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Ballast Winterization


klingsdesigns

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At my shop we dump as much water as possible then run about a gallon of the pink marine anti freeze through the pump and lines and then try to dump as much of that as we can. This is in the CA central valley where freezing isn't a major concern, but I would think it would be effective in colder climates as well

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Emptying the tanks and keeping bow down worked for me for three winters. Now I have a pretty good leak from my front tank. Might be the pump housing but havent investigated yet. This year Im disconnecting the pumps to make sure i get all the water out. That leak really pisses me off.

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23 minutes ago, klingsdesigns said:

Does anyone leave antifreeze in the ballast through the winter?

Yep, just enough to fill the lines and pumps.  Easy since my system is all bags.  I just unplug the line from the bag, put it in a bucket of RV antifreeze, put the switch on "empty" for about 2 seconds while it sucks down about a quart or two, reconnect it to the bag - then go on to the next bag.  Do it outside so I don't blow antifreeze out the port onto anything. 

I do the vent lines first by having someone hold a wet vac on the vent port, suck the bag down flat, then I disconnect the vent at the bag while they continue to hole the wet vac on the port and suck the water out of the line.  This is to make sure there's no (very little) water left between the check valve and the vent port.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On September 20, 2016 at 11:23 PM, Luckylindy said:

At my shop we dump as much water as possible then run about a gallon of the pink marine anti freeze through the pump and lines and then try to dump as much of that as we can. This is in the CA central valley where freezing isn't a major concern, but I would think it would be effective in colder climates as well

Is it even necessary to winterize in the central valley? I thought it barely ever freezes there, let alone a deep freeze that would reach inside the boat? Am I wrong? 

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On ‎10‎/‎16‎/‎2016 at 11:54 AM, Air Tahoe said:

Is it even necessary to winterize in the central valley? I thought it barely ever freezes there, let alone a deep freeze that would reach inside the boat? Am I wrong? 

 My shop is close enough to areas where freezing is a major concern. On the valley floor I would look at winterization more as insurance than required, but still heavily recommend doing it especially if the boat is kept outside. Where I live near Millerton lake my well pipes have frozen over so it does get pretty cold. I use my boat through the winter so I added the blue Mercruiser drain fittings so I can easily drain the block after every trip

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we used a drill pump and ran antifreeze into the drain hole and vent holes for each ballast after draining all of them after last time out.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I agree they just need to be drained as much as possible.  Just make sure they ARE empty.  A few years ago come springtime, I realized my center tank drain pump wasn't running, pulled the cartridge to replace, and water started pouring out.  Tank was at least half full.  We only had a couple freezes in the 20's that year and luckily no damage occurred to the tank.  Replaced the cartridge, and everything worked perfect with no leaks.  Was very scary feeling thinking I was going to have to replace that center tank or how I would even do it.  I'll probably pull the pump cartridges just to be sure from now on.

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