winterizing a V-drive inboard: raw water impeller, fogging the engine and the V-drive fluid

this is a good list and better than what some shops do. i winterize these all fall and i will give you three corrections from the ones that come back broken.

one, order. change the engine oil last, or at least run the antifreeze and fog before the final shutdown, because you want fresh oil sitting in a fogged engine, not fogging oil you then dilute. your list has oil early, which is fine for the flush, but do a second short run on antifreeze after the gear oil so the last thing the engine did was breathe fog and pink.

two, the impeller is not optional on a boat you are not sure about. you know your Mojo. the guy who just bought a repo does not know when his was last done, so for him it is pull it, look, replace it, every time the first fall. a cracked vane sheds a piece into the heat exchanger and you chase an overheat all next summer.

three, do not trust the antifreeze to protect the block if you did not drain it first. antifreeze mixes with whatever water is in there and dilutes, and a 10 degree night does not care about your good intentions. drain first, then run pink as insurance, not instead of draining. that order is the whole thing.

the drain the block before antifreeze point is the one that cracks blocks every single winter and people argue about it every single winter. drain it. the pink is cheap insurance for the pockets a drain cannot reach, it is not a substitute for an empty block.

i will add one the list does not have: the ballast pumps themselves. on my Enzo the aerator style pumps hold a little water in the housing even after you run them dry, so i crack the hose at the lowest pump and let it dribble out, then button it back. a split ballast pump housing in the spring is a 90 dollar surprise and it always happens to the pump that is hardest to reach.

down here i do a light version since we might surf in january, but the thing i do religiously even in Texas is the fuel and the battery. ethanol fuel left all winter picks up water and the carbon canister and injectors hate it, so stabilizer and a full tank to cut condensation. and a battery left to self discharge in a boat with a stereo draw is a dead battery and sometimes a frozen dead battery that splits the case.

the V-drive oil is the one people skip because it is a pain to reach and it is the one that quietly kills a V-drive. coffee with cream color means water got past a seal and the gear is rusting between uses. change it in the fall so it sits on clean oil, not on last summer's lake water.

one thing that saved me arguing with myself over drain plug locations and torque: the factory winterization steps and the plug diagram for my boat are in the owner material. on my Mastercraft i pulled it off the manufacturer site at mastercraft.com under owners, and it had the exact drain points and the gear oil spec, which beats guessing from a forum photo of somebody else's engine. whatever you run, check your own builder's procedure, because Indmar and PCM and Ilmor route the cooling a little differently and the plug count is not the same.

and label a photo of your own drains the first time you find them all. next november you will not remember where the fourth one hides and you will be on your back with a flashlight again.

North Carolina is borderline, some winters i could get away with just draining and some a hard freeze sneaks in, so i do the full thing anyway because the one year i got lazy was the year it hit 18 degrees for three nights. cheap to overdo, expensive to underdo.

the only thing i will add to an already complete list: take the plug out of the hull and leave the bow down a touch on the trailer so any water that finds its way in drains out instead of pooling on the floor and freezing. and if you shrink wrap, leave a vent so it does not sweat and grow mold all winter. a wet wrapped boat is worse than an open one.