run the thing up. It should get enough round the system

OK, to hell with it. Unbolt it and we'll use it as an anchor!

 

[jon_bailey]

I have a 10 page word document about winterising that may be of some help. This has been collected from varius places on the internet. Pleased to send you a copy if you PM me with an e-mail address that I can send attachments to.

 

[tcm]

Re: interior rust/mildew

loads of good advice coming your way.

One depressing thing bout returning to the boat can be the condition of the interiro. For a start, the exterior is all stainless steel 316, but the inside isn't. The exterior gets rained on, which is actually a bit better than is static damp and cold as inside.

Get a dehumidfier as low as poss in the boat venting to somewhere that can take water - holding tank, wet bilge , shower. Only needs to run every so often.

Treat all the metal bits, best places to attract condensation, and the reason why so many boats have rusty lightswitchy bits, with summink like wd40. The fairline ones (duno bout others, probly similar) simply click on and off, so best takem off put in plackky bag, spray in wd 40, replace in easter.

If you can, bedding is miles best taken home. If not, blankets and so on shd best be rolled up tight and into binliner and squeezed into upper shelves, where there's least damp.

You want to leave the boat dark - but not with curtains. Draw back and protect the curtains with pastic bags or whatever, otherwsie lots of damp will sittonem esp if teensy gaps round windows and get mildew: make the boat dark with sticky on bits of carboard if poss.

If leaving boat a long time in water, the doors can crash agin each other and damage, so jammem open.

Anything else metal can be carefully wiped (obv. be careful with spray) but lots and lots of the gear is not stainless, and will oxidise, even litle things like hinges and so on.

If there's a warm day, you can air the boat every so often- but not nec if dehum.