Potential Freeze Concern

[oldjeep]

Makes me glad mine is in the garage, I'm up north for the weekend and there is ice on the ground. Got down to 22 Las night. Might get above freezing in another hour or so.

[DAI]

Anyone in the SE WI / NE IL area willing to show me show to drain the water out of my boat next year so I don't have to rush the boat into storage yesterday due to the cold snap this weekend? I'll provide beer

The dealer yesterday was going around when I dropped the boat off for storage ensuring all the water was drained out defore the evening. If they are not willing to risk it, neither would I.

[Rednucleus]

I used to keep a 60w trouble light in my Sanger engine bay, boat in unheated garage. My garage seldom got below 35 degrees, so never had a freezing danger, but still made me feel better. I put a refrigerator thermometer on top of the motor and whenever I checked it the engine bay was a toasty 60 degrees - seems that would be lots of protection if it ever got cold. Also, I put one of those dehumidifiers under my heater core. And the boat stayed covered. BTW if you use the trouble light, remember those bulbs do burn out at inopportune times, so keep an eye on it!

[Sixball]

It doe not take days to get to freezing in the internal engine. It takes about 12hours to get to an ambient temp. So if your boat is over warmer water or in a barn it increases your safe time. If your boat is outside on a trailer and you have 12 hours of freezing you will freeze.

[MadMan]

The graph is interesting, but it's in kilograms per cubic meter. That's a huge volume and it's about the "density" (packing) of the molecules. It's not really about water freeze/expansion in small spaces, which is what all of our concerns are in an engine that may freeze up. Not sure if the graph explains what we worry about?

The units don't matter, it would be proportional. If it were a cubic inch or a cubic mile, it would be the same (proportionally). What's important is that just because the water is frozen, doesn't mean there is damage. If the water is just a couple degrees below freezing, it probably hasn't increased in volume enough to do any damage.

Every froze and busted motor I've seen (including the one that came out of my boat) was damaged where the water jacket had the greatest cross section of water. The ice will proportional expand the same amount. The ice in an area that is 1" wide will expand 4 times than that of ice that is 1/4" wide.

Said another way, frozen water in you engine doesn't necessarily equal damage, hard freeze (maybe 20F) probably does.

Edited October 19, 2015 by MadMan

[Afun]

Put a light in the engine compartment overnight and you should be fine for cheap insurance. It shouldn't be a problem as is.. you need longer hours below freezing to cause a concern.

I once encountered a thread about all the horror stories about the fires caused by these lights....

[Bill_AirJunky]

Put a light in the engine compartment overnight and you should be fine for cheap insurance. It shouldn't be a problem as is.. you need longer hours below freezing to cause a concern.

As long as the bulb doesn't burn out, or worse, burn something else. Get the right tool for the job.... A bilge heater.

Neither will help outside the engine compartment anyway, ie; heater core, shower controls, ballast pumps, etc.

[formulaben]

I once encountered a thread about all the horror stories about the fires caused by these lights....

Use LED and it won't matter.

[MadMan]

Anyone use these freeze plug heaters in there boat?

http://www.amazon.com/Kats-11614-Watt-Frost-Heater/dp/B000I8XCN6/ref=sr_1_4?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1445253945&sr=1-4&keywords=freeze+plug+heater

[Bill_AirJunky]

The problem with using something like that is that it wouldn't protect your exhaust manifolds, muffler, heater core, shower controls, or ballast pumps.

I have a Boatsafe bilge heater & picked up on CL for $100... been using it without a problem for like 7 yrs. The other brand I've known people use is by Xtreme.

I see Amazon has another one called the Hornet, and another one called the Caframo, both of which are less expensive.

Edited October 19, 2015 by Bill_AirJunky