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Winterizing Ballast Tanks


TXIordie

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I have a new 2014 VTX now. Was always a response guy so I am comfortable with winterizing the engine but not the ballast tanks. I see you can pump them out and put anti-freeze in but how do you know which holes are drains and which are vents? Or does it matter?

Any help would be great.

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To find out what's a drain just put the boat in with empty tanks. Run the pumps on fill for 30 sec. Then stop the pumps. Turn on the drain pumps and observe where the water comes out. Those are the drain lines.

To find the vent lines you need to remember which are the drain from the test above. Now turn on the fill pimps and do not turn them off. What for a long time. The water will run out of both the fill and vent lines. The lines you did not identify as drain lines are your vent lines.

Disclaimer: your bilge line may also have water come out continuously if you forgot to put in your plug or have a massive leak.

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Notes: each tank has three connections, a vent, a fill, and a drain. You will need to identify yours. Depending on hose routing, there can be areas where water can get trapped. It is important to remove all water from the system and then put some (roughly 0.5 gal) antifreeze into each tank to cover for any potential remaining water and any condensation.

I also have a VTX. I am also a bit overly careful.

First do the downhill draining mentioned in earlier posts. Then do the following:

The process below is followed for each ballast tank. Any place where the instruction says "push air" - this means use the HV LP Air Pump or shop vacuum as the air source.

Push air in through vent port while holding hand over drain port. (This will push water out of the fill line and fill pump.)

Close the fill pump through-hull valve.

With the drain port uncovered, push air into the vent port. (This will push water out of the drain line and drain pump.)

Open fill pump through-hull valve.

Pour antifreeze (~ ¼ gal) in through the vent port.

Pour antifreeze (~ ¼ gal) in through the drain port.

Edited by nemalibu
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Notes: each tank has three connections, a vent, a fill, and a drain. You will need to identify yours. Depending on hose routing, there can be areas where water can get trapped. It is important to remove all water from the system and then put some (roughly 0.5 gal) antifreeze into each tank to cover for any potential remaining water and any condensation.

I also have a VTX. I am also a bit overly careful.

First do the downhill draining mentioned in earlier posts. Then do the following:

The process below is followed for each ballast tank. Any place where the instruction says "push air" - this means use the HV LP Air Pump or shop vacuum as the air source.

Push air in through vent port while holding hand over drain port. (This will push water out of the fill line and fill pump.)

Close the fill pump through-hull valve.

With the drain port uncovered, push air into the vent port. (This will push water out of the drain line and drain pump.)

Open fill pump through-hull valve.

Pour antifreeze (~ ¼ gal) in through the vent port.

Pour antifreeze (~ ¼ gal) in through the drain port.

Great directions! I love overkill!!!!

Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside

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My boat has seen below 0F numerous times and have NEVER put RV antifreeze in my ballast tanks. The only reason I use any of that stuff is to make sure my heater core is flushed/empty since I can't get to it (behind sub box). The water has plenty of room to expand in a ballast setup, they are not a closed system. Being an open system, the water left in there will eventually evaporate. Point it uphill, run the pumps and call it a season. KISS principle.

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Thanks also. I just recently bought my Malibu and this is the first boat I have had with ballast tanks. I have read a lot of the historical posts and have used the search feature, but there is a lot of information out there.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 9 months later...

I'm in Wisconsin, so we get deep the freeze. I paid out the nose last year to winterize...not this year. This is a great thread, with good instructions. Thanks for the posts...next I need to get instructions on my heater...

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Or you could remove the screw and blue ring and pull the pump out and all the water will drain.

In years past I had always done the hill trick but this winter I changed the internal pump because the ring was leaking and was amazed at how much water came out of the pump. This was after I had done the hill trick.

I think what happens is the pump doesn't have any water behind it so it looses it's prime and can't finish pushing the water in front out.

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I've always used the drain on a hill method also, unfortunately, my center drain decided to quit working right before or during winterizing. Nearly gave me a heart attack in the spring when I realized my center tank was about 1/2 full of water! Luckily, I'm in north texas and the weeklong sub 20* temps we had didn't do any damage. Changed the pump out and all was good. I will probably pop the cartridges (the easily accessible ones) out of the pumps from now on just to make sure the tanks are dry.

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