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Will antifreeze run through system take care of heater?


WBL skier

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When I run antifreeze through the engine (after draining block and manifolds), will this take care of winterizing the heater? Do I need to run it through separately? I guess I'm not sure how that heater system works. Any thoughts?

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How are you running it through the engine? If you're pouring it into the raw water intake, once the engine is at operating temp and the tstat is open, it will flow through the core.

I don't use antifreeze in the block but I do blow some through the heater. You can blow out the heater lines with a decent set of lungs. Just pull the feed and return lines off the engine and put one in the bilge. Blow into the other. Then pour some RV antifreeze into the line and blow again til you see pink (from antifreeze, not lightheadedness). :)

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If your going to use anti-freeze, it's best to drain everything first, including the heater. Then refill it all with anti-freeze. If you don't then your diluting the strength of the anti-freeze solution & it won't be as effective..... not to mention that it may or may not even make it to some areas in the engine, heater, shower, etc.

Also, careful running compressed air thru the core. It's not very stout & won't handle a bunch of pressure. Better to use low pressure, lots of volume....... kinda like your sprinkler system in your yard.

Edited by Bill_AirJunky
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The orientation of the heater core is important, if you simply try to blow the water out (use the human lungs, not compressed air) you could still have a fair amount of water left in the core. To make sure it's empty, remove it and drain. If you don't want to do that, mix in some anti freeze, which is also a good idea as the antifreeze will slow the corrosion down as lake water is pretty hard on heater cores.

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The orientation of the heater core is important, ..... <snip>

Agreed. :rockon:

When I bought my Vride I found the core installed with the inlet & outlet hoses on the top edge of the core. When I installed the flush Ts in the heater lines, I flipped the core so the hoses were on the bottom edge of the core. I've been letting gravity do the job for 4 winters now (not to mention the 7 yrs I had the same setup in an MC 205). We'll ride enough in the off-season that I'll "winterize" the boat 5 - 10 times per winter. No problems yet.

Edited by Bill_AirJunky
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How are you running it through the engine? If you're pouring it into the raw water intake, once the engine is at operating temp and the tstat is open, it will flow through the core.

I don't use antifreeze in the block but I do blow some through the heater. You can blow out the heater lines with a decent set of lungs. Just pull the feed and return lines off the engine and put one in the bilge. Blow into the other. Then pour some RV antifreeze into the line and blow again til you see pink (from antifreeze, not lightheadedness). :)

This is exactly what I do but I use compressed air. IMO, nothing wrong with using compressed air as long as you turn down the compressor. I only blow air through it at 30 PSI and it blows all the water/antifreeze out with no problem. If you blow 125 PSI through it, you could have issues.

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