Winterization of 2015 with Indmar LS3/Heater

[JeffK]

Quick question - Not at the boat right now but planning out the winterization this week. Does anyone know for sure if the heater is in the closed cooling loop or if it uses fresh water? I'm assuming the closed side, but really don't know for sure. Anyone performed the winterization yet? Wondering if I need to blow the lines or not.

[JeffK]

Just IM'ed with Larry at Indmar. Love those guys! It is confirmed to be on the closed loop side, in case anyone else is winterizing.

[klewislx]

Thanks for confirming that from the source!

[WIGGSAK87]

First time winterizing mine and just wanted to make sure I understand correctly, since the manual is pretty awful. I don't need to do anything to drain the block or heater? I drained the manifold on the port side, the heat exchanger on the starboard, and the sea pump. Is that it seems to easy and painless (aside from getting hoses off)? Thanks for the help!

[klewislx]

You are correct on a semi-closed system you do not have to drain the block, it has regular antifreeze in it. You need to drain the V-drive and the exchangers like you said.

However after draining all that I found there are a lot more hoses on this semi-closed system than I had on previous boats. So I decided to go ahead and run antifreeze through the raw water side. It took about 4 or so gallons of antifreeze, a Camco Boat Winterizer and a fake-a-lake cause I haven't installed my Perko flush pro yet. It took a couple of tries to get it to start drawing in the antifreeze, but with the Camco container up high it created a syphon of sorts and I got it to start drawing in the antifreeze. Given it took that much antifreeze it tells me there are a lot of nooks and crannies for water to reside. I just ran it until I could see the antifreeze coming out of the exhaust at the stern. I used RV/Boat antifreeze you can find at the store.

I did the same method on each ballast tank, got it to suck antifreeze up and after enough was in then drained some out so both pumps and lines had antifreeze run through them. This method forced any last bit of water out which was a good thing.